This site has an equal, if not larger, backend. On our website subteam, we have many members, most of whose main job is writing. The backend of this site has many features including the ability for users to write content in a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) editor. This allows writers to format content with no HTML experience. The site uses the WordPress blogging engine as a base for its CMS. After thousands and thousands of lines of original HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript, C.O.R.E. members successfully created a web CMS for the team based on the engine. This site was made with several objectives and philosophies in mind.
- Agile Development
- KISS Method (Keep It Simple, Silly)
- Have the website be a current, interactive, and dynamic representation of the team
- Have all information organized and presented in a modular manner (Pods of content, represented in a variety of ways)
Main Features
Modular Search
While we were brainstorming the design and architecture of the site, we discussed different ways of presenting and organizing large amounts of data on a website. We decided the best idea was to organize all website content into modular entries in a database. We could then display those entries in varying formats. The triumph of this system is our search system. We hope that when you are trying to find something specific on our site, you search for it. The search feature combines all smaller entries into one larger page that is customized for what you want to know.
WordPress Backend
While some might think that using WordPress might be easier, it actually requires a lot more work and skill to use it. By harnessing the engine, it allows us to have a backend so we can have more authors with less HTML experience write content.
Thousands of unique, custom lines of PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, XML, and Actionscript
This website was entirely created by high school members with extensive experience in many web design & development areas. As part of Agile Web Development, they harnessed open-source code out there already, and used it as a starting point. They then customized and created the site with thousands and thousands of additional lines of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP.
A Complete Separate Team Management System
Our team uses a unique self-hosted team management system that has many features specifically put together for the team’s needs. These include a calendar system, task management system, contact manager, team member manager, document manager (including creating documents and presentations within the website), a time management system, a note management system, and a subteam manager system. Team members use this system to keep track of versions of files, communicate with one another, and organize team and personal tasks with a all-in-one calendar system.
Validation
This site is W3 standard compliant, except for pages where there is a comment form. This is on a technicality. While all web development students on our team value w3 standards and hold them to high esteem, we believe that the one exception to perfect validation on certain pages is worth it. We decided to use the WAI-ARIA Primer, in order to make our site more handicap accessible. This allows handicap users to more easily be able to identify required forms. The WAI-ARIA is basically an add-on to XHTML 1.1 that is used in many dynamic applications today, including most wordpress sites. However, since HTML 4.01 is non-extensible and it is impossible to extend HTML 4 through namespaces, there is no way to currently validate it. The markup for it is still in draft at w3 and has been since February 2008. Since the whole goal of validation is to ensure quality across all sites, as well as consistency, usability, and cross-browser compatibility, we thought that-in the spirit of validation-we would leave this in.
