Cakephp is a well known framework and it is developed using one of the most powerful web programming languages, PHP. It was launched in 2005 and is circulated under MIT license. With the help of this, you can develop websites, shopping carts, CMS and web applications. If you want to develop a customized Cakephp based website or shopping cart, you should hire an experienced PHP web development company.

Cakephp comes with code libraries and supportive web programs. However, almost all good frameworks have these features. Then, what makes it so special?

• Class is a complicated element of PHP programming. If you try to write PHP codes manually, defining the classes can be very difficult. On the other hand, Cakephp have “app” and “core” directories. You can go inside these two directories and define the function of each class very easily.

• Cakephp is an Object Relational Mapping (ORM) framework. That means it displays tables as classes and streamlines SQL queries. Sounds alien? It simply means that It offers better database management features and allows you to fetch data from your website database quickly.

• Using it, web programmers can create interface with active records and database. It basically works like a bridge between web application and database. Besides that, It supports various programming languages such as php4 and php5.

• Cakephp is a flexible framework and it comes with modular application structure. Web developers also love it due to its stringent security features.

• If you use it, there is no need to write long and complicated PHP codes. The default features reduce manual coding and helps you complete projects faster.

• Cakephp has automatic configuration feature. It detects the preferred setting automatically and sets the framework accordingly. This is one of its great benefit. but you must configure Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP (LAMP) settings carefully. Otherwise, it will follow the wrong LAMP settings and your entire project will collapse.

• Using its necessary plug-ins from the plug-in library, you can develop a functional website or application.

• Every website development company prefers Cakephp for website/application development, because it has inbuilt CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, and Delete) features. CRUD features protect user submission process and keep website/application secure from hackers.

• Some of its other benefits are data sanitization, application scaffolding, built in validation, router utility classes for working with files, folders, arrays, helpers for HTML, AJAX, JavaScript, forms, pagination, XML, RSS and more.

These are some of the advantages of Cakephp. If you want to use a Cakephp based content management system for your website development project, then here are some good options-

       1. Croogo- It’s an open source CMS and supports multiple languages. Croogo offers content categorization facilities and WYSIWYG Editor. However, Croogo is not ideal for large web development projects. You can develop blogs or 5-10 page   websites using this free CMS.

       2.   Lu mad- Lu mad is an open source CMS and it offers strong, but simple user interface.

       3.  CupCake- It’s a user friendly CMS and helps you develop medium size websites swiftly. The admin panel is very simple and  even  a non programmer can update website content easily.

Using any one the aforementioned Cakephp CMS, you can develop a beautiful and feature rich website. However, it is a vast framework and without in-depth knowledge in PHP, you can’t handle Cakephp based CMSes. Therefore, you should hire an expert web development company for efficient Cakephp website development services.

]]> http://www.quality-web-programming.com/blog/discover-the-benefits-of-cakephp-before-hiring-a-php-web-development-company/feed/ 0 http://www.quality-web-programming.com/blog/discover-the-secrets-of-drupal-web-development-and-increase-your-knowledge/ http://www.quality-web-programming.com/blog/discover-the-secrets-of-drupal-web-development-and-increase-your-knowledge/#comments Fri, 11 May 2012 06:04:54 +0000 Admin http://www.quality-web-programming.com/blog/?p=1004

Drupal is a powerful content management system and is the ideal platform for customized web development. If you have never used Drupal before, ere are some tips that will help you configure a Drupal website easily.

Install Drupal Using Profiles- Drupal CMS can be downloaded from Drupal.org. After installation, you can add several modules to design a custom site. However, if you need to design a particular type of site like, news website or political propaganda site, use a suitable “profile” or “distribution” to reduce web development time. The “profiles” are developed by a team of developers and they include all the necessary themes, add-ons, modules etc. for specific type of website design.

User #1 Is Crucial- The first user is the admin of a site. He can add, edit or delete anything in the site. Hence, you should protect the username and password of your Drupal site’s user #1.

Know the Basic URL Structure- Content in a Drupal site is called as node. A node can be an article, an image or a web page. Therefore, if you want to add a new page in your site you should go to this URL. http://yoursitename.com/node/add/page

Take Help from Google- During Drupal installation process, you may face some problems. Just copy paste the error message in Google and find out a solution instantly.

Customize the “Page Not Found” Message- The default “page not found” message of Drupal is a bit harsh and confusing. Therefore, you should write a custom error message to keep the viewers happy.

