HTML and CSS are the core technologies we use for all our websites. HTML is the programming language which provides a means to describe the structure of information in a document which is accessible to Internet browsers. The addition of CSS technology allows us to further push the boundaries of website design while maintaining accessibility and cost effective production.
We also make sure that all of the websites we develop are coded to be compliant, as outlined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards.
PHP is a widely used general purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. PHP code can be used to create functions and processes that produce HTML web pages, but it offers a much deeper level of interaction and programming than is possible using HTML alone.
Due to its modular nature, PHP also allows for easy integration with both MySQL and FileMaker databases, as well as having many other modules which can be used with different technologies and standards.
Adobe Flash is a tool for creating rich multimedia animations and interactive movies for inclusion within websites. Some websites are even built exclusively in Flash with little of no other technologies involved.
Flash allows fluid animations as well as the delivery of streaming video / audio to enhance a sites look, feel and user experience. Although, in the past a heavy reliance on Flash could lead to a reduced level of accessibility (in terms of DDA Compliance and Search Engines) we have developed techniques which can allow you to have a full flash website and still remain within the DDA Compliance laws and benefit from inclusion in the Search Engines.
The addition of JavaScript to our web projects allows for fast and intuitive interaction between an interface and its users. With JavaScript's interaction with the DOM (Document Object Model) we can also control design and content elements client side to produce visually impressive and powerful modules such as image galleries, contact / user feedback forms, drag and drop functions and much more. As JavaScript code can run locally in a user's browser, as opposed to on a remote server, it can respond to user action much faster, making an application feel more responsive. Furthermore, JavaScript code can also detect user actions, which HTML alone cannot, such as individual keystrokes.
Using Javascript in conjunction with PHP we can create easy to use interfaces giving instant feedback and functionality to users while keeping the main scripting running in the background. Combined with the popular open-source JQuery and JQuery UI libraries we are able to create rich Web 2.0 interfaces similar to those used by large companies such as Google, YouTube and Microsoft giving your website a cutting edge UI.
We use MySQL as the online database to power any website which requires content to be stored either for the purposes of changing the site content over time or for storing user information. For example we would use MySQL for storing news articles, products, user login details, user purchases or galleries of images and documents. MySQL gives us a powerful database backend with seamless links (through PHP) to our websites as well as easy access to and from FileMaker Databases.