HTML

HTML (hypertext markup language) is the language that describes the structure, and to some degree the layout of web pages. We are HTML experts and tend to "hand code" all of our web pages as we believe that this is the best way of:

• achieving accessibility standards
• building pages that are quick to download
• building pages that most people are able to access (irrespective of the tools they use to view your web page)

We generally build sites to comply with the XHTML 1.0 standard.

CSS

CSS (cascading style sheets) allows a web designer to simply control "look and feel" and layout of a website in a consistent manner. It also allows the designer to keep the management of site content separate from styling information. This makes updates to content and style more simple and has numerous advantages in terms of accessibility.

PHP

PHP (PHP Hypertext Preprocessor - a rather confusing "recursive" abbreviation!) is a server-side scripting language. It is a fantastic tool for creating dynamic websites where the page content varies from download to download depending on a multitude of factors, for example: who the user is; the products in a catalogue database; or posts in forum etc. It also allows your customers to interact with a website via handling data submitted by forms (e.g. adding products to shopping carts, posting to an online forum etc).

We are PHP experts and love it for it's (relative!) simplicity and suitability for the tasks we carry out for our clients.

More information on PHP...

MySQL

MySQL is a relational database management system that can be hosted on a webserver and called from PHP scripts. As such it is an ideal tool to provide the back-end for many of our websites.

More information on MySQL...

JavaScript

We sometimes embed Javascript (a client, or browser-side scripting language) in webpages to add features such as "rollover" menus. We tend to limit it's use due to poor support in some web browsers (and the fact that it's overuse often drives features that annoys users!)

Flash

Macromedia Flash files can be embedded in webpages to provide animation and a degree of interactivity. They only work if the user's browser has the Flash plugin installed.

We are able to build sites in Flash. However, although we have Flash experience amongst the team, we don't recommend it's use as it is an inaccessible technology - it cannot be "read" by browsers, merely displayed via the plugin. this means that:

• Flash content is invisible to search engines.
• Visually impaired users cannot access Flash websites as they would conventional HTML content using a speech reader (or audio browser).

If you would like to discuss use of Flash with us further then please contact us.

XML

Extensible markup language - The simple way of formatting data for transmission between servers or applications.