Troubleshoot the “White Screen of Death”- When you work in a web development company, you have to face several technical problems everyday. One of the most common technical problems with Drupal is the “white screen of death”. This problem occurs due to PHP error. Therefore, you should activate the PHP error reporting feature to find out coding mistakes immediately.

Backup Your Database- You should use the “backup and migrate” module to store your website’s data in a safe and secure database. Use a separate database for your site’s backup data, so that if something goes wrong in your site, you can immediately fetch and restore the backup data.

Clear the Cache Time to Time- Drupal creates caches to reduce page loading time. However, if you are editing your site and the site is not showing new changes, clear the cached data to keep your site up to date.

Most people associated with the web development industry will agree with the fact that content management systems (CMS) have influenced the industry significantly. Now, with the help of CMSs, website owners can upload and edit content easily.

However, according to our opinion, every website owner does not require help of CMSs. In this post, we will point out few website owners who do not require CMSs.

Those Who Own Websites With an Expiration Date

Certain websites are created for special purposes, such as spreading awareness about a conference or event. They usually stay active for a certain period and require heavy maintenance for this period. Owners of such websites, therefore, need not opt for any CMS because the website will stay active only for a short period.

Those Who Have Limited Knowledge about Web Design and Aesthetics

Some people simply cannot perform technical tasks. For this reason, we often come across websites that include irrelevant and scattered images, links in different colors, and unwanted use of bold text.

According to our opinion, such owners should avoid using CMSs. And even if they opt for CMSs, they should rely on professionals for implementing customized web development.

Those Who Own Non-Dynamic Websites

It is true that developing dynamic websites is the current trend. However, some small or mid-sized companies still own static websites. In general, their websites offer a brief description of their companies, products, and contact information. They may only require to incorporate updated information during certain situations, such as during a new product or event launch.

Such owners, therefore, do not require to opt for CMSs. Hiring a professional for developing CMSs is costly. Since these owners will not be utilizing the full potential of CMSs, spending money for appointing experts does not make any sense.

Those Who Do Not Want to Take Up Additional Responsibility

Popularity of CMSs have made us think that every website owner desires to use CMSs for enhancing appeal of their websites. However, this is a misconception. Some people avoid opting for CMSs because they may not have the time to handle them or they are not willing to become tech-savvy. Whatever the reasons are, the main point is that these website owners do not require CMSs.

The post should not make you think that opting for CMSs involve wastage of time. We agree that CMSs have simplified handling websites. However, this does not mean that you should use CMSs just because everyone else is doing so. Rather, opt for a CMS, only when it simplifies your purposes and responsibilities. We would also like to add that apart from website owners, those who are interested in blog customization can also consider these ideas.

Time is of the essence, especially if you are in the field of custom programming or dynamic web development. You always have to work under strict deadlines and perform revisions as and when your client wants you to. To avoid stress (which is so likely to bottle up in your mind if you are working in this environment without a holiday), i have offered some suggestions that may be of help.

• Outline your work: When the project is presented to you, study it thoroughly and chalk out a work plan for your own benefit. Create a list of tasks that you need to perform in order to complete the project. Set the tasks according to priority. It will help you keep an eye on the time you are taking for each task and let you keep some time out for your own revisions.
• Calculate your time smartly: When you are calculating the time for each task of the project, do not count the hours of your weekends. Only calculate the business days.
• Using labels: Put labels against each task so that it’s easy for you to identify which task is priority.
• Find out the task that would take the longest time to complete: and do not deviate from the time period you have allotted for it. This is the only way you can complete everything on time and still have time to revise your work.
• Knowing when to begin and finish: Back-calculate your way from the deadline to the beginning of the project. This will give you an idea of the time period that you need to spend on the project.
• Give yourself time to revise: This is very important. Just completing your work and submitting it to the client is not a professional practice. You need to have time to revise the entire work and find out if anything is missing or needs some editing.
• Your priority list: Prioritize your work. Do not procrastinate. Complete what is most important first and then move on to the second most important one. Continue this way throughout your list.
• Do not deviate from your set beginning time: This is the first step to finish your project on time. Stick to your plan and you will realize that you’ve completed your project even before you had intended to.
• Set reminders for yourself: Be organized. Set reminders everywhere – in your computer, in your phone, in your tablet, write sticky notes and place them on the refrigerator if that’s what suits you.
• Complete the easier jobs somewhere within the difficult ones: This is a smart tactic that will relieve you of stress for a while and also get a new task done.

