Showcase: *For You* magazine
With hard work and dedication we managed to launch the *For You* website
successfully in January 2003 and it was an instant success. The Swedish magazine,
aimed for teenage girls, seemed to fill an empty spot in an otherwise crowded field of
community websites.
The magazine contains a large number of columns that members contribute to
and each member also gets her own special corner, private mail, guestbook and diary.
There are also regular competitions where members can win prices, and a scoring
system that encourage members to contribute more. New issues are automatically
published every weekend.
Technical information
The solution is developed in Microsoft ASP.NET and uses the built in controls
extensively. This has allowed for a rapid development cycle and a solid, bug free
foundation.
The most notable techniques used are the XML driven dynamic menu to the left and
the advanced page templates. The menu is rendered from an XML document that is fed
into two nested Repeater controls. Information in the XML document tells the menu
whether a node is open or not, and what items that are visible and enabled.
The page templates use visual inheritance to inherit
the surrounding graphics, menus and lists, thus allowing the page to focus entirely
on the content without bothering with the framework, effectively removing the need
for redundant code.
For a live demonstration, please visit the *For You* website.
Website URL: http://www.webtidningen.net