Modern content management systems, frameworks, templates, themes, plugins, widgets and other developer tools allow you to quickly create high-quality web resources with a user-friendly interface, familiar style of providing functionality through the traditional logic of dialog, controls and buttons. High development speed, security and reliability are the distinguishing points in the Content Management System (CMS) ratings.
Traditional web resource management
Clicking a button on a website is a specific action. A set of specific actions - a menu. A set of options for actions - lists, "checkboxes" or selection elements in a wide range.
Many variants of modern web resource management technology are not so much buttons, menus, selectors, lists, clickable area maps and other developer ideas, but the usual design of established programming traditions.
Developing a web resource is all the same programming. What was at the beginning of the computer era became the foundation of the era of the development of Internet technologies. Everything has become more graceful and graceful,more difficult and responsible, and the volume of information began to grow catastrophically.
Spending a developer's time manually creating a web resource, designing unique dialog logic, or designing a button for a website is an old, tried and true idea. It is found in solving unique or special problems. In the modern world, a quality web resource is:
- popular CMS;
- quality theme (template);
- stable set of plugins (tools).
A day of work - and a new store, search engine or electronic document management is already in operation.
A person in general and a user (site visitor) in particular are always loaded with current problems. The desire of a developer to convince his potential client of the promise of his ideas or special dialogue is from the field of creativity, art or theatrics.
Unique controls
Daily life is the established traditions at home, at work and on the seashore. Man has always been a confident user of the "habitual way" of life, work and leisure. The Internet user feels confident in a familiar environment, when there is no need to guess what the developer wanted to offer on his site.
Each CMS has its own face, reflecting the established traditions in the organization of dialogue with the visitor. For example, a high-quality and fully functional WordPress website button is the Shortcodes Ultimate plugin.(known "short codes"). You need to quickly prepare a tool environment for organizing complex and multifunctional parsing:
- 2 minutes – WordPress installation;
- 3 minutes - installation and introduction to the Shortcodes plugin;
- 4 minutes - set four buttons.
This is enough to instantly connect the buttons (1) and (2) to open the analyzed pages, the button (3) to the site of the parsing results, the button (4) to the parsing script being developed.
In this example, the WordPress theme is qualified with additional code. The developer can place the code, defined by himself, in HTML / CSS anywhere on the desired page, or use the result of the plugin.
Important to note: where code is created will not always be where code is applied.
No parsing task requires even the simplest CMS: it is always a script, an algorithm, an idea for searching and processing data. But at the time of debugging the parsing algorithm, it is convenient to have a window for the initial data, a window for the results of work, and convenient management of the work/debugging process.
Description of purpose and elements used
The first two buttons are the initial information (examples of sample pages from which you need to get data), the third is the result of the parsing script. The fourth button is working (start parsing).
Parameters are required for the script to work. These parameters are conveniently represented by HTML/CSS code. Using shortcodes here is not particularly effective. You may also need to write JavaScript code anduse AJAX to control real-time parsing.
Any modern CMS provides the developer with the ability to connect a JavaScript handler. But any CMS and a plug-in for it implement the ideas (knowledge, skills and experience) of their creator. The goals of a specific application area always lie outside the views of the CMS developer, theme, template, plugin.
You can always level the features of the instrumental environment. The set of elements (5) shows how it is convenient and organic to enter the parameters "manually" necessary for parsing. The selection elements (6) show how this is done through the plugin.
How to create a button for a website: a quick fix
The actual solution of the above example was made using the Shortcodes Ultimate plugin, which generated a shortcode - a string of characters (any page of the site can be used to create a shortcode). The resulting code was moved to the header.php file of the Twenty Seventeen theme and used as a parameter to the do_shortcode() function.
In this figure, above and below, you can see pieces of code between which the desired functionality was inserted. It is convenient to use the "span" or "div" tag (1) to control the exact position of the desired elements, but this may go against the responsive layout strategy of the CMS used. Within the element (1), the element from the Shortcodes Ultimate plugin (2) feels great.
In this case, the CMS is the environment, not the site. Here it is importantquickly solve the problem: debug the parsing script. Button for the site - one, two, three - and the developer does not return to them anymore. His attention is occupied solely with the development and debugging of the parsing script.
You may not understand, but it is important to remember
PHP is a wonderful and practical language. In many ways, it is inferior to JavaScript, but in a pair they work great. Using CMS is an objectively demanded solution. The time savings are amazing, but the price is "tons of code". In many ways, this code is of no interest, often it is simply impossible to even perceive it.
In the above example, the description of the element (2) is capacious, and there are four such descriptions for each button for the site. Description (3) is much more compact and also describes only four elements. This is handmade. Description (2) is actually provided by forty times more plugin and CMS lines. Description (3) taken as is.
Modern programming is not particularly eager to go into details, and the modern developer operates with the views of his favorite CMS. Many do not even know how to insert a simple "checkbox" at the desired point on the page or write their own login button to the site using HTML/CSS.
Traditional visitor requirements implemented in traditional website building tools. There is nothing shameful in the fact that each site declares the idea of the CMS used:
- her user-friendly interface;
- her usual style of delivering functionality;
- her logic for dialog, controls and buttons.
BIn today's dynamic world of information, the speed of decision-making and service delivery is at the forefront. The idea of each CMS is different, but the goal is the same for all: to quickly create a reliable, high-quality and working web resource.
Perfect site…
Modern Internet technologies are good. It's hard to say otherwise. But the dynamics of their development bears little resemblance to the spiral of classical scientific and technological progress. It's more of a Brownian motion.
Incompatibility of versions, types, templates, a variety of tools, the dynamics of the names of certain programming tools with the same foundation, like the rustle of leaves on a big tree. But the tree is growing.
The ideal web resource is when there is only one button for the site. This is when one person approached another and a dialogue began.
A modern site is when a person comes up, and there … the developer's opinion about the design, the style of providing functionality, the task and the subject area. There is no dialogue. The visitor is at the mercy of buttons, menus, and other controls arranged by the developer. It's a tradition, it's familiar and convenient, but is it really right?