Whatever way you manage the time for your ecommerce web design project, make sure it is realistic. Also, keep some days vacant in your plan so that you can finish any urgent tasks that may come up. Do not forget keep some time for yourself and your dear ones.

How do you manage your time? Would you like to share?

Web users don’t care how a programmer makes a link clickable or a contact form so easy. All they want is a user-friendly website that allows them to read content, watch videos and buy products easily.

During back-end custom programming, web programmers often make small mistakes that make things tough for end users. Here are three common web programming mistakes and the ways to solve them.

Forgetting About Conventions- People all over the world have been using the internet for quite some time now and all of them interact with websites in their own way. Let’s take a look at some common user interaction problems.

• An object looks like its clickable, but when users place the mouse pointer over that object, they see an arrow pointer, not a hand pointer.

• There is a blue underlined text in the site, but it’s not a link.

• Logo is not connected to the homepage

If you have made the same web programming mistakes, then here are the simple solutions.

• Everything clickable in your site must change to the hand pointer, as soon as a user places his mouse pointer above it. You can easily make objects clickable using simple CSS.

• Don’t use blue in a non-link text. Stylize the links to help the users identify it easily. For instance, you can use italics font style for links or make the font size smaller than rest of the content.

• The logo must take users back to the homepage. Search the internet and you will find some easy codes to make your logo clickable. Link it to your homepage to offer a seamless navigation.

Creating Slow Loading Websites- Web users only spend 10-20 seconds to scan a site. If your site takes too much time to load, viewers will skip it. Let’s see how you can make your site faster.

• Web designers often load a large image in websites and then shrink its size using codes. Using custom codes, you may minimize the size of an image, but its file size remains the same. Hence, you should use an image editing software to re-size the images according to your needs, before uploading them.

• Loading JavaScript in the header tag is a serious programming mistake. It can increase page loading time significantly. Therefore, insert all the JavaScript in the footer area to decrease page loading time.

• Novice web programmers load CSS on each web page and increase page loading time. Instead of using internal stylesheet, you should load the stylesheet externally.

When someone opens your site for the first time, the external stylesheet automatically gets stored in the user’s computer. Therefore, the end user gets to see web pages faster. Besides that, editing an external stylesheet is quite easy. You get to see all the web page styling in one place and make changes instantly.

Not Considering the Impending Back-end Changes- Some developers only follow the instructions and fail to see the future of a site. For instance, if your client asks you to create 1, 2, 3 heading style in CSS and you follow his orders blindly, can he use heading style 5 in future?

Therefore, you should include styles for all common tags. Otherwise, a small formatting can jeopardize your entire web design.

This is the age of dynamic web development and clients won’t listen to any excuses for your programming mistakes. Stay away from the aforementioned mistakes to excel in the web development industry.

Joomla is a resourceful content management system and an ideal platform for dynamic web development. It offers a lot of free templates and add-ons for custom web design. However, if you are designing a business website, then instead of using a free template, you should use a premium Joomla template and give your site a unique look.

The usual question is, “Why should I spend some extra money while free templates are already available?” True that free templates reduce web programming expenditure, but also true, they don’t offer the benefits of a premium template.

Let’s see what makes paid templates better than free templates.

Design- Free templates are mainly designed by students and novice designers. On the other hand, paid templates are always designed by experienced web designers. They maintain designing standards in every template to make your website user friendly.

The color palette and contrast ratio is also well balanced in paid templates.  Designers take extra care with the color selection to maintain the aesthetic beauty of website design. They also balance the background colors to make text content visible.

Code- Back-end coding is a very crucial part of any template. High quality templates contain error free codes and reduce the possibilities of sudden technical faults. Expert coders always validate the coding to maintain Joomla website design standards.

Thanks to the clean code writing standards, paid templates load faster in browsers. Quality template developers also comment on their codes to make future web developers’ job easier. If you want to modify the look of your site or add extra pages, you can edit the source codes effortlessly.

Support- Generally, premium template developers offer live technical support during your web development project. The designer will either provide a phone number or live chat application so that you can contact him anytime for any technical help. You can also send an email to the designer and he will provide you a quick solution

Compatibility- Your target customers will access your site from different browsers and free templates sometimes have browser compatibility issues. However, when you buy a high quality paid template, you can forget browser compatibility problems.

