Web Publishing Standards

Technical Standards

The technical standards listed here are intended to make the process of contributing to the site easy and efficient for novice and expert publishers alike. Our support resources are very limited, and deviation from these standards could make it very difficult or expensive for you to receive assistance with problems that may arise.

Naming Conventions - Because our Web site is on a case-sensitive operating system, our naming conventions are epsecially important.

Index.html and index.html do not refer to the same file. If you have a link to index.html, and the file is really named Index.html, your link is broken.

When creating new files (pages, PDF's, etc.) and folders, you must use ALL lowercase:

• Correct: filename.html
• Incorrect: FileName.html, fileName.html, etc.

Do not include spaces, or special characters in your names, and include only one dot (period) in the name of your file (no dots in folder names).

• Correct: formlist.html, form-list.html, form_list.html
• Incorrect: form list.html, form.list.html, folder.name

Unless you have multiple versions of the same document available at the same time, do not include version information in the name of the file:

• Correct: requirements.pdf
• Incorrect: requirements-fall-2007.pdf, 011507requirements.pdf, requirements_version_4.pdf, 10.08.07.pdf

Layout Standards - We anticipate a comprehensive redesign of all campus publications including Web pages by the first quarter of 2008. For this reason, it is important that existing content be converted into CSS-based templates as quickly as possible. This will allow for site-wide "look and feel" changes to be accomplished with the modification of just a few files.

• Whenever possible, use the provided templates as a basis for page composition.
• Do not embed CSS rules at the page level. If it is necessary to add CSS rules to these templates, please do so in the included local.css file located in the css folder nearest the page on which you are working, or add another stylesheet to the nearest CSS folder, and include the new sheet on local.css.
• Do not use tabular or image-dependent layouts.

Online Forms - All self-contained forms should be placed in the MCG Forms Repository. All interactive forms (post information into a database or send email) should be placed on the OACS server. Contact for assistance.

Updates - Content should be reviewed AT LEAST QUARTERLY to ensure that it meets the following criteria:

• current and accurate - Update or replace outdated information.
  • Do not keep multiple versions of the same file on the server.
    • Delete outdated versions.
    • Maintain the same filename to prevent broken links.
• serves a purpose - Remove content that is dated and/or no longer relevant.
• appropriately placed - The outside world should have little interest in our internal business processes. Please place information targeted for external audiences on the mcg.edu site, and use MyMCG for internal communication and file distribution.
  
• "orphaned" files - Files that have no links pointing to them should be removed. When you delete pages, check to see if you have left unlinked files behind too.