2 Site structure
The structure of a Smallsite Design site is fairly basic, while still providing a lot of flexibility.
site Domain └─ subsite Has own home page and navigation └─ category Group of related articles └─ article Where the real content goes
Subsites△
Subsites are like a self-contained part of a site with their own navigation and home page.
main Main subsite └─ main Default category, with same ID as its subsite └─ h-main Home page, with the subsite ID preceded by h-
Subsites and default categories are not directly accessible by a path, but through their home page, such as /art/h-main/, though the main home page has the special path of /
Generally, if a site is for a single purpose, there will only be the main subsite. However, if the site covers areas that might attract different target audiences, whether that be in the topics covered, or by differences in depth of treatment, then extra subsites may be included. That is because they offer their own home page and navigation, making it easier for visitors to stay navigating within the same type of content.
buying-land Buying land subsite └─ buying-land Default category └─ h-buying-land Home page
Categories△
Categories are a collection of related articles, and have a page that lists them all.
To get a list of all the non-default categories in a subsite, the path is like that for a single category, but using the subsite ID instead, such as /cat/buying-land/, even though that would appear to be what we would use to access the default category, if we could.
The order of articles listed on the category page may be alphabetical, reverse alphabetical or numeric. When numeric, the position number is listed before each headline in the list, but also in the heading of the article page itself. Articles of a numerically-listed category also have links to the previous and next articles in the sequence in a special navigation bar at the bottom of the article.
Articles in a non-default category also have a special navigation bar, with a link to the category listing page, preceded by a Categories link to the subsite's category list. Also included are subsite category and article totals. If the article order is numeric,
Articles△
Articles are the repository of the information the site is providing. There are several special types that help build a useful site.
Article IDs are derived from their headlines, prefixed with their type identifier, except for special subsite articles which use their subsite ID instead.
| # | Type | Prefix | ID from | Description | See |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | General | a- | Headline | General purpose with sections and subsections | General article |
| 2 | Navigation | n- | Headline | Navigational pages, due to allowing cards, catalog or an image gallery. Limited content otherwise | Navigation article |
| 3 | Procedure | p- | Headline | Procedures and instructions with steps, substeps, and learning notes | Procedure article |
| 4 | Test | t- | Headline | Simple multiple-choice questions for helping readers gauge their understanding of a topic. Score-dependent comments can be added. Results are shown, but not retained | Test article |
| 5 | Contact | c- | Subsite ID | Various types of contact information, including a web email form | Contact page |
| 6 | Glossary | g- | Subsite ID | List of special terms used in the subsite | Glossary page |
| 7 | Policies | l- | Subsite ID | List of the policies applying to use of the subsite or its services, including privacy | Policies page |
Non-main subsites may be set to use the main subsite's glossary or policies pages.
Locales△
Locales are a combination of a language and the region where it is spoken, but may include a script which is the character set in which it is written.
Smallsite Design uses locales rather than just languages to allow dates and numbers to be formatted correctly for the locale's region. For example, the US version of English, as a locale of en-us, formats dates in month-day-year order, whereas most other English-speaking countries format dates in day-month-year order. English in European countries, such as Germany with a locale of en-de, still use their convention of commas (,) for the decimal separator, rather than the full-stop (.) of traditional English-speaking countries. There is a special en-150 for continental Europe that obeys these formatting rules.
With some languages, the spoken word can be written in different character sets called
While the texts for subsites and categories should render correctly for all enabled locales, some articles may still be in the process of having their texts translated for some locales, and so will render the page in a locale that is available. A highlighted message under their heading will indicate the intended locale and which one they are actually rendered with. All links on the page still use the original locale to maximise locale continuity while traversing the site.
If a site offers multiple locales, the locale that a page is rendered in can be changed by clicking on a link in the Locales subsection of the Links section at the bottom of pages. Once that selection is made, all links will include that locale to maintain site locale continuity.
To ensure consistent use in its filenames, Smallsite Design exclusively uses all lowercase with - separators for locales, even though they may be shown with some capitalisation and _ separators elsewhere. This is allowed by the IETF RFC 5646 standard as long as it is used consistently.