2009 March | Vortx Live Wire Blog

March, 2009

Prednisolone No Rx

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Prednisolone No Rx, If you're tired of wading through an inbox full of garbage to find legitimate emails from your customers, this quick fix will save the day.

If you're using an older version of AspDotNetStorefront you're probably overwhelmed with the junk mail coming through your built-in contact form on a daily basis.

You should upgrade. Prednisolone class, AspDotNetStorefront 8.0 is packed with great new features, enhanced security, and a completely redesigned Admin interface that will make your life a lot easier. Learn how to upgrade to AspDotNetStorefront 8.0, buy generic Prednisolone.

If you're not ready to make the change, here's how to activate an incredibly helpful piece of code that will prevent a whole lot of junk mail from getting to your inbox, Prednisolone No Rx.

In the latest AspDotNetStorefront upgrade, I found this lovely bit of JavaScript that when added to your contact page will supply form validation. Fast shipping Prednisolone, This means:


  • The email address field will require a valid email address format and all fields will require information.

  • If a required field is missing information, the form will not be submitted and an error message will pop up instructing the user to "Please complete entries."

  • If all fields contain information but the email address is invalid, it will pop up a message saying "Invalid Email."


This level of validation should be enough to stop those annoying spam-bots, but friendly enough that your customers will be able to complete the form accurately, ordering Prednisolone online, in order to get their legitimate email on its way.

Enabling JavaScript

First of all, Prednisolone long term, you should make sure that your topic pages in AspDotNetStorefront allow scripts. Out of the box, you cannot add JavaScript to a contact page. Prednisolone No Rx, If you try, and hit update at the bottom, your script will be erased.

To enable scripts:


  • Go to the root of your site (your Web folder)

  • Open the RadControls > Editor folder

  • Open the ConfigFile.xml file in your favorite text editor

  • search for "AllowScripts"


You should find this line of code:
false

Change the "false" to "true", canada, mexico, india, and upload this file to your site to the appropriate folder.

Now we should have access to add JavaScript code to topic pages through the HTML editor in admin. Prednisolone used for, Installing Form Validation

Log in to your admin site, and go to Misc > Topics. Search for the contact form in the left navigation, and open it up, Prednisolone without a prescription. Now, let's take a look at the source, Prednisolone No Rx. You should see an icon in the toolbar that looks something like this: <>. Clicking that will allow you to view the HTML that's creating the code. Doses Prednisolone work, Take a look at the code and see if you can find any <script> tags.


  • If you can, then chances are you're running a more recent version of AspDotNetStorefront that already has this fix applied.

  • If you don't see this, that means you're either on an older version, Prednisolone overnight, or you recently upgraded to 8.0 and this fix wasn't applied because it would have overwritten the changes you've made. Prednisolone No Rx, Luckily, you can apply this fix without getting rid of the changes you've made to the form out of the box.


In the HTML code, look for the opening <form> tag. It should look something like this:

Directly after this you should see an opening and closing <div> tag. Prednisolone results, Within this tag, copy the following block of code in:

Now, scroll to the bottom of the form, still in the HTML window, buy Prednisolone from mexico. The final piece of code that writes out the submit button will need to change. it should look something like this:

Change that line of code to this:

And that's it. Your submit button is now set to use the form validation javascript, Prednisolone No Rx. Prednisolone pictures, Click "update" to update the topic, and go take a look at your contact page on the front of your site.

Try to enter an invalid email format, or try to leave a field empty when you hit submit, is Prednisolone addictive. It should pop up an error window instructing you to complete the fields, or to enter a valid email. Prednisolone from canadian pharmacy, If it's not working, go back to your topic in admin and make sure your script is still there. If it's disappeared on you, you may need to restart your site, or reset the cache in admin to make sure the 'AllowScripts' setting is enabled. Double check the ConfigFile.xml on your server to make sure the AllowScripts setting is set to true.

Now that you've gotten your junk mail under control, you may want to change the formatting of the emails you receive from the form. Take a look at this post for instructions on changing the appearance of contact form emails.

