About This Site
This site was originally built with Adobe Dreamweaver, using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) XML data arrays, and Spry widgets. It is presently being rebuilt with components in Flash, with ActionScript. I am also investigating the use of FLEX, which supports ActionScript, CSS and XML. These technologies would allow me to use the content of the present site without changes. I can get everything running properly, without touching the visual design until I'm ready. Oh, the joy of standards!
Cascading Style Sheets allow web builders to separate content from style. Spry widgets are wee Java apps that do things like display database content in pre-specified locations on the page, serve as buttons, or produce cool effects. They work within a "next generation" (Web 2.0) web development paradigm. Unfortunately, Spry widgets do not perform well across browsers, and this site has many problems. FLEX is another framework for web applications, based on an open-source development platform called Eclipse. It uses an AJAX-like language called MXML, and can also be scripted using other common web languages.
There are many types of widgets (or components) made for Ajax, Flex and other Web 2.0 frameworks. Object-oriented frameworks like these make simple, useful, re-usable snippets of code, called design patterns, which allow visual designers like me (who usually only make prototypes, and leave the ready-to-publish code to programmers) to easily understand, modify and use these pre-coded widgets.
Non-compliant browsers (usually older browsers) do not work well with the Spry widgets, and may not display the navigation buttons correctly. Even compliant ones may show display anomalies with Spry on the page. Internet Explorer, for instance, handles spacing very differently from all the other browsers. If you're viewing this page in IE7, you'll notice the problem when you pull down the portfolio menu. Although the menu is usable (barely) it looks ugly because of spacing problems. The Flex re-do is in progress on a parallel site, and when it's ready, it will be published. You can read more about the technology and history of this site at Kate'sWork Blog.