Sunstar Web Design

The Sunstar Web Site

This section provides some details about the Sunstar web site and the way in which it it is structured.

Web Server

The Sunstar web site is currently hosted by XCalibre on a shared server running Linux (Fedora Core 4 at the time of writing). We also maintain a couple of private mirrors (Apache running under Linux - Fedora Core 5) for development purposes. Once pages/changes have been proved on these they are uploaded to the main server.

In the past we have had problems with the storage limit of the web site - primarily due to the photo gallery and the back issues of SubScript - the two main space hogs. The problem was solved by moving the main pictures (not the thumbnails) to a member's unused free web space and linking to them. This is no longer necessary as our available web space has been increased in line with current trends in the hosting market.

Coding

The web site is primarily written in HTML using SSI (Server Side Includes) and some dedicated PERL programs. The SSI code generates the standard header across the top of the page and the navigation menu down the left-hand side.

The site used to be a series of nested tables, but has been recoded to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This is in line with the approach of separating content and presentation.

Adding Pages

The content is managed by the webmaster who checks out the content and then uploads it to the web site. The only interactive system is the diary system where individuals can create, edit and delete entries. The diary system (a Perl application) was written by Octopus Systems. In fact the web site was originally created and managed by Paul Skirrow (of Octopus) although it has now passed outside of his control.

Navigation

With so many pages on our site we need to make it easy to navigate and easy to maintain the links between pages. We cannot possibly reference every page from every other page as there would be far too many links to maintain and we would have to update every existing page whenever we create a new page.

Instead we use two levels of navigation in the bar on the left. The first level shows dark grey buttons for each of the main areas. When one of these buttons is selected it opens the default page in the selected area, and the button is shown in yellow with a black border.

Each area may have its own list of pages. For example you can see from the side panel that you are currently in the Reference area and that this area has several pages. Every page in the reference area will show a list of every other page in the reference area, as well as having buttons to take you to a different area.

Private Pages

We have some private pages which an only be viewed by members with a password. If you have any pages that should be kept private please send them to me and I will add them to the private section.

Mail Addresses on the Web

It is very useful having an Email address link so that people can Email you by simply clicking on your name, but note that you are likely to receive junk mail once your address is published as a link on the web.

This is annoying, and so to guard against this email addresses are actually encoded to disguise their appearance. Browsers do correctly render the addresses, but most of the robots that trawl the Internet for possible email addresses are fairly dumb and do not currently find them.

If you are unhappy about having your mail address published as a link it can be published without making it a link. webmaster