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Clomid Price

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Clomid Price, Inbound links are possibly the most important part of SEO. In this article I'll define what a good inbound link is and what it takes to get them, Clomid pharmacy. Clomid dosage, A lot of people focus on metadata when they're talking about SEO. But metadata is only part of a successful SEO strategy, Clomid without a prescription. Purchase Clomid for sale, In fact, I've heard stories of horribly optimized sites ranking well for popular keywords solely because they had a lot of inbound links from popular sites, Clomid maximum dosage.

The right inbound links will make the difference between whether customers will find your site or not, Clomid Price. Clomid images, The Perfect Inbound Link

The perfect link requires two things:


  1. The right anchor text

  2. It comes from a page that ranks highly for a keyword relevant to your site.


Anchor text are the words used when a link is made on a website. In the following example, where can i buy cheapest Clomid online, Clomid australia, uk, us, usa, "AspDotNetStorefront Experts" is the anchor text:
AspDotNetStorefront Experts

When a search engine crawls a website and hits that link, it thinks "OK, Clomid alternatives, Clomid use, this site believes that www.vortx.com is full of AspDotNetStorefront Experts. I'll remember that."

After a long day of crawling, rx free Clomid, Clomid overnight, the search engine tallies up all the information it gathered and records how many different sites thought that www.vortx.com were AspDotNetStorefront experts. If there are enough, Clomid photos, Clomid coupon, when someone searches for "AspDotNetStorefront Experts" there's a chance they'll show Vortx.com in the search results. Clomid Price, It's a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea.

Now, Clomid interactions, if the page that links to you also ranks highly for the term "AspDotNetStorefront Experts" it's worth even more.

Who Should I Get a Link From?

You want a link from sites that rank highly for whatever keyword you want to target.

If you run a pool supply company, and get links from a popular pool filter manufacturer then your chance of ranking highly for that keyword increases. Likewise, if there is a popular pool maintenance blog and you get a link with the words "pool maintenance" in it, that will help your ranking for that term.

The Bottom Line

Inbound link promotion is a lot like real world networking.  Join the discussion at popular message boards and on popular blogs; when you leave a comment make sure you leave a link to your site with relevant anchor text.

Other things to try:


  • Talk to your clients and customers to see if you can get a link from their websites, Myspace or Facebook pages.

  • Offer to write articles for popular blogs in your field.


If you need help managing your inbound links, our Inbound Link Promotion Plan will help.

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Prednisolone Price

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Prednisolone Price, Recurring orders save your customers grief and provide a steady income for your business.

As you might imagine, the Vortx crew goes through a lot of coffee, buy Prednisolone from canada. A few years ago we decided to start buying our coffee online through a local vendor’s website. Buy Prednisolone online cod, Each month we go to their site and browse for the type, grind, size, Prednisolone used for, and quantity we always get, Prednisolone schedule, then re-enter our payment and shipping information.

Wouldn’t it be great if our coffee vendor was able to process our standard shipment on the same day each month without waiting for us to get online and order. They should really be making use of recurring orders, Prednisolone Price.

Why Recurring Orders?
In recent years automated payment plans have grown as a top consumer payment method, Prednisolone from canada. More than two-thirds of credit or debit card owners in 2005 paid at least one bill using automated payments and about half indicated they were interested in increasing that number. Prednisolone from canadian pharmacy, (MasterCard Recurring Payments—Awareness, Behavior, and Attitude Study, order Prednisolone from mexican pharmacy, September 2005)

And this doesn’t just apply to bill paying. Prednisolone online cod, Consumer comfort with automated bill paying translates to immediate familiarity with the idea when it’s proposed by a company selling goods instead of services. Prednisolone Price, Recurring orders of products on ecommerce sites is an increasingly popular and profitable trend.

Of course not every store sells the kinds of items that can be set up as recurring shipments.  Computer stores, for example, Prednisolone forum, couldn’t really take advantage of this strategy, Online buying Prednisolone hcl,   but certainly sites selling products that are consumed by their customers within a certain time frame should take a close look at how recurring orders can benefit them.

