Design Information for SCCP

Site Info

How This Site Was Made

Webpage Design

This page was designed entirely in WordPad. I used the latest in HTML web design strategies for the site. A brief description of some of the techniques follows:

JavaScript Inclusions

Since many browsers are starting to disable JavaScript, I have used as little as possible. I have included one JavaScript code that will load on the Home page if your screen resolution is too low as a warning that you may not see the site very well. I have also used a little bit of Javascript on the large photos on the site in order to add the button to close the page. This is a low security Javascript so it will rarely fail to load.

CSS

This web page utilizes CSS, or Cascaded Style Sheets for about everything. Everything from the layout of the menus to floating tables to the solid green horizontal bars (like the one at the bottom of all the pages) are styled with this single external sheet. The powerful thing about an external style sheet is that I have one master file that can control how the whole site looks. For example, all the text on this site is dark green colored Arial font (unless you have your browser settings altered to override my design), but if I wanted to change the text of the whole site without editing over 100 different pages, I just go into this page and change one value and the web browser changes the whole page! To see what this page looks like, follow this link: cpstyle.css. I inserted helps to show you what each item does.

A disadvantage of using the CSS is that if you have your web browser customized to display text and colors manually, your command will override my sheet and in that case, you will not be seeing this page in dark green colored Arial font.

SSI

SSI is an abbreviation for Server Side Includes. The SSI is a single external file that can be loaded into every page to display a common HTML code. I used SSI to include the footer and the menus. The old way of using a single file was to use JavaScript, but as I mentioned, many browsers are starting to disable JavaScript unless you tell it to load. JavaScript is "client side" meaning that it is like a computer program that runs on your computer. Because of that, some bad things like computer virus could be added to your computer. SSI is "server side" meaning that it is added before the website gets to your computer. It does not pose a security threat because of this.

PHP

PHP is another system that runs on the server like SSI, but this is actually a computer programming language that can be used to do calculations prior to loading a page. The results of those calculations will determine what is loaded on the website. Some websites are entirely PHP and you can see this in the navagation bar on the website (index.php for example), but on this website, the only PHP pages are totally hidden. I use a program that I wrote for another site I designed to grab a PDF file from a pulldown menu on the resource page. The program works by setting a certain value to each option on the pulldown menu and the button next to the menu calls the PHP page which checks your choice and then loads the appropriate file in the browser.

All information on this site ^©2006 State College Carnivorous Plants. Site designed and maintained by Tom Murosky. Last update January 22, 2007. I allow free use of all written materials on this site. Easy download PDF files availible in the resource link of each plant type. Photographs may contain copyrights from other organizations, you must contact them regarding use of photographs. -- We have had visitors.