Page Comparison

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Main Content and Page Sections

In any design, one or more frames for the main content should be defined. The XperienCentral Edit environment includes a large number of content elements that can be freely added to a content item. Some of these elements, especially those that display images, can be combined with other elements and appear next to or above and below each other.

The Edit environment contains one main content frames used for displaying content elements. This main content frame can be split into smaller areas, for example into columns. A second way to manage content is by using page sections (also referred to as blocks). Page sections are content elements that can be reused across the websites, for example to display banners, headers, and footers. The following is an example of a page with one content frame and several page sections:

Image Removed

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Using Web Standards.

To make a website’s user interface dynamic, XperienCentral supports all common frontend development technologies such as XHTML, JavaScript and CSS. JavaScript includes frameworks such as jQuery and Prototype as well as other XML output that is similar to XHTML output and which can be fully programmed using JSP templates. We strongly advise and encourage you to use HTML-5 and CCS 3. Please also make sure that any HTML produced validates in the W3C Markup Validator.

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Responsive Design

In principle, a website should be designed to be naturally responsive no matter what the functional requirements for it are. If the standard CSS media queries do not suffice, contact your GX consultant to learn about other possibilities. The HTML examples used throughout this document are applicable to a responsive website.

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Navigation

A website driven by XperienCentral does not put any limitations on a website’s structure, therefore it can be designed freely on all levels, however, limitations can be defined in the style guide. For the design, this means it should allow for menus that can be expanded on the main level as well as on sub-levels. You should keep in mind how many expandable main and sub-levels you will create in order to keep your website from being visually confusing or cluttered when a visitor opens multiple menu options.

Flexibility is also important for the navigation trail often found on top of a page that shows the user where they are in the menu structure. Keep in mind not only should the expandable depth of the menu structure but also the fact that editors are free to determine the navigation titles and their lengths.

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Using Images

The design template allows you to add and crop images with ease. Images should be named consistently and it should be fully described in the style guide how to work with them. In a dynamic website component, text should not be used in images for navigation or titles. Because the editor can change content and structure on the fly, this could lead to the continuous adaptation of the images or even a dependency on third parties to modify the website. Title images can be generated if a TrueType font (.TTF) is used.

XperienCentral contains a number of core options that can process text-graphically because they refer to fixed functions and do not require textual changes. Some examples are:

• E-mail, Post, Submit, Respond, Reply, Go!, Notify me, Order
• Previous, Next, Back, Menu, Cancel
• Help, Search, Home, Sitemap, MyPage

If there are specific requirements regarding website accessibility for visually or otherwise impaired visitors, the design should offer an alternative, for example including names, descriptions, or alternative text or, failing that, forego the use of such images altogether.

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Using Flash

Although normal Flash movies can be added to a website with XperienCentral, GX Software strongly recommends that you do not include Flash movies due to the lack of Flash support on mobile and tablet devices.

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HTML Frames

The use of HTML frames is not allowed because they technically restrict XperienCentral-based websites and cause other problems in general.

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Friendly URLs in XperienCentral

When XperienCentral's SEO component is installed, theoretically all URLs for your website are friendly. The friendly URL for pages is constructed using the page's location in the navigation tree together with the URL title, navigation title, or page title (depending on how SEO is configured). For example, if a page has the title 'XperienCentral', then the URL of the page will be .../XperienCentral.htm (or .html). With SEO disabled, the URL of a page is not created using the pages's friendly URL title, instead an internal ID as assigned to pages within XperienCentral is used, for example '.../id=77581/langid=42'. For search engines and users, the unfriendly URL provides no useful meaning regarding the contents of the page and/or its location in the website's navigation hierarchy.

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How Friendly URLs are Constructed

The friendly URL of an item in XperienCentral includes the relative path to the item based on the structure of the navigation tree, the title of the item and an extension, in much the same way that a path for a file is delineated in a file system. The precise URL that an item will be assigned is derived using a set of rules that evaluate the item's title(s) as well as its location in the website's navigation hierarchy. In XperienCentral, you can assign the following three titles to pages/content items:

When determining which of the three titles to use in the friendly URL, the following title sequence is stepped through by XperienCentral:

1. URL title. If there is a URL title assigned to a page or item, it takes precedence and is always used in the friendly URL. To the URL title, the path and friendly URL extension, prefix, and separator will be added.
2. Navigation title (pages only). If a page has no URL title assigned to it, the navigation title is used in the friendly URL. To the navigation title, the path and the friendly URL extension, prefix and separator will be added.
3. Item title. If the page/content item has no URL title or navigation title assigned to it, the title of the item itself is used in the friendly URL. To the title, the path and the friendly URL extension, prefix and separator will be added. Note: If a page has no navigation title, the title of the page is also used as the navigation title in the navigation tree of the website.

The table below shows what the URL for items in a tree structure would be for some sample pages. The values in the following examples assume the following:

• The URL's extension is set to .htm.
• The separator symbol, which is substituted for spaces that appear in titles, is a dash (-). Note: The separator symbol is defined in the XperienCentral Setup Tool. The default is a dash (-).

For Content Repository items, the situation is a bit different. Because Content Repository items do not have navigation titles, only the URL title or the title of the item itself is used in the friendly URL. If a content item has a URL title, it is used in the friendly URL, otherwise the title of the content item itself is used. The exact friendly URL that a content item will have when it is viewed depends on the page on which it is displayed.

For example, if a content item has the title "GX releases XperienCentral 10", the friendly URL of the content item is 'GX-releases-XperienCentral-10.htm'. There is no hierarchical structure prefixed internally to the friendly URL of the content item because it is stored in the Content Repository. When the content item is displayed on a page, the hierarchical structure of the 'display on' page is prefixed to the content item's friendly URL with the result being the friendly URL for the page and the content item. Based on the example friendly URLs shown in the table above, the friendly URLs for the following sample content items would be:

Google News ID for Articles

If the Google News id has been enabled in XperienCentral, the friendly URL of content items is generated in a slightly different manner. A unique id (number) is prefixed to the part of the friendly URL just before the title of the article, for example,.../02041/GX-releases-XperienCentral-version-10,htm'. This is done in order to satisfy a requirement of the Google News article aggregation service.

Uppercase and Lowercase Letters in Friendly URLs

XperienCentral does not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters when resolving URLs. That is, the URLs http://www.gxsoftware.com/Welcome.htm and http://www.gxsoftware.com/welcome.htm resolve to the same address. While friendly URLs in XperienCentral can be a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters as displayed in the address bar of a browser, all versions of an address using a mixture of cases are the same.

Second Friendly URL

In addition to the friendly URL, a content item can also be navigated to from a second friendly URL that omits the friendly URL separator. For example, if the friendly URL separator is a dash (-) and the friendly URL for a page is

gx-products.htm

then the above page is also available at the friendly URL

gxproducts.htm

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