Premium templates also support both old and latest operating systems. Whether your customers use Windows or Android, they can view and navigate your Joomla site effortlessly.

Third party extensions are not supported by most free templates, but paid templates support a range of third party applications.

SEO- Search engine optimization is very important for every web design project. Paid templates are SEO friendly and help you gain high rank in search engine results.

Upgrades- If you are designing an e-commerce site then security is a very important issue for you. You can add a number of add-ons and custom e-commerce solutions in your site to make the site user friendly. Paid template developers continuously offer upgrades to keep your site safe from hackers. They also add interactive elements in the template to support CSS3 and HTML5 standards.

In view of the aforementioned benefits, a paid Joomla template for your website design is always a better option.

]]> http://www.quality-web-programming.com/blog/why-you-should-use-paid-templates-for-joomla-website-design/feed/ 0 http://www.quality-web-programming.com/blog/how-to-create-the-workflow-for-your-website-development-services/ http://www.quality-web-programming.com/blog/how-to-create-the-workflow-for-your-website-development-services/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 06:23:50 +0000 Admin http://www.quality-web-programming.com/blog/?p=966

Every business has a website these days. For taking care of the website development, business owners turn to professionals offering website development services. Both the developer and the client should be aware of the whole web development workflow, in simpler words, the entire process of website development. It would help clear a lot of misunderstandings between the two. This post will discuss the essential steps to create a good workflow for your website development and customized web development projects.

Talk to Your Client: First of all, find out what they need. Jot down everything in detail. Try to collect all the necessary information in your first meeting with the client and get a clear idea about what exactly they are looking for. You also have to find out about the budget.

Submit A Proposal for the Project: Chalk out your entire development plan and show it to your client. Specify the required tools and other resources and the costs involved. You also need to explain the copyright issues to your client as few people have the understanding of copyrights. Be as transparent as possible but stay professional.

Sign the Contract: A contract or term of agreement is a must in a web development project. Make sure both you and your client sign this term of agreement.

Get the Required Resources: Request your client to provide you with the resources you will need for the website development work. Do not overlook anything so that you don’t have to ask them in the future again about resources.

Research: Do your research to find out what your client’s rivals are doing. You need to devote considerable time to do this. You can delegate the work to one of your employees in your web development company. Just make sure everything that the client has specified, is followed to the letter.

Create the Final Content: Finalize whatever content will be on your site and have your client take a look at it.

Launch the Website: It’s time for the site to see the world and the world to see the website. Test the usability before the website goes live.

Conclusion

As you can see, the process of customized web development needs you to be organized. Do whatever is necessary to systematically provide your client with the best website development services out there. Best of luck!

WordPress is the ideal platform for custom blog design. It offers all the necessary customized web development tools for free and helps you start a blog immediately. With the help of a blog, you can share articles, tutorials, designs etc. with web users. However, there are already hundreds of blogs out there and only a handful of them get regular visitors. Therefore, you must customize your blog to establish your identity in the virtual world.

• Have a Customized Gravatar- Blog customization begins with the layout design. If you don’t have enough money, use a free WordPress theme for your blog design. WordPress themes come with a default gravatar and you should replace it as soon as possible. Design a unique gravatar for your site to give your blog a brand identity.
• Stylize Author Comments- Blog is the best place for direct communication with the readers. Whenever you post an article on your blog, ask the readers to share their opinion in the comments field.

However, when readers post dozens of comments, finding the author’s reply is a bit tough. That is why; you should stylize the author’s comments using different colors and show respect to him.

• Give Personal Information in the “About” Page- As the blog owner, you should try to connect with your readers personally. In the “about” page, give some information about your personal life, educational background and profession. Tell them why you have started this blog and what motivates you.
• Use Footer Area Intelligently- Most people believe that the footer area of a website should be used for copyright information and web design studio’s name. Who says so? Design the footer area intelligently to increase readership. For instance, you can show the links of “most read” articles in the footer area or give your contact information.
• Design a User Friendly 404 Page- Web users hate to see a “page not found” message. Therefore, you should customize the 404 page design to give a positive impression. For instance, in the 404 page, you can write “sorry, the article you are looking for is no longer available. Would you like to go back to the main page?”
• Give Social Media Share Options- Give multiple social media share options below every post in your blog to increase readership. When a reader reads an article and shares it with his friends, some of his friends may start visiting your blog as well.
• Highlight Your Authors- Readers don’t like to see an article written by “admin”. Give a short biography of the author below each article. It will help your readers know more about their favorite authors.
• Give a Search Tool- Some of your readers may come looking for a particular article, and for their help, you should embed a search tool in your blog. For instance, if someone is looking for “web development” articles, he does not need to search your entire archive. He can type the keyword in the search tool and find all the related articles immediately.

