Styles & Conventions Used In This Site.

Use the bulleted or numbered lists when laying out list items. This is very important when developing themes.

Please work in plain text mode or use the rich text editor. No inline styles! In order to benefit from the efficiencies of a CMS, the text of individual postings must be as generic as possible.

The rich text editor is safe to use to markup your html.f Keeping in mind the following:

When pasting text from a word processor, please use the 'Paste Special' or 'Paste without formatting' option. Better yet, try to use the web interface only. As we move forward with the skin of the site, the separation of presentation from content will become clear.

• GAZeL is spelled 'GAZeL'. Please note the convention in your postings.

• news - use sentence case

• content types - lower case

• glossary - lower case, except for Proper Nouns and Acronyms

• recommended links must be entered in plaintext. click 'disable rich text' before adding or editiing. make sure that you correct before saving a page as the rich text editor will grab the items and rewrite them for you by default. it does not appear that there is a way to easily work around this behavior at this time.

• menu items - first letter upper, the rest; lower case

• href links and anchors - context will tell you how to present the clickable text. the important thing is is to provide a 'link title' so screen readers and mobile devices can provide required navigation. every link shall have a descriptive 'title'. the rich text editor provides for this when you create the link.

• images - any logo-style images to be displayed in a block or inline are to be 64 pixels high. make sure you use the title and/or alt text options for full accessibiliity.

• headings - title case

• upcoming events - sentence case

• content - sentence case

• forum topics: same as content.

• categories - lowercase. make sure you include a well crafted description of each term.

• faqs - question: title case; answer: sentence case

• node titles are autmatically formatted as h2.

• instructional text - links and menu items are referred to in plain text with single quotes. eg "Click on the ''Recommended links' item below.". Links should be fererred to exactly as they appear in the interface.

• heading formats - use h3, h4 or h5 tags for sections, children and subsections, respectively. looks like this when editing in plain text mode. <h3>Your Heading Text</h3> see the recommended links below for examples.

• for h3 headings, make sure you place an extra carriage return before when placed inline. our default layout is quite tight, if you want whitespace you must place it yourself. our theme will change and this document will come to reflect this in due course.

• <strong> (bold) and <em> tags should only be used to modify paragraph text. do not apply to headings. this is the online equivalent to shouting.

• inline styles are pernicious. do not use them. no <font> tags either. inline styles play havoc with a themed systematic site. local node formatting does not participate in the theme and makes admin's life tedious as we have to remove it all by hand.

• any elements that break our theme must be well considerd before implimenting. handheld devices, pda, differently abled persons speciality equipment - screen readers, and other devices - all rely on very specific themes in order to access web content. we MUST keep our content universally accessible as we move into complete compliance with all accessibility standards. see below. for more.

• URL path settings are to be used judiciously for 'permanant' items
  only. Items of current interest or transitory news items should be left
  as nodes. The engine that enables the rewrite magic is called 'URL rewrtiting' and
  places a load on the server. Over time we seek to minimize the load on
  the server.

• user edits (revisions) are tracked through strikethroughs, colors and comments in square brackets. eg This is text text strikethroughs new text here [this is a comment].

  • Admin = red

  • Lesley = orange

  • Maggie = teal

  • Sheri =?

  • Steve =?

• enjoy!