Not only are recurring orders more convenient for customers, they also guarantee sales, comprar en línea Prednisolone, comprar Prednisolone baratos, enhance customer loyalty, Prednisolone description, and provide a business with more opportunities to communicate with their customers and potentially increase sales on other products and services.

Getting Started with Recurring Orders
Here are a few tips and ideas on setting up a new recurring order program:


  1. Assess. Take a look at your inventory and determine which products could be recurring, discount Prednisolone. Do some research on repeat sales of products to the same customers, but don’t limit yourself to only those items that get a lot of returning buyers, Prednisolone Price. Maybe your shoppers would be re-ordering more if you had a recurring order program in place.

  2. Get the word out. Is Prednisolone safe, Make use of your mailing list to let your customers know about your new service. Don’t forget to include very clear calls to action.

  3. Educate your customers. It’s important to make sure your customers know that their information is secure and that they can end the subscription at any time, generic Prednisolone. Create a Terms and Conditions contract that protects both you and your customers.

  4. Prednisolone Price, Offer sign-up incentives. Promote the new program with a coupon good for 25% off of their first purchase if they sign up for a recurring order, or anything else that gives your customers a real incentive to sign up.

  5. Offer free exclusive-discount memberships. Invite your customers to join a special group of product “subscribers” that receive their standard order each month with occasional exclusive discounts on other products in your store.

  6. Brand it. Don’t just put some text on your page about membership - come up with something fun and creative to name the club and give it its own logo or icon.

  7. Sell it. Promote club membership and/or recurring orders at every opportunity. On your product pages, in your email newsletter, and on the phone.


How to use Recurring Orders in AspDotNetStorefront
ADNSF makes it pretty easy to implement a recurring order program for your customers. The ADNSF manual does an excellent job of explaining how to set up and process recurring payments and shipments.

Contact us if you need help managing recurring orders on your site, or if you want to implement any custom AspDotNetStorefront development.

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Zithromax For Sale

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

This article is the first in a series explaining some of the built in AspDotNetStorefront Zithromax For Sale, shopping cart page settings that many users don’t know about.

In this first installment, japan, craiglist, ebay, overseas, paypal, Order Zithromax no prescription, I’ll show you how to add product icons to your shopping cart.  I notice that many people don’t use this feature of ADNSF, perhaps only because it is turned off by default, buy Zithromax from mexico. Zithromax steet value, I like to see what I’m buying all the way through the checkout process. There’s something reassuring about a picture of what you’re buying looking back at you telling you it’s all gonna be okay as you enter your credit card information and push that 'buy' button, cheap Zithromax. Buy Zithromax without prescription, Cart Without Pics

Boooring.

To add product icon images to your shopping cart:


  1. Log into the admin side of your AspDotNetStorefront site and find the AppConfig Page(Configuration>Advanced>AppConfig Parameters in version 8.0).

  2. Type “pics” in the Config Search box on the left side of the screen.

  3. After hitting the search button you should see a short list of results, Zithromax dangers. Doses Zithromax work, You’re looking for the one called “ShowPicsInCart”.

  4. Hit the edit button and set that to “true”.

  5. Click the “Update” button and you should be good to go.

  6. You might need to hit the “reset cache” button to get the change to take effect.


Now your shopping cart should look like this:

Learn more about custom graphics for AspDotNetStorefront. Where can i order Zithromax without prescription. Zithromax price, coupon. Buy generic Zithromax. Zithromax dose. Zithromax blogs. Online buying Zithromax. Zithromax class.

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What are Canonical Issues and Duplicate Content?

