Site Name: QSoft Guide
Site URL: http://www.qsoftguide.com
This past weekend saw the launch of a website I’ve been working on for several months. QSoftGuide.com is the website for a long-running and well-respected resource in the arena of quality and process improvement. More than just a catalog of software, books and other publications, the Guide aims to help decision makers in the realm of business and manufacturing learn about the tools, techniques and experts that can help them implement QA strategies.
QSoft Guide was purchased last year by IDEACore, who I’ve been working for since last summer. The previous guide site suffered from a dated design and was locked into a proprietary, hosted commerce system that made maintaining the catalog problematic. IDEACore aimed to bring the guide into the 21st Century and free it from the constraints it suffered under.
This project required extensive work from me in developing the technological backbone of the site. My goal was to convert it from a clunky site that was difficult to manage to a flexible site that was easy to update on an ongoing basis.
Most of the work required PHP/MySQL coding. Work in the cart also involved making use of the Smarty template engine for PHP, including template editing as well as a few custom-coded Smarty plugins.
Skills Employed
- Installed and evaluated various eCommerce solutions.
- Finally installed X-Cart as the new eCommerce solution (cart).
- Wrote custom scripts to move data exported from the proprietary cart (in an Excel spreadsheet) to the X-Cart tables.
- Installed and evaluated various content management systems.
- Finally installed b2evolution as our primary Content Management (CM) system.
- Coded various scripts which are utilized on the site’s index page to bring content from the cart and CM into focus on the front page.
- Implemented a managed database solution for allowing a repository of downloadable software demo files along with a demographic and contact info collection system used when demo downloads are requested.
- Wrote a unified search script that could accept search words and return results from the cart, CM and demo repository. The search words can be one or more words or quoted phrases. The search is capable of AND/OR logic, although this was disabled in the interest of keeping the search form compact.
- Coded various bridging scripts to link items in the cart to articles in the CM. This allows QSoft editors to easily expand product pages to display links to related: articles, reviews, consultant entries, demo downloads and more.
- Coded special reports to give the QSoft editors better reporting about the contents of the cart.
As with past IDEACore projects, the graphical and aesthetic design, including the new compass logo for the site, was created by Brianna Roberts.