[FR] Site Web : People & Business Development

Mon nouveau projet, réalisé en tant que freelance et en collaboration avec le graphiste Quentin Flamant, est le site web pour la société People & Business Development. L’objectif principal est d’assurer une présence en ligne de cette dernière, y compris dans les réseaux sociaux (tels que Twitter, Facebook et LinkedIn), afin de présenter son activité et ses services. Le surf sur mobile étant une tendance en vogue, une version optimisée pour l’iPhone et l’iPod touch a également été développée.

Présentation de la société

Actif depuis une dizaine d’années, People & Business Development est un bureau spécialisé en coaching, en formation et en conseil pour optimiser le potentiel humain des organisations et, en conséquence, le chiffre d’affaires. Leur liste de clients comporte des noms tels que Alstom, la Commission Européenne, Delta Lloyd Life, Securitas ou encore Gefco.

Le site web

Le site a été développé en ASP.NET et utilise jQuery comme librairie javascript ainsi que jQuery UI pour les composants graphiques. Des propriétés CSS 3 ont été utilisées pour embellir le site dans les navigateurs modernes sans affecter le rendu dans les navigateurs plus anciens via le mécanisme de dégradation gracieuse. En ce qui concerne le respect des standards du Web, chaque page du site passe la validation W3C XHTML 1.0 Strict.

La version iPhone et iPod touch

Ci-dessous, des captures d’écran de la version dédiée à l’iPhone et l’iPod touch. On notera notamment la détection de l’orientation permettant une lecture plus aisée de longs paragraphes de texte ainsi que l’intégration au menu de l’iPhone et l’iPod touch, permettant un accès direct au site web.

Cliquez pour agrandir

Cliquez pour agrandir

Conclusion

L’objectif de ce post, outre l’aspect publicitaire, est de présenter une application concrète de bon nombre de mes précédents posts, incluant :

• Why you should use a CDN for your website ?
• W3C : Validate green in XHTML strict with ASP.NET
• A standards-compliant alternative to target=”_blank”
• The IE nested lists whitespace bug
• Custom paging in ASP.NET with ListView & DataPager
• Implementing the Bing API in a ASP.NET website (part 1)
• Implementing the Bing API in a ASP.NET website (part 2)
• Writing a clean CSS
• Website referencing & management

Bonne visite !

Book review : DOM Scripting

This excellent book, which primarily targets a web designer audience, teaches you how to manipulate the DOM effectively but also other essential topics used in web development. Prior to reading this book, I already had a good knowledge of the DOM, so the technical aspect wasn’t what I learned the most from this book. And it’s also because the book won’t dig deep into technical aspects as the targetted audience is web designers (and not necessarily developers). An interesting consequence of this is that the author did an outstanding teaching work to make it easily understandable. But what you’ll learn is, according to me, way more useful than pure technical stuff : mastering concepts such as usable javascript, unobtrusive javascript and graceful degradation.

Pros

• Very well written and explained : technical concepts are vulgarised and examples are very relevant (mini websites using all the concepts that were teached).
• Excellent course about the DOM and web development practices using Javascript.

Cons

• As the book was written primarily for web designers, it might leave some developers thirsty for more. But anyway, the more important stuff is in the book so that makes the deal. Just keep in mind that you won’t go in deep technical details in this book.

Conclusion

Another instant-classic book that will not only teach you the DOM very well, but also essential concepts such as usable javascript, unobtrusive javascript and graceful degradation. If you’re working in the web and those concepts are not familiar to you, this book is a must-have on your bookshelf ! But if you already have an advanced knowledge of these things, you might prefer to pick up another, more advanced book.

In bulk #4

• The Rise of jQuery, an article explaining why jQuery is so popular
• The jQuery Reference API, a must-have bookmark !
• One single page bringing all jQuery plugins together, sorted by category
• The New York Public Library Style Guide, a collection of acticles about XHTML/CSS best practices
• XHTML 2/HTML 5 Comic Strip
• A collection of Silverlight tutorials
• Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia, a nice application using the DeepZoom technology of Silverlight
• The CodePlex Silverlight Toolkit, a collection of Silverlight controls with source code and unit tests
• Kaxaml, a lightweight XAML editor
• An impressive article about fluild dynamics in Silverlight
• NerdDinner, a free ASP.NET MVC book
• An implementation of Wolfenstein 3D in Javascript
• JavascriptGaming, a website dedicated to games written in Javascript
• Webdeveloper extensions for Firefox (french article)
• Ubiquity, a Mozilla Labs experiment using natural language and mashups enabling a faster use of the web

AJAX tête la première

Ajax tête la première, or the equivalent in english Ajax head first, introduces you to dynamic and asynchronous UI development. In this book, you will not only learn how Ajax works (XmlHttp, aynchronous requests, callbacks, …) but also how to make effective use of it into your webpages with DOM, JSON, XML, etc… Through multiple application examples, the authors let you put into practise the theory following an interesting incremental approach. Starting with a very basic application, you will add blocks that will transform it into a reactive and modern one, with security issues - such as Sql injection - kept in mind. Below the pros and cons of this book :

Pros

• Very clear and well explained book (head first collection reputation)
• Iterative approach : introduces basic concepts, then new ones through refactoring of previous code examples
• Originality of examples : surf shop, the chaos project, …
• Interesting chapter about the Document Object Model (DOM)
• Also deals with security issues (Sql injection, …)
• Briefly introduces the main javascript libraries and frameworks, such as script.aculo.us, prototype and dojo

Cons

• I found the beginning too long (in fact too easy)
•  Some minor errors in the book, including technical ones

Conclusion

I really appreciated this reading, which I found very original and very instructive at the same time. Covered topics, including Ajax basics, Javascript, Xml, Json, Dom and security will give you a strong starting point to go further in Ajax development. A must have.