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
Canonical Issues occur when a website has the same content appearing on multiple URLs. Duplicate content can negatively impact your search engine performance. Some search engines consider it a form of keyword stuffing; others have difficulty prioritizing multiple pages with the same content. Either way, both results lower your position in search results. By designating one piece of content canonical you tell search engines to ignore other versions of the same content. How Can I Test for Canonical Issues? Check your website at the following URLs: http://www.YOURSITE.com http://YOURSITE.com http://www.YOURSITE.com/default.aspx http://YOURSITE.com/Default.aspx If you can view your homepage from each of these URLs, you are hurting your search engine ranking. In the eyes of a search engine you are splitting up the value of your homepage. You're competing against yourself! Having a 'www' and 'non-www' version of a site is the most common way duplicate content is created. But that's just one way. Sometimes it's blatant, like the copy and paste of one page's content to a new page. Some times it's more subtle, like having a page with the same content but different querystring values in the URL. The Fixes:
  • Canonical Element Link - This is great for fixing a single canonical issue, like a homepage. Just add:
    <link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/page.html"/>
    to the head of a page. Learn more about this tag from Google's Matt Cutts.
  • Setup 301 Redirects via .htaccess - This is a better solution for fixing multiple pages at the same time.
Free, but only for Google:
  • Google Webmaster Tools - Set up an account and select if you prefer the "www" or "non-www" URL.
  • Google Sitemaps - Google will give a link that is in a Google sitemap preferences over pages that are not.
Managing duplicate content is an important part of a site's SEO efforts.  Learn more about how Vortx can help you improve your site with search engine optimization.

Purchase Celebrex

Friday, March 13th, 2009

Purchase Celebrex, Custom buttons add flavor and increase the impact of your site. But, firing up a graphics editor just to change some text gets old fast.

Here's how to make custom buttons which will reduce load times and give you the ability to easily edit each button text individually.

If making custom buttons yourself sounds a bit daunting, Celebrex trusted pharmacy reviews, check out our gallery of Custom AspDotnetStorefront buttons.

The core of this method uses a technique called “CSS Sprites”. A sprite is a single image consisting of a number of sub-images arranged in a regular pattern, Purchase Celebrex. Using that pattern, Celebrex no rx, you can display any single sub-image out of the main image.

[caption id="attachment_752" align="alignright" width="96" caption="fig. 1"][/caption]

In Figure 1 you can see a sprite that is made up of nine book icons. The icons are arranged in a grid, with each cell being 32 x 32 pixels, purchase Celebrex. Purchase Celebrex, Knowing this, we could select the book with the red arrow by selecting a 32 x 32 pixel block that starts 32 pixels from the left and 64 pixels from the top.

Sprites can be used in CSS with the width, height, background-image, Online buy Celebrex without a prescription, and background-position styles. You can take an element, specify our sprite as the background image, select our cell size by setting the width and height appropriately, and select the sub-image we want to display by adjusting the background-position style to move the sprite within our element, after Celebrex.

[caption id="attachment_753" align="alignleft" width="96" caption="fig. 2"]fig. 2[/caption]

The rest of the background sprite will be invisible except for the small “window” that can be seen through our element, as shown in Figure 2, Purchase Celebrex.

This might seem like a lot of hoops to jump through for a background image, Purchase Celebrex online no prescription, but if used properly it'll help speed load times.

Every image has to be loaded by the browser and incurs an initial delay to make the request, then the time to actually load the media. Each requests increases the demand on your server.

By using a sprite, buy Celebrex online no prescription, you can have the browser request a virtually unlimited number of images in a single request, reducing load and improving overall response time. Purchase Celebrex, This technique is commonly used by high traffic sites that have a lot of repeating elements.

We apply this technique to a very common situation: graphical buttons. Australia, uk, us, usa, While basic CSS allows for button styling, the limited nature of CSS styles confines us to simple boxes. To go beyond that, we need to use custom graphics. Unfortunately, low dose Celebrex, CSS doesn’t allow us to dynamically resize background images. Instead, we will provide a fixed set of background image sizes as a sprite, and apply the correct size as a CSS class, Purchase Celebrex.

First, let’s create a simple HTML button:


This gives us the following:

That’s a bit of a letdown. What is Celebrex, Let’s add a background.

