About this Web site

We provide some information about this site for those interested in these kinds of things. We have always developed our site in-house as a means of experimentation with new technologies and user interfaces.

Site History

• November 2010 - Finally removed a problem of unsightly --> text and a lack of multi-level drop-down, fly-out menus for MSIE 7+ browser users. Apologies for the long delay in fixing this problem - entirely related to the handling of MSIE conditional statement that changed from MSIE 6.0 to MSIE 7+. Shocking oversight.

• October 2007 - Addition of printer friendly style sheet for all pages.

• September 2007 - Addition of an RSS (2.0) Feed covering our tech section. We would have liked to add an Atom feed as well but decided that is was not - at this time - worth the effort. There is just too much momentum in RSS 2.0 and - while we would like to support the IETF standard Atom - we could not find a simple OS publishing tool to provide both formats.

• September 2007 - Change to 1.0em for central pane character size and addition of a line-height 1.03em in order to improve readability for visually impaired.

• May 2006 - Change of CSS pop-outs/pop-downs to support all browsers including MSIE 5/5.5/6 (front page only at this time) which allows elimination of Javascript for almost all page layout function. Implementation of MSIE conditional comments to handle all specific MSIE css/code/layout quirks. Complicated somewhat by the need to handle Opera as MSIE differently. Change to default page generation with the objective of providing better support for a wider range of browsers. Handling of MSIE 7 as a W3C compliant browser.

• May 2006 - Overhaul our 'mail this page' script (PHP) due to an injection attack. The script now does extensive checks for various injection methods.

• Mid 2005 - progressive conversion to Ruby for all new web development. We will keep enhancing the PHP stuff but are not developing anything new in PHP.

• Fall 2004 - Addition of a third level menu for Gecko and Opera 7.4+ users only from both the home page (side pop-out menu) and all other pages (top pop-down-menu).

• Fall 2003 - Adoption of CSS for pop-up/pop-down menus for Gecko (Mozilla and clones) and Opera 7.4x+ browsers. Change to the graphics in all page banners to reflect the site content.

• Summer 2003 - Adoption of CSS for liquid page layout and incremental conversion to CSS for all site features. Progressive elimination of Javascript for User Interface functions. De-commited Netscape 4.x new development. Added Opera 7.x support. Development of our WebEdit service in PHP.

• 2002 - Facelift to make site lighter and cleaner. > 1,000 pages took about 4 hours due to CSS1 usage. Initial implementation of table-based liquid page design. Addition of drop-down menus on all pages.

• 1999 - Major site overhaul. Tech section started. Conversion to HTML editor for page development. Addition of Javascript and pop-out menus. Substantial reduction in average page size. Limited use of CSS1 style sheets. Use of SSI/XSSI for page creation. Removal of Frames.

• 1997 - Site rework - extensive addition of material to cover new products. Conversion to Frontpage publishing framework.

• 1995 - initial Frame based web site. In-house development. HotMetal HTML Editor.

We have six objectives for the site:

1. Provide simple, clean and consistent navigation
2. Provide a contact location on every page - if you want to tell us something we want to make it as easy as possible
3. Lightweight 'look n' feel' to site
4. Sensible use of technology - leading edge (but not bleeding edge)
5. Fast page load - pages are typically 50 to 90% smaller than they were
6. An increasing 'Tech Info' section as a resource for the community

Comments are welcome as always (use the 'mail us' navigation at top).

Technology

If you are interested, the site currently uses the following technologies:

• Ruby-on-rails (TYPO+) for new blog section.
• Ruby (mod_ruby server side) for new administration functions.
• CSS2 for page layout in all browsers.
• CSS2 for pop-up menus on all pages when used with Gecko, MSIE 5/6/7 (front page only) and Opera 7.x browsers. (This is part of our general move away from use of javascript)
• Client Side Javascript, DHTML and CSS for the pop-up menus on MSIE and compatible browsers.
• Client Side Javascript and PHP (server-side) for the mail this page feature.
• Extended Server Side Includes (XSSI) (an Apache feature) to simplify page construction and to generate browser specific pages (server-side sniffing).
• PHP Server Side applications for Feedback pages.

One of the more interesting side-effects of the design strategy adopted in 1999 is that depending on the browser you are using you will get a different dynamically generated page and page look. We currently support MSIE 5+, the Gecko browsers (includes NS 7+), Opera 7+ and a default format for mobile and portable devices. This approach speeds page-load times by delivering minimal JS (and CSS) since it can exclude all that gruesome browser type checking stuff that significantly bloats most javascript (if you are into this stuff).

Our Buttons

We want to support the existing W3C standards and to ensure that the various browsers comply with those standards.

The buttons are conditionally generated by CSS to indicate page features and the underlying technologies used. You may not see any of them depending on the page or your browser.

The button idea has a long and illustrious history - they are modifications of Eric Meyer's CSS implementation of the Raging Platypus design who got the idea from Antipixel. So there. We conditionally generate them on a page using CSS Selectors.

• CSS Layout

  This button indicates that the page has been modified to use modern STANDARDS COMPLIANT W3C CSS page layout techniques. We have provided some notes about our implementation.

• CSS Popup

  This button indicates that the POP-UP/POP-OUT/DROP-DOWN menus use CSS techniques and DO NOT USE the more common Javascript based approach. Only those using a truly STANDARDS COMPLIANT W3C CSS browser will even see this button. At this stage this means the Gecko-based and Opera 7.4+ browsers. We finally succumbed and use a kluge to support the non-W3C compliant MSIE 5/6 with hopes that MSIE 7 delivers on its promise. We have provided some information about our CSS menus and how we did it. Not for the faint-hearted!

• RSS (2.0) Feed

  This button indicates an RSS 2.0 Feed is available. By hovering over the image instructions should be displayed as to how to utilise the service. In the event these do not display the following process should be used.

  • If your browser and OS supports the service, just drag and drop the image into your RSS Feed Reader.

  • Alternatively right click with the mouse and depending on the browser use either 'Copy Link URL' or 'Copy Shortcut'. Paste into your RSS Feed Reader.

  • If everything fails, click the image link and copy the URL from the Address line of your browser and paste into your RSS Feed Reader.

Navigation Symbols

We try to keep them to a minimum and use them consistently. Everyone thinks they have the most obvious symbols on the planet ... but no-one does. We are no exception.

	Go Back to.. a specific page (text explains where) or use the 'Back' button in your Browser to return where you came from.
	Go to ... additional information (may be black, blue or white)
	Go to top of page... or page index
	Go to location below on this page
links	We normally use blue and under-line when you mouse-over a link. If you mouse over a link that opens a new window it will look like this.
Home	Click the ZYTRAX Logo on any page to go to our home page.

Well we said there were not that many ..

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