January 10, 2005 Our Home in WebSpace Volume 1 Number 1
 

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New Site, New Look, New Stuff

What took me so long?

Troy Thompson, your webmaster here. After many months of tweaking and waiting, I've updated my web site to the latest version of Sonova Systems SiteBuilder product. There really was no reason not to; after all I wrote it.

This new web site content management system runs on PHP 4 with a MySQL 4 back-end. All content is maintainable in the browser, including image placements and uploads. Moving substantially beyond your run-of-the-mill wikiwiki or blogging tool, SiteBuilder 2 provides a foundation for issue-based web content publishing, ideal for sites that do period updates in an issue/article format.

The page generation code is blistering-fast object-oriented PHP, with extensibility built-in from the ground up. The entire site look and feel is controlled in pure HTML and CSS style sheets, with virtually no embedded layout in the PHP. This seperation of layout and content ensures smooth workflow throughout the site maintenance cycle. For an extra license fee, SiteBuilder can provide a true WYSIWYG view of your HTML as you edit; the lower-priced version uses an HTML source view via an HTML TEXTAREA field.

Site Builder 2 Features

May I rave about this thing for a bit?

  • In-line PHP : add any PHP code you want right in the body of any page on the site. This is a Very Sharp Tool Not Meant for Novices.
  • Image library : upload an image into the website, and place it on any page with a single HTML or PHP command. Images can include by-lines, width and height tag over-rides, ALT tags, and custom styles.
  • Full-text search : Thanks to MySQL 4 full-text indexing, searching is stunningly fast. Articles, pages, and images are all included in the search scope.
  • Search-Engine Optimized URLs: Forget the old 'index.php?id=123' type of URL. Improve your search engine visibility with URLs reflecting the page content. For example, this page is http://www.troyandjessica.com/article/1808/web-site-major-update-news.html