About siteFulcrum

(May 2, 2006) "siteFulcrum software" is designed and written by A. B. Jones III, April 2006, with inspiration from Ms. Cynthia J. Morton. The name "siteFulcrum" has been chosen after a quick and non-thorough search of the internet for some almost cute name not already associated with a company product. Why "siteFulcrum"? A lever and fulcrum is a simple machine to lift a load. Lifting a load is what "siteFulcrum Software" does. Contact sitefulcrum@yahoo.com with any questions or concerns.

Make administration tasks of maintaining hierarchical content of a web site easy while providing functionality that unshackles authors confined to "content only" web server sites.

Build a web site using an automatic content loader written in JavaScript and run by the client browser; let the browser do the work that has been normally done using server-side includes. As the page is constructed by the browser running siteFulcrum JavaScript, it will get a menu table, and then get and finish constructing the page using content from a document named in the menu. This activity does not require any server side includes or processing, merely file serving.

Complys with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of the United States and the preliminary W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (W3C-WCAG-2.) requiring that the functionality and content of scripts be accessible to assistive technologies such as screen readers. Accessibility guideline compliance within documents managed by siteFulcrum is not the responsibility of siteFulcrum but left up to content authors. ( Sorry, JavaScript is required; sacrilege to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines ( Wc3-WCAG-1.0) published last century.)

The JavaScript code is found at 'siteFulcrumJavaScript.js'.

The menu table is retrieved from the server, the desired document identified and then retrieved and then edited, and then the browser window is constructed. Content is aquired dynamically using JavaScript syncronous data transfer methods.

The draw-backs:

• The browser must allow JavaScript; noncompliant with WC3 WCAG-1.
• The browser "view source" will not show the current window content.
• The siteFulcrum Cascading Style Sheet is loaded first.
• Documents with imbedded JavaScript must not conflict with siteFulcrum functions or global variables.

The look and feel is defined using Cascading Style Sheets and a page header and footer defined in the "index.html" document. Tested with IE 6, 7 and FireFox 1.5, 2 and Opera 9.1.

Left Side Navigation Bars are employed to select content to view.

The Left Side Navigation Bar is defined dynamically by interpreting the content of the file declared as 'siteFulcrumMenuTable.txt'. Each line of the file defines a member in a hierarchical navigation system beginning with the level "Home". Hierarchy is designated using a dot (.) to separate levels. The level name is that which is found between dots. The level name of the right most component is what shows up in the navigation bar. Each line of the menu table contains the hierarchical navigation name and a title name for content associated with the menu tab. These two components are on one line separated by tab ( Tab key; char(09); ); Empty lines may be added to improve ease of reading.

The link for a title name is defined dynamically by interpreting the content of the file declared as 'siteFulcrumTitleTable.txt'. Each line of the title table defines a document by a title and a location URL. These two components are on one line separated by tab ( Tab key; char(09); ); Empty lines may be added to improve ease of reading.

For security reasons a browser will not get a document from outside the domain of the current page. This means you cannot load content into the current window from other servers, but only from the server on which the orginal document is found. When a client selects a menu item for which the title is resolved to a URL pointing to another server, the current window is replaced by one from that server.

A colabberative distributed web site can be constructed where several differrent servers maintain content. The starting document, "index.html", and the "siteFulcrum" directory can be copied to other servers keeping the look and feel of the site consistent as clients change from one server to another.

A list of URLs is used to identify which titles are linked to colabberative siteFulcrum web sites. The list is maintained in the file declared as 'siteFulcrumTeamTable.txt'. Each line of the Team table defines a site URL to the directory where "index.html" of a collaberative Team member's web site can be found. A site URL is used to identify those documents with an absolute URL pointing to another server that can be linked by re-organizing the absolute URL into a siteFulcrum search string format.

Navigate the web site by clicking Left Side Menu bars or internal document links.

Notes:

• The "index.html" document controls the look and feel for the site. It can be any name recognized by a browser as HTML or any name a server recognizes as a default page.
• One can use a spread sheet to manage siteFulcrum text tables and stretch columns A and B to look good; but remember to save as text.

• The Menu Table relates a menu bar with a document title.
  • Column A is the menu tab name.
  • Column B is a title name to identify content.
  • The menu tab name in column A defines a hierarchy.
  • Home is a special menu tab name that is not shown as a menu bar.
  • Start the menu by having the first line defining "Home" as the menu tab name in column A.
  • Finish defining Home by assigning a path with file identifier in column B. This content will show on the Home page.
  • Build a hierarchy upon Home by adding a new line with menu name like "Home.Notes".
  • Build a hierarchy upon Home.Notes by adding a new line with menu name like "Home.Notes.Last Week".
• The Title Table relates a document title with a URL
  • Column A is a title name to identify content.
  • Column B is a URL.
  • Do NOT use siteFulcrum query string parameters to identify document location URL in the Title Table!
  • Do use either absolute or relative URL to identify document location in the Title Table.
  • An absolute URL in the Title Table is preferred in order to facilitate a distributed web site.
• The Team Table lists URLs to colaberative siteFulcrum sites.
  • Column A is the URL to the site home.
  
  
• From within siteFulcrum content compose a link to other siteFulcrum content:
  • using siteFulcrum titles to load a new page:
    • <a href="JavaScript:getTitle('Web Policy')"> will check the title URL and jump to another server as needed.
  • using the siteFulcrum menus to load a new page:
    • <a href="JavaScript:getMenu('Home.Events.Hunter Pace Spring 2006')"> will check the title URL associated with the menu and jump to another server as needed.
  
  
• From any "outside" content compose a link to a server with siteFulcrum like:
  • using siteFulcrum titles to load a new page:
    • <a href="http://yourSiteFulcrum.website/index.html?Title=Hunter+Pace+FAQ"> will load from the current server and check the title URL. if the title URL is on a differrent server, then automatically jump to the server rendering the browser "Back" button disfunctional.
  • using the siteFulcrum menus to load a new page:
    • <a href="http://yourSiteFulcrum.website/index.html?Menu=Home.Events.Hunter Trial"> will load from the current server and check the menu. If the title URL associated with the menu is on a differrent server, then automatically jump to the server rendering the browser "Back" button disfunctional.
  
  
• under construction ( or at least consideration )
  • include a body from document below this HTML comment <!--#include href='address' -->
  • include a body from a known siteFulcrum document below this HTML comment <!--#include title='name' -->
  • include a siteFulcrum Site Map below this HTML comment <!--#sitemap -->