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I work for an educational organization which produces a free web site. It was designed before I was employed and we add new content through a rather clumsy content management system. This half of the pages on site are asp, and the other half we ftp HTML pages which call on Java applets to make the quizzes, etc., work. Unfortunately the site uses frames, with a navigation system on one page, and the content on another.
We are now in a position to draw up a brief for a site re-design. However, I still feel too ignorant to argue the toss with the designers about the pros and cons of having a dynamic site.
a) Our main problem is one outlined elsewhere on this wonderful site: because our site is frame based we can't bookmark pages: if you do manage to bookmark a page, it appears without its frame containing the navigation menu! The design company say they can't make automatic static versions of pages so that we could recommend individual pages to appropriate referring sites. And because it's dynamic asp, don't SEs other than Google hate question marks? Our attempt to fix this using template framesets sometimes leads to a frameset-appearing-within-its-own-frameset.
b) We're tempted to go back to HTML, but the problem here is that the site is updated daily, but users might not realise that they need to refresh to get to the new content. Is there an HTML way of forcing a refresh that isn't going to a) loop or b) annoy users or SEs?
c) do you really need a dynamic database-driven site if you have very little content that is shared between pages? Is there a rule of thumb for when to use them, and when not?
d) should we still be using asp, or stuff like jsp or php or some of the newer acronyms? Am I right in thinking that jsp is Sun/Java based, while the php is free, and Linux based and therefore going to be The Future?
If anyone can point me out a site where I can get to a stage where I understand the rationale behind the choices made to the above questions, I would be a happy man.
Many thanks in advance for any help.
andyb
I havent much time so I wil attempt to briefly answer your questions and hopefully some of the others will fill in the gaps!
(a) Just because the pages are written in ASP they dont have to be famed and preferably shouldnt be ! Navigation can be 'included' on dynamic pages quite easily,even if if they were previosly designed within a frame set. '? + = ect' can be made to appear as '/' by server side configuartion ... again not incredibly difficult.
(b) Meta refresh tag
(c)Pages that need to be dynamic ,can be dynamic and the others that are static , are static can be mixed on the same site, aslong as you are careful to check linkage.
(d) The choice of web application server is usually made by your chosen designer/programmer according to their skill set and not necessarily the clients needs. PHP is now used on more than 20% of all websites although ASP is the old favourite. I personally favour Cold Fusion. Most web application servers will produce what you are looking for , the only variables are the price, time, hardware,licensing and security.
Hope this helps !
Static navigation, ssi the content. Each time the user visits, they would be served the latest info.
If there not giving you a credit card to run up I'd suggest PHP & MySql. These are what I begun with and found it very easy to understand, and it provided a good base to move to cf5.
However, re: that old meta refresh thing mentioned above, doesn't it have a few problems, namely:
i) doesn't it annoy people because they can't "Back"?
ii) if the time's too short, you get into a loop (don't you? Can you make it work only once?)
iii) if the time's too long, people get taken by suprise by the refresh and think they've accidiently done something wrong
iv) if you're halfway through a java game or quiz, you lose your work.
Thanks again
andyb
