Several suggestions regarding WWF : Please find below several suggestions...

Fri, 06 Aug 2004 08:33:01 +0000

Author: Mike_Vaz
Subject: 11456
Posted: 06 August 2004 at 8:33am

Please find below several suggestions regarding software product Web Wiz Forums (hereinafter - WWF).

To begin with, I would like to thank the developers for creation of a high-quality and very useful product. I am using the last version WWF (v7.8). However, during my work with WWF I found out a number of drawbacks. Of cause, I can and I will adjust all the defects in my local version, but considering my significant experience in Web-programming and Web-design, I would like to share my ideas on how to improve the product itself with the developers and users.

1.) Forum integration with Web-site

For integration with site the developer offers to use files header.asp, footer.asp. However, this seems to be not enough. In majority of cases we also have to modify default.asp, namely:

Default.asp, ?????? 1
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<% @ Language=VBScript %>
<% Option Explicit %>

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Normally, during integration of forum with site these directives are already indicated, because before reflection of forum different asp-commands can be execited, for example, Site Menue Display etc.

Default.asp, line 136
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%>

<% = strMainForumName %>

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Normally, in sites, the title of the site is generated earlier than happens reflection of the forum.

Thus, for WWF integration with a site it would be preferable to modify only 2 files (header.asp and footer.asp). For this sake all files in the forum should have approximately the following structure:
----------------------------------------

:
[Some code]
:

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2.) ASP code duplication
Some asp files uses the same or similar code like pages drop down list or other. The idea is to create a function that implements that task and put it in common.asp file.

3.) Problems of compliance with the international W3C standards in the Web area.

I noticed that so far the developers did not pay attention to this issue. I.e. HTML-code, which is being used in the forum does not meet W3C requirements, therefore there might arise problems during reflection in different browsers (including problems related to page coding, coding in JavaScript and other problems of forum reflections). Moreover, W3C standards allow minimizing the code, but we shall touch this issue in the next paragrraph.

Here I see two solutions:
?.) I recommend the developers to pay attention to this problem.
?.) To make HTML-code, which is being used for the forum, adjustable like language files for forum.

Please see.
http://www.w3c.org/TR/html4
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1

4.) HTML code optimization

I usually pay attention to this issue, because this allows minimizing the site code and, consequently, speed of loading the site without risks in site reliability. Strange enough, but this also minimizes the time of developing the sites.
Let's consider an HTML-fragment from your site:
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Topics Topic Starter Replies Views Last Post

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Stage 1. Minimizing the code, which is acceptable by W3C standard (all browsers support it). Saving ~ 10 - 20%.
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Topics
Topic Starter
Replies
Views
Last Post

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Stage 2. Minimizing through CSS use. Saving up to 50%.
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Topics
Topic Starter
Replies
Views
Last Post

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On our example we managed to reduce the code almost by 50%.

So far, these are all propositions. I may add to them later.

I will be happy to help in WWF development in any form. I wish good luck to WWF developers and hope they will pay attention to my ideas.

IT Engineer
Michael Vazhenin
mike@cosmostv.by

Web Wiz Support and Community Forums : Several suggestions regarding WWF

Several suggestions regarding WWF : Please find below several suggestions...