FAO Web guide: 2.7b Dynamic content

Web Guide home 1. Introduction 2. Web publishing basics 3. Planning 4. Content collection 5. Design 6. Construction 7. Testing 8. Launch 9. Maintenance 10. Writing for the Web Resources 1.1 FAO and the Internet: What is an FAO Web site? 1.2 Quality criteria of Web sites 1.3 An introduction to Web accessibility at FAO 1.4 Electronic publishing at FAO 2.1 Content quality 2.2 Roles in Web publishing 2.3 Web site quality clearance and continuity 2.4 Policy and legal matters 2.5 Language coverage policy 2.6 Web site traffic monitoring 2.7 Static and dynamic content 2.8 Really Simple Syndication (RSS) 2.9 Social Media Guidelines 2.10 Current server structure at FAO 3.1 What and (who) is the site for and what is it about?3.2 Define the Web site subject scope 3.3 Define your audience 3.4 Identify resources 3.5 How to track and share planning decisions 4.1 Developing a content inventory 4.2 FAO content repositories 4.3 Metadata 5.1 Review user needs 5.2 Defining information architecture 5.3 Prepare interface design 5.4 Define technical implementation 5.5 Tracking design implementation 6.1 Management of files/naming 6.2 HTML and coding 6.3 Use of style sheets 6.4 Graphics 6.5 Conversion of electronic documents 6.6 Language encoding 6.7 Link management 6.8 Printable pages 6.9 Providing access to search 6.10 Domains, URLs and aliases 6.11 Tools 7.1 Testing approaches 7.2 How to use the test environment 8.1 Launch checklist 8.2 Promotion 9.1 Quality assurance and routine checking 9.2 Update procedures for Web sites 9.3 Web usage analysis 9.4 Evaluation of Web sites 10.1 Writing a page of text 10.2 Organizing your text on the page 10.3 How to optimize content for search engines 10.4 How to write feedback, error messages 10.5 Quotations 10.6 Non-discriminatory language Checklists Acronyms Newsletter Guidelines Policies Procedures Web resources Tag cloud Contacts 2.3a Data ownership 2.3b Regulation of access to servers 2.3c Clearance of Web sites by OCP 2.4a Country names, flags and maps 2.4b The fao.org domain, subdomains and root directories 2.4c Use of FAO emblem and logos 2.4d Politically sensitive material 2.6a FAO Web sites: the user perspective 2.6b How to gather user information: user research 2.6c Designing for the user 2.6d Page size and downloading 2.7a Static content 2.7b Dynamic content 2.7c Content Management Systems (CMS) 2.9a FAO and Facebook 2.9b FAO and Flickr 2.9c FAO and Google+2.9d FAO and LinkedIn 2.9e FAO and SlideShare 2.9f FAO and Twitter 2.9g FAO and Wikipedia 2.9h FAO and YouTube 4.3a What is metadata?4.3b Why embed metadata in Web pages?4.3c How to embed basic metadata in the HTML head section 4.3d How to create or improve current metadata 4.3e FAO standards for encoded metadata 4.3f Metadata, search engines and their robots 5.2a Identify Web pages and subject categories 5.2b Define navigation 5.2c Define metadata and search requirements 5.3a Corporate visual identity 5.3b Web site design usability principles 6.1a How to use the FTP server 6.2a HTML and XHTML 6.2b Browser compatibility 6.2c New windows and pop-ups 6.2d JavaScript 6.2e HTML title and metadata tags 6.3a CSS and Web accessibility 6.3b Cascading Style sheets (CSS) and browser compatibility 6.4a Graphic formats 6.4b Use of images on the Web 6.4c Photos 6.5a Converting Word documents into PDF 6.6a Guidelines for language encoding 6.6b Multilingual interfaces 6.7a Linking files across languages 6.7b Links to the FAO home page, FAO copyright and AskFAO 6.7c Absolute and relative links 6.7d Avoid spamming on e-mail addresses 6.8a How to prepare print-safe Web pages using CSS 6.8b Other ways of preparing print-safe Web pages 6.11a Recommended editing tools for Web site construction 6.11b Graphics, document and conversion tools 9.1a Maintaining quality 9.1b Content freshness
	Web Guide > webguide > 2. Web publishing basics > 2.7 Static and dynamic content > 2.7b Dynamic content
	2.7b Dynamic content What is dynamic content? In contrast to static content, dynamic content is generated every time a user visits or reloads the Web page. A dynamic page is typically compiled from content that is stored in a database. Dynamic pages commonly use programs (e.g. Java) or scripts (e.g. JSP, ASP, PHP) or transformation languages (e.g. XSL) or a combination of these plus query languages (e.g. SQL, XQuery). The URL of dynamically generated Web pages can contain question marks, percentage signs and other symbols (or text) from the query string. Visitors may be intimidated by such long and cryptic URLs containing few recognizable words. Using more recent techniques, however, dynamic URLs can be transformed into a more readable form. Some Web sites contain entirely dynamic content, because all of their content is stored in a database and assembled when the page is requested. Dynamic content usually involves a CMS. These are intended to reduce site maintenance by allowing users to enter content through an easy to use web-interface. When the content is retrieved, it is merged with a template that provides elements that are common to the whole site (menus, logos, etc) or subsections of the site and includes components that control the style of presentation for the user-entered data. Some examples of dynamic sites are: International Portal on Food Safety, Animal and Plant Health FAO Country Profiles and Mapping Information System - all the pages related to countries are dynamic FAOTERM Corporate Document Repository Do you know about... Hybrid sites? The majority of Web sites at FAO are hybrid sites. That is, they are a combination of static and dynamic content. FAO has developed several systems that allow static Web sites to have dynamic areas. One example of such a system is the News and Events Management System (NEMS). NEMS allows users without HTML knowledge to post news and events stories on a Web site. Another example is the Electronic Information Management Services (EIMS), which adds publications automatically to Web sites once they have been published in the CDR. Some examples of hybrid Web sites are: News and Highlights area of the Special Programme for Food Security Web site; Publications area of the Investment Centre Web site. Things to remember when considering a dynamic site Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between dynamic content and a site managed through a CMS, but with static content. The main difference between them is not how content is managed, but rather the form in which it is published. Dynamic sites not managed by a CMS, usually require large amounts of technical and programming work and therefore have a higher cost for development/maintenance (changes, enhancements, upgrades etc.). To minimize the costs of a dynamic site, use a CMS, although costs can increase if you require major changes to existing templates. CMSs effectively manage large amounts of information and can present it in various ways.