[caption id="attachment_754" align="alignright" width="113" caption="fig. 3 - button.png"]fig.  3 Purchase Celebrex, [/caption]

Figure 3, button.png, is a sample sprite that consists of seven button backgrounds arranged one per row in decreasing size.

Each background is 34 pixels high, and each is 25 pixels narrower than the previous, ordering Celebrex online, ranging from 200 pixels down to 50.

Here's the CSS:

input[type="button"]
{
font-weight: bold;
color: Green;
background-image: url(button.png);
height: 34px;
width: 75px;
background-position: 0px 68px;
}

To turn the sprites into buttons we can use:

  1. First we set the background image to our sprite.

  2. Next we set the height and width of the element to the size of the “window” we want into our background image.

  3. Finally, we slide out the background image so that the second background, Get Celebrex, the one that’s 75 pixels wide, is showing.


The background-position style in the CSS indicates where you would like to position the background in your element, with the first value being the horizontal distance from the left edge and the second being the vertical distance from the bottom.

In our case, we want our background to start on the left edge (0px) and at the top-left corner of the second background from the bottom (68px), Celebrex no prescription. Let’s see how it turned out:

That’s not exactly what we were hoping for, but clearly our background is displaying. Now we need to modify the style to remove the existing button styling that is conflicting with our own:

input[type="button"]
{
font-weight: bold;
color: Green;
background-image: url(button.png);
height: 34px;
width: 75px;
background-position: 0px 68px;
line-height: 34px;
padding: 0px;
border-style: none;
background-color: Transparent;
}

We clear the padding, border, and background styles, and set the line height to match the height of our element so that the text is vertically centered, Purchase Celebrex. This now gives us the following:

That worked well for a 75 pixel wide button, Is Celebrex addictive, but what about all of those other backgrounds in the sprite.

Let’s tweak our CSS and create two additional styles for two different lengths:

input[type="button"]
{
font-weight: bold;
color: Green;
background-image: url(button.png);
height: 34px;
width: 75px;
background-position: 0px 68px;
line-height: 34px;
padding: 0px;
border-style: none;
background-color: Transparent;
}

Input[type="button"].b75
{
width: 75px;
background-position: 0px 68px;
}

Input[type="button"].b150
{
width: 150px;
background-position: 0px 170px;
}


We’ve removed the width-specific styles and placed them in their own style with a class name reflecting the width. In the case of the 150 pixel class, we’ve also moved the background position to display the fourth background from the bottom.

Now we can create a button for each class:



Now we have two sizes:

You can easily create styles for the remaining sizes, cheap Celebrex no rx. Purchase Celebrex, [caption id="attachment_759" align="alignright" width="113" caption="fig. 4"]fig. 4[/caption]

One last feature of sprites is that it’s easy to change the style of a button by switching out the background image.

For example, if we wanted to style disabled buttons as grayed out, we could use the sprite in Figure 4.

Then, by simply switching the background-image style, we can have the buttons display as we want:

input[type="button"]
{
font-weight: bold;
color: Green;
background-image: url(buttons.png);
height: 34px;
line-height: 34px;
padding: 0px;
border-style: none;
background-color: Transparent;
}

input[type="button"][disabled]
{
color: #CCCCCC;
background-image: url(buttons_disabled.png);
}

Input[type="button"].b75
{
width: 75px;
background-position: 0px 68px;
}

Input[type="button"].b150
{
width: 150px;
background-position: 0px 170px;
}


Now we can set the disabled attribute on the buttons:




Let’s take a look at them in action:

You can also easily add images for other states, like :hover and :active.

Looking for a faster and easier solution to custom buttons?  Check out our Custom AspDotnetStorefront buttons.

