Planning a website construction

A website is constructed with the interaction of principally different objects:

• Information/content (documents, images)
• Document type definitions (DTD)
• Content structure (folders)
• Text design (style sheet)
• Layout (templates for site construction)
• Navigation/site functions (templates for site functions)

For the construction of a website, content manager and editors are working together closely: task of the content manager is to guarantee the realisation of the interaction of the website objects while the editor has to ensure that web-suitable, interesting contents are presented in a form which is easily understandable for the readers and that these contents are produced structurally conform.
In the first planning steps a conception of the hierarchy or content structure with easy structure charts and illustrations is recommended. Afterwards it is possible to construct a categorical structure with ZMS which conveys a first impression of the extend of the website. Therefore a set of standard templates can be used. Then a navigation concept has to be chosen and the corresponding DTML code has to be programmed in the templates. Simultaneously a naming concept for all (navigation) elements of the site has to be developed. The corresponding element terms are used for the CSS declarations.
A finalisation of typography and colouring can take finally place in the CSS code. If necessary the template generated areas can be designed with an ornamentation based on rules (pictures/logos etc.) in the corresponding DTML code (example: channel specific picture design of the heading, see: www.smart-process.de).
The basic action when constructing a website with ZMS can be divided in the following phases:

• Check-up, content-related target definition, site structure
• Conception of the website, publishing model, graphic design
• Technical setup of the ZMS instance with choice of the basic navigation
• Configuration of the ZMS instance and modelling of the DTDs/"special documents" etc.
• Refinement of the layout construction (templates)
• Refinement of the design (CSS, colour model)
• Structure of a content frame
• User registration
• Integration of Python/DTML-applications if required
• Finalizing of templates and document models

Besides the content structure ZMS allows the integration of ZOPE applications (e.g. newsletter, forums etc). These features are developed as separate applications and usually are inserted into the corresponding ZMS context by the system folder object.