Scalability on Site Re-design.

Templates, Search and Replace etc

[shanz]

We have a site that has grown from 450 static pages to over 2000 static and dynamically generated pages. I am ashamed to admit that it has become a bit of a mess.

A combination of templates, search and replace and severe mental gymnastics keep the site in good working order. Basically the sort of nonsense you would expect from someone starting out 2 years ago and has not had the time to do a major overhaul until now.

Basically I am looking for tips in designing a site to handle a large site that has to be updated daily. New pages, frequent navigation amendments, A system of ads relevant to specific sections(The boss makes this up weekly)

Any thoughts would be gratefully received.

Shanz:)

[ukgimp]

Templates are pretty cool and I also like the idea of includes for common elements. I have not extensively used inlcudes but they work well.

Cheers

[ProfMoriarty]

Hello shanz,

I developed a CMS which works with templates. Look at the site in my profile, it has about 1000 pages but only 2 templates.

So if I want to change my layout, I just modify 2 files and the whole site looks different.

Furthermore, new pages are created very, very much faster as you simply have to add the real content, not layout and navigation elements.

Templates are the best solution for sites with lot of pages looking all the same way.

Best regards from Germany,

Lars

[martinibuster]

CMS is the way to go. That's what online magazines use. They use one template for "columns" and another one for the main page, etc.

When posting a story to it's section, it can also be cross-posted to an archive section. That way, when you replace the story from the columns section, breaking news section, widget news section, etc., it will be living and referenced in the archive section.

The templates themselves use includes for the footers, etc.

I think blog software can accomplish the same thing but you have to strip out or modify some of the includes so that it fits your format. Takes a little time for me, easier for others.

I installed moveabletype for a client with pretty good success.

[Syren_Song]

What's CMS? And how large a site do you need to have in order for it to become practical?

I've got a site that's around 175 pages and the folks are thinking about doing a re-design. They've discussed the idea of jsp, but no firm decision yet. Would this potentially be something worthwhile for them to consider?

[andreasfriedrich]

What's CMS?

Content Management System.

And how large a site do you need to have in order for it to become practical?

I use it on a site with as little as 8 pages and on sites with hundreds of pages.

If you have to buy one or have to adjust a free one to your needs then you need to consider that time as well. So sometimes a CMS might not be the most economical way to go.

Nevertheless and as a general rule I think in the long run it is worth switching to some sort of CMS.

Andreas

[rogerd]

CMS software is good if you need to have non-technical people updating content frequently. Even technical folks will appreciate the ability to add new articles quickly and have everything linked up properly. I, too, have found blog software can be bludgeoned into working as a cheap content manager.

For large sites, I'd suggest a combination of templates and includes. Templates are great, but if you change a nav menu, why update (and upload) 1500 changed pages. If you use include files for things like headers, footers, nav menus, etc., you can upload one tiny file and change thousands of site pages instantly. The use of templates will allow you to make major design changes on a less frequent basis without much hassle.

[Syren_Song]

Oooooo! That sounds neat! Where can I learn more?

[rogerd]

Your web design tool (e.g., Dreamweaver, FrontPage, etc.) will probably determine how you can implement templates for one or more standard page designs. For include files, search this site for "server-side includes" or SSI, or check your web design tool docs. To use SSI in .htm or .html files, your web host will probably have to make a change to allow those files to be parsed for SSI.

[Syren_Song]

Thanks, rogerd. I've been using DreamWeaver for templates, so that's no problem. I also know a little about SSI, so maybe this won't be totally foreign as I delve into it.

Thanks again! *sigh* And I foolishly thought I was done with homework when I left school!

[tedster]

There's another important scalability factor that affects the end user - Information Architecture.

I know this wasn't the exact area of your question. But, since you'll be ripping up the floorboards anyway, this would be a good moment to be sure that your categories, labels, etc still make sense -- and that they can easily "hold" whatever content you have now or are planning for the future.

[shanz]

Thanks all for the above. Excellent advice as usual.

Includes will be the main thing to gleam from this but tedsters point about information architecture is spot on.

It really amazes me what a a huge undertaking redesigning a site is. The real pressure on this project is that we know the site is going to double again within a year. So whatever we do now has to be able to handle that. Added to that are all the new factors I have learned about in webmasterworld rgarding useability, search engine placement code validation, low file size...the list goes on.

I think I'm about to fall off that curve...

Cheers Shanz