RE: Multiple versions of a web page

Hi,

The UI issue may not be that hard for the most basic case of
only two versions of a web page.  One version could be the information
in a very simple, pretty linear format while the other has all
the complications that the web page designer would like.

If the first is called the 'universal' format (I'm still looking for
another name), it would be just a matter of having the 'universal'
tree, e.g.  www.zzz.com/universal .  A third tree could possibly be added,
but after that a different approach probably needs to be considered.

Scott

> There's another way to do this too, which is in pretty widespread use
> for other purposes out in the real world. 
> 
> The content is in a database
> 
> The web page is a template composed of a server-side script that pulls
> the content out of a database, and some HTML for pretty headers,
> navigation, etc.
> 
> On a site that already works like this (and a lot of them do), adding a
> second page that pulls the same content out of the database and formats
> it differently is not hard.  It's also impossible for the content to get
> out of synch, because it is the same content from the same source.
> 
> The only part that requires any level of cleverness is designing a
> mechanism for users to switch between versions, save their preferences,
> etc.  The technology to do this is simple, but designing a good UI for
> it takes some skill.

Received on Friday, 21 December 2001 14:17:11 UTC