LJG Partners

When developing the website for new homebuilder, TRIPointe Homes, LJG created administration tools that would allow all dynamic content for the site to be easily managed by the site administrator. The tools used for text editing are similar to a word processor, a non-technical user can easily find and edit the page he or she wants to work with, and convenient features make content creation quick and easy. For TRIPointe we took this standard user-friend content management system to another level with increased functionality.

Often with administration tools, it is difficult to determine how different pieces of information behave. For instance, there may be a “title” and a “name” field and it isn’t clear what content each should contain. To remove this confusion, we added popup hints (see below) that describe what effect changing certain values will have on the display of the site. These hints are displayed by mousing over and/or selecting an input box.

For TRIPointe’s site, we also created a feature for realtime, drag-and-drop reordering of items using Javascript and AJAX. Additionally, some items are displayed in sublists. As a result, drag-and-drop reordering of “lists of lists” was added to facilitate intuitive handling of this information.

Waiting for full pages to load for each small action can drastically slow down productivity. To decrease this delay, we’ve used AJAX in various sections to quickly load input forms and update the list of information once submitted,
all without having to navigate between pages.

LJG also added a few methods to facilitate straight-forward maintenance of images related to various parts of the web site. One of these is the drag-and-drop reordering, as mentioned before, to ensure images are displayed in the proper order. Another is the use of lightboxes to view images in the admin console. This allows the site administrator to easily verify images without navigating away from the current page. Additionally, where
necessary, the admin console will resize images and generate thumbnails as images are added.

On some pages of the site, images are displayed with rounded corners or drop shadows. Instead of requiring each image to be modified, we used a sophisticated technique of image overlays. This means that when a rectangular image is uploaded to the admin console via the public portal, the image appears to have rounded corners and/or a drop shadow applied. The image has remained unaltered, so the image can be used for other purposes without the altered design if needed.