The key techniques of SimpleDifferent
Like most services on the web, the technical organization of SimpleDifferent is based on a clear separation of two environments.
- The editing environment, which is used to create websites.
- The publishing environment, which hosts the websites that have been published.
These two environments are managed separately for multiple reasons, as explained below. This separate management maximizes the security of the technical platform and allows us to guarantee optimum availability of the publisher on one side, and published sites, on the other side.
However all of this is done in the background so that the SimpleDifferent user does not even realize it is happening. For the user, the experience in creating, navigating and publishing sites is as seamless as possible.
Some principles of our service
In the website editor
- The site has exactly the same appearance in the editor as it will on the web. The editor is WYSIWYG.
- The icons and tools are transparent so that they will compliment all graphical themes. The large icons make it easy to identify the functions and are available with a short explanatory text.
- The organization of the interface is very simple and guides users in discovering the basic principles of editing sites and encourages user creativity.
- The vertical menu accommodates up to 21 pages and is visible at all times during site navigation.
In the published sites
- The text and graphics in published sites is illuminated for the reader. The header is customizable and the site contains no advertising. The reader knows where he is.
- There is a clear hierarchy of titles (Title tags H1, H2, H3). This allows the reader and Google to understand the organization of the content.
- Large tabs located on the left side of the site give the reader a guide to the organization of the site. It will allow the reader to quickly find the page that is most likely to answer his questions. This also allows for an easy transition from one page to another. This is an essential feature of a successful site.
- Clear layout of pages, a higher than typical font size, obvious title and chapters, all this encourages the reader to browse the site as well as encouraging proper indexing by search engines.
- The page layout of SimpleDifferent sites is justified and the elements stand out from each other more than is typical in other website creation tools. This further enhances the effectiveness of the site and its originality.
Programming code and the interface
The website editor should be responsive, fast and reliable. To accomplish this, we use standard scripting languages like JavaScript and PHP or MySQL database. We spend a significant proportion of our time streamlining, optimizing and documenting the code of the editor to ensure its effectiveness and ease of maintenance.
In the published sites
Publishing a site requires special attention to detail. The context, text and illustrations are extracted from the database and assembled with the selected theme and graphics to produces a flat site which contains only html code and some php script. In this way, the website consists of very compact pages which have no compatibility problems with current browsers. PHP scripts are stored in the same directory as the web pages to improve the efficiency and provide essential functions for example, the rounded corners and the anti-spam contact page.
This structure complies, as closely as possible, to web standards. In the near future it will even be possible to download the entire site and its scripts as an archive and host the site on any server the user chooses.