Site Design

I created this site on my iMac using the excellent RapidWeaver website design application. This software lets me easily change the site design (with customized templates) totally independent of the content. To further segregate the content and design as well as providing maximum automation for site updating, I keep the content in separate text files which are updated by my Site - Process Changes script, then loaded into the site design infrastructure using special RapidScript pages (a RapidWeaver add-on).

The content is categorized into topics accessible from the site menu. The site menu is linked to the main topic pages which are each within their own folder (except for the Home page which is in the site root folder) and use the filename index.html to allow default entry to their topic when that topic folder's address is accessed (e.g., typing in http://stevebondi.com/movies as the address in the browser will bring up the main "Movies" topic page). Within the same topic folder, the topic is represented as sort of a "mini-site" where there can be further categorized child sub-topic pages accessible from a menu/index on the Sidebar of the topic's main page (also copied to the Sidebar of each child page).

Page Types

There are 3 types of pages on this site:

  • Content Pages: These are the primary site pages where the content was specifically written for this site. The Home page is one of these. As noted above, these are all RapidScript pages that load their content from separate text files (for which I locally use the .htmlbody file extension) into the site-formatted template.
  • List Pages: These look like content pages, but are actually automatically generated content from lists that I maintain outside of this site. This includes details of my media collections as well as my rankings and reviews. Like content pages, these are also RapidScript pages that load their content from separate text files.
  • Site Pages: These are pages with the word "Site" at the beginning of their title, which provide site information, navigation, or resources. While they are not accessible from the site menu, they are accessible through a footer menu (for all pages) as well as through some other links (e.g., Site Search on the header for all pages). They consist of the following pages:
    • Site Design pages: These are special content pages which describe the site design. You are currently viewing one of these pages.
    • Site Search page: This is a special RapidSearch Pro page used for a feature-rich implementation of site search functionality.
    • Site Map page: This is a special SiteMap Plus page (a RapidWeaver add-on) used for an easy/feature-rich implementation of an automatically built/uploaded, user-accessible (in addition to a separate search-engine-friendly) site map.
    • Site Media Viewer page: This is a special page I created that displays a new custom-fit browser window with either a referenced Flash video (with certain options) -or- a referenced image. The other pages call it by using a special Javascript function (inserted into the Theme's javascript.js file) to format various display parameters in the "search term" of the page address passed to the "open browser window" function. When called, the special page parses the "search term", resizes itself, and either auto-runs the video -or- displays the image. Note: If Javascript is not supported, a new browser window is simply opened to the media's direct link.
    • Site Verification page: This is a non-linked pseudo-page used for Google site verification. It is required to sit in the site root folder.
    • Site CoolIris Access file: This is the crossdomain.xml file required for using Flash controls with media across sites. It is configured to specifically provide access for CoolIris.
    • Site Robots Exclusion file: This is the robots.txt file used to communicate exceptions to search engine robots.

Resource File Types

The 3 types of resource files on this site are stored in a general resources folder (with a sub-folder for each type) under the site root folder:

  • media: These represent the icons, images, and other supporting media on this site.
  • feeds: These represent the RSS feed files used for CoolIris content.
  • downloads: These represent non-media files that I offer for download on this site (including files like scripts).

File Publishing

While RapidWeaver (starting with version 5) is capable of supporting global resources (a.k.a., assets) as outlined above, due to limitations in automation (i.e., the names are stored in binary format) and synchronization (i.e., incomplete file uploads and no propagation of deleted files), I do not use it for managing resources or for publishing files directly to my website. Instead, I only have RapidWeaver publish to a local folder, and then I use the cool app GoodSync to synchronize the local folder with my website.

Style

Although RapidWeaver includes many nice templates, I ended up purchasing the Freelancer Pro theme (a RapidWeaver add-on) for a professional-looking design that is highly configurable and fairly consistent (almost WYSIWYG) across browsers.

I copied it to my own "stevebondi v1" theme, and pretty much used the default styles (including most colors) of the theme. I did add a little custom CSS code to provide spaces between certain bullets and adjust for browser incompatibilities.

Images

I obtained most of the icon images on this site from IconsPedia. I obtained the rest of the images from exhausting searches using Google Images followed by some image editing.

Page List

Regarding the page order/hierarchy via the RapidWeaver Page List, I first the Home page followed by all the main pages (with any child pages nested under their main page). Finally, I list the remaining site pages (with any child pages nested under their main page).