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Meet the Partners

Thursday, March 12th, 2009
We love our strategic partners and you're probably wondering why you should care who they are. Our relationship with our strategic partners means we can make your store faster, more customizable, and more profitable. Now, THAT should be something you care about. There are two main reasons why we work so hard to maintain top status with our Dev partners. Being a valued partner gives us access to expert advice and allows us to stay close to the brilliant minds that develop the tools we use. As partners we often have a chance to preview new technologies and help with feature development. To our partners we offer a unique "boots on the ground" perspective. We give feedback on how their product is being used in real life as opposed to the lab. Our partnerships with great technology companies also helps reassure clients that we are capable of successfully completing their projects. We worked hard to become a Platinum Partner with AspDotNetStorefront and we continue to work hard upholding that reputation. When AspDotNetStorefront customers need to find a developer for custom work, and they see us listed so prominently, few things speak higher that that recommendation. Our Developer Network Partners: AbleCommerce: Written from the ground-up to be developer friendly, AbleCommerce is a newer partner for us and we look forward to working with them more in the future. AspDotNetStoreFront: AspDotNetStorefront develops one of the most popular shopping carts on the market and they are one of our longest running Dev partners. AspDotNetStoreFront - Interprise Suite: A full storefront and CRM/ERP suite of tools, Interprise Suite offers a wide array of tools to not just manage your online store, but your whole business. Constant Contact: We've partnered with Constant Contact because they're the premiere email marketing service. Our connection with Constant Contact lets us custom tailor email solutions to help our clients succeed. Marketing Sherpa: Our connection as a charter member of Marketing Sherpa gives us access to case studies and tools we use to help our customers increase their site's traffic and profitability. Microsoft Certified Partner: Since Microsoft developed the .Net framework that many of our shopping carts run on, it only makes sense that we went to the source. Our status as a Microsoft Certified Partner gives us access to special training programs and toolkits that speed the development of .Net sites. Our connections with our partners means that whether you need a custom email marketing solution, a unique shopping cart mod., or custom graphics, we have the skills and connections to do the job right.

Persuasive Design

Monday, March 9th, 2009
Persuasive Design We know that persuasion works. We’ve all been talked into doing something that we weren’t sure about only a moment ago. Let’s take what we’ve learned in ‘real life’ and apply the four most common persuasion techniques to web design. Reciprocity – that nagging feeling that once you’ve been given something, you’re obligated to give something back. This tactic is used with free gifts all the time – give away a freebee and a customer becomes more likely to return the ‘favor’ with their business and/or trust. Think about swapping a freebee for something as simple as an email address – it’s free and both parties benefit! Some ideas of ‘freebee’ giveaways:
  • A low cost item with a high perceived value
  • Advice, tips, white papers, industry specific ‘secrets’ to help your clients and give them a ‘taste’ of the value you can bring to their project
  • A consultation or low-cost service that you provide
Social Proof – the feeling of comfort that people associate with following the ‘crowd.’ If others are buying something, purchasing a service or thinking a particular way it is easier for someone to justify making the same decision. This becomes even more powerful when the group is large and similar to the prospect. People want to spend time where others are gathered – a club is no fun when it’s empty! Ways to incorporate social proof:
  • Add testimonials to your site – ‘real people’ addressing the concerns of a potential customer do a better job of convincing than you ever could.
  • Include social markers that show others valuing your site, space, information and product. These could be Twitter, digg, or stumbleupon badges that display the number of followers you have, Facebook links detailing your community, and other social networking cues that ensure that your visitors know that those before them found something valuable enough to return to.
Liking You – their feeling that you could be their friend – or that you’re at least like that friendly guy down at the local hardware store. They can – and do - trust you for advice and information. Build on that and you’ll go far! Make them like you:
  • Add ‘humanistic touches’ to your site and allow your personality (or the one you want to present) to show through the hard exterior of the site. Think about your visitors – who are they? Once you’ve established that, make it your goal to make them like (and even trust) you!
  • Is your product line light, fun and informal? Yes? Incorporate this into the copy, the images, and the little graphic touches in your site. Perhaps add a post-it note with some info that the visitor will find interesting. How about including some contractions (we’ll, you’re, etc), conversational style, and interesting descriptive words to your copy?
  • Are you looking to show a professional, caring atmosphere? Faded graphics with a soft feeling, high quality photography of genuine, caring people, emphasized quotes from caregivers and reassuring text can go a long way to portray this without having to explicitly share your mission statement.
Scarcity – the fear that something won’t be available when you want or need it drives sales in every market. “Limited time offer!” and “Call while supplies last!” are two phrases that we’ve all heard before. If someone is unsure that they’ll be able to find that particular product again at that price it can be very difficult for them to abandon the product – and therefore your site. Some ideas for using scarcity on your site:
  • Create a feeling of scarcity with promotions that have deadlines.
  • Include a description of your buying process that lets customers know that certain products are only available ‘while supplies last.’
  • Use sales to create a sense of urgency - ‘on sale this week only.’
  • Emphasize the difference between your product and others – yours is rare, special, different, and much more valuable because of it!
Persuasive design isn't about talking people into buying things they don't want; rather it's about focusing your site on your customers and answering their questions and allaying their fears before they even realize they have them. Assure your customers that they can trust you and your products or services and you'll be one step closer to making that conversion.

