DOE/EERE Web Standardization

DOE/EERE Web Standardization Part 2: Implementation

Template Requirements • Maintain control of the formatting with CSS • Make the site work in all resolutions with liquid design • Make it accessible using relative font sizes • Include a printable version • Implement as much modular code as possible • Stop duplication of effort and consolidate resources • Make it all work for multiple contractors/labs

Formatting with Cascading Style Sheets • Maintains integrity of EERE brand, standards • Make global formatting changes to a site in just a few seconds • Enables structure to be separated from presentation

EERE Styles • Created EERE styles for all standard elements including • Headings - H1, H2, etc. • Site utilities - search, site map, glossary • Dynamic content - news and events • Feature Boxes • Image Captions

Liquid Design • Liquid design allows a Web page to resize itself depending on the viewer's browser resolution. • The Web site adapts itself to the available space the same way water takes the shape of the glass that it is in. • http://www.eere.energy.gov/

Why Liquid? • Browser resolution stats showed a big divide in standard resolution • 1024 x 768 or higher - 57.84% • 800 x 600 or lower - 42.16% • (Statmarket August 2003)

Liquid Issues • Choosing what resolution to optimize for • Optimized for 1024 X 768, works in 800 x 600 • Chose to make it work best for the future instead of going with lowest common denominator

Liquid Issues • Making the design look good in general • 3 columns, but with the ability to stretch text into two columns • Prevent reading line length from getting too long • Header photos that worked in both low and high resolution • http://www.eere.energy.gov/

Liquid Issues • Making the design look good in all browsers • Netscape 4, Netscape 7 for the PC • DOE Clients still widely used Netscape 4 • IE 5, 5.5, and 6 for the PC • IE 5.1, 5.2 for the Mac

Relative Font Sizing • Allows users to increase the size of text in the browser • Fixed font-sizes (points, pixels) cannot be made larger in IE

Why Relative Font Sizing? • Accessibility is a big deal on government sites • Population is aging • http://www.cnn.com/ • http://www.eere.energy.gov/

Which Relative Font Size to Go With? • Basic choices were ems and percentages • Netscape 4 and ems did not work properly at all

How Percentages Work • Font sizes on the site are set at a percentage of the parent element, in our case, the default font in the browser • Default browser font size for most browsers is 16px • Our standard paragraph font is 80% or 12.8 px

Relative Font Size Issues • Need clean syntax, closing all block level elements • Clean syntax is a best practice and will be required in future applications that utilize XML

Relative Font Size Issues • Nested items get hosed

Printable Version • Allows a user to print a page without including headers and navigation or anything else that distracts from the content • Information prints “portrait”

Why a Printable Version? • The Way it Was • Pre-liquid standard was fixed-width design of 750 pixels • Allowed us to optimize design for 800 x 600 resolution • Printed correctly in landscape only • Decided in favor of online experience

Doesn’t Liquid Solve the Problem? • Liquid design inherently allows pages to collapse for the printer, if your fixed graphics and tables widths are small enough • Creating a design that would collapse to a portrait size compromised the online experience • Adding a printable version allowed us to use a better design, but still allow users to print the main content.

Creating a Printable Version • Create a duplicate version of every page and manually remove all non-printer friendly information such as headers, navigation, and features • Write a style sheet for print – not workable in Netscape 4 • Use scripting, in this case, SSI, to remove the non-printer friendly stuff on the fly

Implementing Modular Code – Server Side Includes • Common code such as headers and navigation are kept in a separate files • SSI files are pulled into any HTML document that calls them • Can make global changes quickly • program name changes, logo changes, tagline changes • Enables easy implementation of "noindex" tags to keep navigation from being indexed by our internal search engine

SSI Conditional Logic • Use if/elseif,/else statements to tell the page what to display. • Show or not show menu choices • Account for "on" and "off" states of navigation buttons depending on the page you are on • "Printable Version"

SSI Conditional Logic Sample Code • Assign a variable to a page. On the "About" page add  to the top. • On the "mission" page, in the "About" section add  This indicates that the page uses the "About" menu, but is not the "About" page. • Then, in your navigation “include” file, use code like the following page.

SSI Conditional Logic Sample Code Code <img src="images/about_on.gif" alt="About the Program">  <a href="about.html"><img src="images/about_on.gif" alt="About the Program"></a> <a href="about.html"> <img src="images/about_off.gif" alt="About the Program"></a>  ·Logic If you are on the about page - the "about" button in the top navigation should be "on" but not linked. If you are on the "mission" page in the "about" section - the "about" button in the top navigation should be "on" and linked. If you are on a page that has nothing to do with the "about" page or section, the "about" button in the top nav should be "off" and linked. End the conditional statement

Coding EERE's Printable Version • Set a variable to tell the browser whether it is on the printable page or not. •  • If it is not the printable version, display all headers and navigation •  • Top Navigation Code… • Left navigation Code.. •  • If it is, don't display them. • Set up link to "flip the switch" • <p class="small"><a href="?print">Printable Version</a></p>

Stop Duplication of Efforts and Consolidate Resources • Many subsites across the EERE site were duplicating news and events information • Same press release coded by different coders and posted on several sites • Cash and resource-poor subsites let content lapse • Frustrated by having to wait for an available coder • Limited budget

Stop Duplication of Efforts and Consolidate Resources – The Solution • A central database for news and events • Existing EERE news database for the corporate site • Home page news • Technology portal pages news • Other subsites also adding news and events information for their programs via a database

Decentralized Content Contribution • Empower all subsites to enter their own news through a Web interface • Allow subsites to borrow from each other • Subsites can subscribe to DOE press releases and to news other programs generate • They can choose whether these stories should be added automatically to their sites (a totally hands off approach) • Or they can choose to be notified when new stories have been entered that they can choose to add or not to their site

Database Template Benefits • Standardize the look of news and events • Same place, same experience on all sites • Empower content providers to keep sites fresh

Had to Work for all Contractors/Labs • Chose HTML 4.01 transitional using a combination of CSS for visual style and tables to position content • Still testing on Netscape 4 • Wanted to make it easy to use

Had to Work for all Contractors/Labs • Two choices for contractors/labs • NREL would code a few sample pages • Let them wing it • Standards site as a guide • Read me files • Issue - Web developers don’t read standards sites!

Did it Work? • Many contractors/labs have used template • ANL, ORNL, and several private contractors • When we coded a few sample pages it went very smoothly • When we didn't they still figured it out

Summary • We faced a number of requirements when creating the EERE template including • A design that was flexible and accessible and that would work for many different developers • One that would ease maintenance in the here and now, yet get us ready for the future • And a design that would enable content providers to update their own sites

Template Benefits • Enables Faster Development • Already have code to start with • Code is clean and standardized • Pretested in our standard browser set • Tested in various resolutions • Validated against the W3C

Template Benefits • Eases Maintenance • All developers are using the same set of code • Style sheets keep formatting standard and make updates fast and easy • Use of Server Side Includes (SSI) consolidates common code into a few files which means less code to update

Conclusions • Technology is making it easier and cheaper to manage large sites by introducing standardization and modularity • Even if you are not working on the enterprise level, you can use these same techniques to streamline production on smaller sites • If you don't have the money for a commercial content management system you can still automate portions of your process and get yourself ready for the next phase

DOE/EERE Web Standardization