Following these guidelines, you can design a customized blog and attract online readers.

Custom programming is no easy job. It involves a lot of thinking, trying, brainstorming and innovating to come up with the desired results. Customized web programming requires you to be at your best form always so that you can provide precisely what your client wants and become a one-stop source of solution to any issues regarding the programming that your client may have.

Just as writers have writer’s block and designers have designer’s block, programmers can also have programmer’s block. The programmer’s block is not easy to get over and can occur when you least expect it or when you are at the threshold of submitting a completed project to your client. Please note that fighting it will not help. You cannot beat your programmer’s block by fighting with it. In fact, it could lead you into deeper trouble. Here’s what you can do:

 Put On Some Music

While it may seem childish to you, there is something called music therapy and it can help you in times of inner turmoil. Different people get different things from music and for creative professionals like you, it brings forth different ideas. When you listen to music, concentrate on the tunes. It would free your mind from stress and freshen you up. Listen to songs that you have always liked. Play the music that you used to listen to as a kid.

Go Out

Leave your workstation for a while and take a walk. Drive your car, take a cab or ride your old bike. Who knows, a trip outside can bring new ideas to your mind? Go to the zoo, dine in a good restaurant or tour the parts of the city that you like. Visit the museum, explore the new architecture in your city and do whatever you want but stay outside for at least a whole day. When you return, you will see a considerable improvement in your work.

Maintain A Notebook (A Paper One)

Here, you should write what you want to do in your programming, what the client wants, how to achieve it, the things you need to talk to the client about, any issues that is coming in the way of your web development, etc. Set a date for yourself to finish the project in your notebook and keep it handy so that you can check out the date whenever you feel like you are lagging behind.

Keep Your Problems Away to Deal With Later

This would help you ease the pressure a bit, especially if you are working on several projects together. Do not focus on your problems when you feel they will hinder your work-flow.

Hope these advice were useful for you. Please share your views.

As a web programmer, you do not need to be told that in order to make your website successful, you need optimum user-friendliness. A smooth and positive user experience should be your goal when you take the web programming responsibility on your shoulders.

Start your analysis from scratch and brainstorm a strong programming strategy from the very beginning of your project. Is there something wrong with the user interface? Find out because there may be some hidden challenges for you there.

Begin with the ‘search’ function of your website. This is an area where seamless communication between the user and the site is not only desired but expected. There is no room for misunderstanding in this communication. This is all the more important when you are working for a mobile website because there, the search function is constantly hampered by auto-correction and improper typing of the query by users’ sweaty fingers and less attention.

Do your user experience research using analytics tools. This would give you a clear idea of how good your site is in terms of UX, although other factors such as SEO also play a part in these results.

Complexity can ruin your site’s user interaction. As a skilled programmer, your website may not seem to be very complex to you but to your audience, it can seem to be very complicated.

If that is the case with your site, the first thing for you to do is to eliminate the confusion. Sometimes, it is difficult to understand  how simple your users want your creation to be, and you have no other option but to go for a trial and error method. In the process, risk needs to be taken and you may have to lose some visitors.

When it comes to simplicity, it is always best to go with something simple-looking. A simple-looking interface can make people feel like using your website. Check out what your rival sites are doing. What kind of web programming approach they have taken etc. Present your information in such a way that it is conveyed to the visitor without making the screen appear complex.

You can also split the information in various pages and engage your visitors. It would give more screen space and thus, make the user feel your website is extremely simple. Removing whatever navigation that seems unnecessary to you. A simplified UI is what drives users to delve deeper into a website and is what custom programming for the users should be about. Maintain the focus on the content and information the user wants and you will be able to simplify the user interface of your website.

Keep in mind that programming for the mobile web is completely different from programming for desktop computers. Presenting information on mobile websites would take more thinking about the simplicity of the UI along with the aesthetic appeal of your website.

Always ensure that the maximum amount of complexity is removed. You cannot remove all the complexity from your website but you can create a balance between it and the simplicity to provide a smooth user experience that your web programming company would be proud of.