Extended Abstract (72K)J11.3
Techniques for self-maintaining Web sites
Julia A. Collins, NOAA/CIRES/CDC, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO
In this paper, we describe our experiences using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), document templates, Apache environment Server-Side Includes (SSI) and a variety of flavors of custom code to create a flexible Web site for the Climate Diagnostics Center. The goal of this design was to meet the needs of both an external user community as well as the internal staff that creates, maintains, and uses the contents of our Web site.
Many software systems exist for creating and deploying Web hierarchies. At the Climate Diagnostics Center, only a small fraction of our staff is dedicated purely to Web service design and maintenance. We therefore rely on many different individuals throughout CDC to maintain a substantial amount of our Web content. These individuals have a variety of computing environments on their desk tops and have varying levels of expertise. Our challenge was to create a development and maintenance environment that enables this diverse "support staff" to produce a web site that is reliable, documented, secure, accessible and consistent in its appearance and navigational structure.
To achieve our goals we compromised between the extreme of using a single software package and that of hand creating all of our documents. A variety of techniques were employed to achieve flexibility in our Web site architecture and the resulting documents. Our Web site development tools included Cascading Style Sheets, document templates and dynamic document generation via Apache Server-Side Includes. The end effect of this structure is to separate the content from the layout of the document. This allows page authors to use their preferred editing tool to create their page content, and then insert the content into a simple template file which handles the navigation elements and graphics that give the site a consistent look.
This paper will present the details of the technology used as well as information about strategies for implementing this complex change in a diverse community of Web content developers. We will review security and accessibility considerations, and discuss the Java Server Page and Servlet technology which may support the next generation of our Web site architecture.
Joint Session 11, Internet Opportunities for Environmental Information (Joint with AWIPS and IIPS)
Thursday, 17 January 2002, 10:30 AM-1:30 PM
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