| David Troxell - Encourager Software 2006-03-30, 6:55 pm |
| StrategyOnline - Clarion Third Party Best Dressed rated
Evaluation Date - March 30, 2006
Complete Best Dressed - Worst Dressed List at:
http://tinyurl.com/24gca
StrategyOnline (http://www.strategyonline.co.za/)
Excellent Product Sub-Menus with Informative and Diverse RSS Feed
Great menuing, good product summary - excellent download page
At first glance, you think, nice site, good design, displays well...
Then, you start to look under the hood, and realize, this is a first class
site, excellent design, displays extremely well!
Gary James of StrategyOnline has definitely hit one out of the ballpark with
his updated company website to compliment his recent departure from CapeSoft
to full-time concentration to his growing company software line and
StrategyOnline Partner program!
His pull-down javascript menu system works very well, is easy to read, and
navigate. Matter of fact, this next statement will be my only criticism
during this review of the site. Javascript based menu systems are more the
norm than the exception, but it never hurts to give at least one alternative
to someone using a browser without javascript enabled - something as simple
as a site map link somewhere on the home page NOT in the javascript menu
system, enough said!
Because StrategyOnline offers both commercial software releases, (Products),
and Clarion Third Party add-ons (Tools), the company distinguishes them by
the Products and Tools Menu choices.
Next is a personal favorite of mine, Product or Tools Sub-Menus - At all
times, you still see the Main Menu choices, but let's examine a Tools sub-
menu.
General Buy now Downloads Documentation ScreenShots History
Click on each of the sub-menu items - whether it's reading about the tool,
buying it, download information, screen shots, history, - everything is well
laid out, simple to follow, and extremely well documented - no information
overload.
Download information
J-Flow 1.65 - 24 Mar 2006 - 2.4 MB (Clarion 5.5G - 6.3 / ABC & Legacy)
Simple, elegant, and covers the bases!
Buying information
How do I buy J-Flow? - Gary launches into a very simple explanation of how
his tool interacts with the ActiveX control built by Lassalle Technologies
called AddFlow, bundle pricing, etc. He takes the confusion out of the
buying equation!
Let's move on to his Download Library -
This not only shows ALL his Tools and Products Download information on one
page, BUT more interestingly enough, hints at some of his future Tools. :-)
Add to all this, a very informative and diverse RSS Feed/Blog area, and
ProgressTracker (online bug reporting system), well test driving the latest
edition of StrategyOnline is a very pleasurable experience - of course, test
driving James' Land Rover Defender 110 would be immeasurably better, but
such is life :-)
Other recent additions to the Top Rated - 2nd Tier ranking include:
Auratek International (ClarionTools)(http://www.clariontools.com/)
and
Data Equity (http://www.dataequity.com/)
It is sites like these that will eventually redefine what a Top Rated - 2nd
Tier should be.
Both sites are web design based on Joomla! (http://www.joomla.org/) - Open
Source Content Management Systems.
Content Management web design is becoming very popular and includes a
variety of web design techniques that not only help with maintenance but can
provide a very resourceful tool for those who want to launch a new site or
completely redo a old tired web design that is obviously very outdated.
AND seriously consider adding this tool to your web design arsenal!
Product Description - EZRound, MFG - LANSRAD
Internet Link - http://www.ezround.com/
"Create Rounded Corner HTML Tables and Forms with Drop Shadows and other
special effects in seconds!
NEW! Looking for a single slice? You can use the new EZSingle option to
create a unsliced version of your design for use as a banner, button or as
the background for a FORM, DIV or TABLE, that is easy too."
Charles Edmonds of LANSRAD, inventor of EZRound is constantly finding new
ways to help web designers take EZRound to the next level of usefulness.
Consider his latest EZRound tutorial (http://www.ezround.com/centered/)
"Making it easy to center all the pages (regardless of what browser is being
used to view the website)
Adding a rounded container that surrounds the entire web page to all pages."
While he centers a lot of the tutorials around NetObjects Fusion web design,
a lot of his advice can be adapted for most any web design.
RSS Feeds - Blogs - Great way to post your latest product announcements, and
let others know what your company is currently developing. Some Clarion
related companies that offer RSS Feeds include Auratek International
(ClarionTools), BG Softfactory, Data Equity, Encourager Software, Riebens
Systems, SoftVelocity, solid software, and StrategyOnline.
Here's a tip I gained from the StrategyOnline blog about RSS Readers - the
latest Opera (http://www.opera.com/) browser (completely free now) has a
built in RSS Reader and I can tell you by personal experience, it works VERY
well, and is easy to use and manage.
David
--
From David Troxell - Product Scope 32 PRO - Encourager Software
Email - mailto:C3P_Remove_@_Me_encouragersoftwar
e.com
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