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In my travels, I've come across many powerful and innovative dynamic website components, some of the best of which are based on open-source software kernels, that provide customizable ways to interact with my clients' sites. Features incorporated into a site that encourage, even demand, user participation add value to the users' experience and encourage return visits. From simple forms used to submit/collect data, to that next great Internet 'widget' someone has yet to invent, dynamic content is a LightSites essential!
Dynamic website components generally employ server-side programs - often referred to as a scripts - and client-side HTML containing the input interface which the viewer sees. More complex applications involve server-side databases which exponentially increase their power and flexibility. Almost all such programs have administrative controls built in, which allow the site-owner to manipulate their behavior and display without incurring the cost of, well, paying me to do it!
Here are screen shots of some dynamic components in action on some LightSites-designed sites...
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Executive Creations' Content Management System
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Norwalk Symphony's Discussion Boards
'Full Service' online forums including online registration, category creation and moderation by admin. CGI scripting powered by CuteCast, an open-source solution. Also, stop by the LightSites Forum, a PHP/MySQL program called punBB, and give us a shout!
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The latest, greatest thing - fully configurable online content management that allows every aspect of the entire site's design to be managed via web-browser by the client via an encrypted, password-protected admin panel! Uses a potent combination of the PHP programing language for server-side scripting, and a MySQL database backend. Powered by Subdreamer
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Norwalk Symphony's Online Box Office
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Quizzes, polls and games
Child's play with today's software, goodies like these can often add a great deal of appeal to a site!
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Here's applied e-commerce at its best - not only are all the standard shopping cart implementations in place here, but this CGI solution even allows for user-input direct contributions - coming soon. Powered by MerchantOrderForm
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Quadrivium String Quartet's Online Calendar
Completely dynamic - click on an event, it's description appears. Click through the months, or choose to display weekly calendars, all via the browser. Admin functions include adding and editing events and configuration options - even importing an existing calendar from, say, MS Outlook! This is really advanced PHP/MySQL programming in an open source solution entitled TotalCalendar.
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Yankee Music Search's Form
The simple, tried and true method of getting data from the viewer directly to the site-owner, the online form is a classic. This one uses a combination of text fields, radio buttons, check boxes and pulldowns to get information succinctly to the site-owner via email. There are many form-handler scripts out there, but the one that I particularly like also features an auto-responder that automatically acknowledges the user when they send their data. It's a CGI script by BigNoseBird.
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Maling List Manager
A real staple of LightSites designs, this is the admin panel for a powerful PHP solution called WebInstaMailer, this program allows site owners to send email newsletters to multiple recipients in multiple groups and categories, either in rich HTML format or text only. (NOT a spammers' tool, it sends mail to subscribers only, with an 'unsubscribe' link in every email.)
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Online WYSIWYG Editing
A recent discovery, iProsite is a full-blown site maintenance and authoring suite that is browser based! This means an existing site can be maintained, edited - even completely redesigned - securely from virtually any browser, anywhere, any time. The implications are incredibly significant - to say the least!
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| A word about open source software... I'm a great believer in it! Not only are almost all worthwhile webservers running LINUX, but the backend infrastructure holding the web together is based on open-source solutions. Solutions like MySQL - the go-to database platform for web-based behind the scenes computing, PHP - one of two programming languages of choice for online scripting, PERL - the other one! The list goes on and on. The benefits are that many (depending on the scope of the application, between 10 or 20 to hundreds, even thousands) programmers are working on these products - around the clock, and as a rule, the programs that result from all this ongoing refinement are FREE! This allows us web-designers to fine-tune our searches for just the right solution for any given site's specific needs. There are, for instance, well over 200 open-source shopping carts out there, but there are only two or three that are right for any single application. What about security? With so many people working on a program, and every bit of code exposed, aren't open-source programs easily 'hacked'? Actually, no - due to the collaborative aspect of this type of development, any security holes are very quickly spotted and plugged as it becomes a matter of honor among the programming community to keep the user safe. Plus, these folks love to keep each other on their toes!
Anything else? Sure - another very important facet of many websites is the password-protected 'members only' area. Providing a secure way to limit access to a web page, or an entire section of a site to a select few is often critical to many clients. This site, in fact, has a password protected client area which allows current clients access to specific information, hidden from all others. In addition, using a CGI portal, clients can retrieve lost passwords, sign up and choose their own usernames and passwords, and more.
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