Executive Summary

Database Driven Content Management.

Using HTML Templates:
HTML templates, simply stored in the file system ease of access and editing, contain predetermined variables for specific information such as body content, page titles, meta tags and navigation. When a page is requested from the web server, the template is read into the web server's memory and a series of search-n-replace functions are applied to fill in the content from the database. In this way the templates function in much the same way as a common mail-merge document would.

Typically programmers tend to code HTML output strings directly into their program code. While this might be more efficient in the short term, it makes changing the HTML elements of a site far more labor intensive and requires a greater understanding of the programming language to make even the smallest change. This practice is directly in opposition to our primary mission as it tends to make businesses more dependent on programmers.

Our methodology allows HTML web designers to "own" the templates without necessarily understanding any of the programming code that builds the output. It is also far easier, even for an experienced programmer, to edit the HTML when you can see it "intact" as a whole, rather than bits and pieces scattered throughout programming code. This method also makes it fairly simple to conditionally use different templates for different user's specific needs. A mobile phone or a PDA, for example, would typically have a different template than desktop computer give the difference in screen size and lack of easily available keyboard.

A good example of this in practice is our site. Take a look, if you have not already, at the "site skin" selector in the upper right, under the Contact Us and About links. This allows a visitor like you to choose the look -n- feel you prefer. Of course it also allows us to reinforce the basic idea that content and presentation style should be managed independently.

Since time and money are so closely related, this methodology can greatly reduce the cost of any development project while empowering alternative, and potentially less costly, skill sets to contribute more throughout the live of a web site. 

MySQL Database Driven from PHP on standard platforms:
Database records are accessed based on the URL requested. In the current implementation, all access happens in real-time. This means that each time a page is viewed, the database is queried for both content and navigation values to build the page. One planned additional feature is to utilize shared memory in order to cache fully rendered page output and template reads in order to reduce file system and database I/O. While this feature will be new to this PHP code base, the technique is well tested under ASP using Application Variables, with great success. The result is a web site that is dynamic in its ability to be updated quickly and easily, while also being extremely fast and remaining very light on the resources required host it. Typical hosting costs, given the basic requirements, are about $50 per year.

Features:
A complete detailed feature list is available here, but the "big picture" view is as follows. By default, the basics are covered. The default template provides a standards compliant setup that is optimized to be search engine and proxy cache friendly. Meta tags, keyword strings, page title and HTTP header data are all designed to work correctly, right out of the gate. The basic page layout includes alt-text (those detailed popups) for navigation links, updated date information on every page as well as providing search bots with correctly formated RFC compliant dates and language information... and did we mention that you can edit the content yourself without becoming a programmer?

try our online demo site livedemo.ecomdelta.com.