Navigation is Best When It’s Invisible

Monday, March 9th, 2009
Ever been to a site where it was so easy to find what you were looking for that it seemed to be reading your mind ? You needed a pair of socks and a belt, to check the shipping policy, to check affiliate possibilities, or to gather some information about the rare llama yarn that was used in those socks – and it was all there, right at your fingertips, no hassle. If so, you’ve experienced invisible navigation – the kind you don’t notice, but takes you everywhere you want to go, right away! Chances are good that any site that fits this description employed many of the different types of navigation explained below. Previously, I've offered Tips for Simple Navigation and Types of Navigation.  Here I'll be describing the Styles of Navigation. [caption id="attachment_582" align="alignright" width="100" caption="Vertical Navigation"]Vertical Navigation[/caption] Vertical Navigation is most commonly seen as a left navigation bar.
  • Pro: generally allows significant scalability without breaking the design, is common and well understood by many visitors, and uses space efficiently by taking advantage of the monitor’s larger width than height ratio.
  • Con: can force very important information below the fold as more and more elements are added to the top sections of the nav bar.
[caption id="attachment_577" align="alignright" width="100" caption="Horizontal Navigation"]Horizontal Navigation[/caption] Horizontal Navigation is most commonly used with top navigation bars and footers.
  • Pro: all information is placed on the same line and isn’t pushed down when new elements are added, commonly one of the first elements that is seen by visitors because of its high position on the page and the popularity of using it for high quality links.
  • Con: not easily scalable.  The finite amount of space from the left to the right of the page allows just so many characters and greatly limits the quantity and length of links possible.
For Hierarchical Systems, many navigation styles have been used to provide a visible representation of the relationship between elements. [caption id="attachment_578" align="alignright" width="100" caption="Dropdown Menu"]Dropdown Menu[/caption] Flyout or Dropdown Menus are generally used with vertical navigation styles with a menu that flies out to the right of the moused over element.   Dropdown menus are used with a horizontal navigation style.
  • Pro: flyouts and dropdowns can provide easy, intuitive access to sub categorized information without taking up page real estate or requiring an extra click.
  • Con: depending on the implementation, flyout and dropdown menus can decrease accessibility and be non-functional if, for example, javascript is disabled or the necessary flash plugin isn’t installed.  Large flyouts and dropdowns can cover a significant portion of the screen
[caption id="attachment_585" align="alignright" width="100" caption="Accordion Navigation"]Accordian Navigation[/caption] Accordion Navigation is used in a vertical navigation style.  The sub elements become visible (traditionally through a sliding motion) below the selected element upon either mouseover or click and will push the lower elements down on the page.  This can be accomplished through a variety of methods, though most commonly JavaScript, CSS and Flash are used.
  • Pro: hide more specific information until it is directly requested, thereby reducing clutter on the page.
  • Con: can confuse some users if they are looking for a link that “was just there,” but no longer appears because the accordion is open to a different set of options.  Accordions can also significantly increase the length of a navigation bar and affect the design (overflow or force the length of the nav menu to grow huge).
[caption id="attachment_586" align="alignright" width="100" caption="Reductive Navigation"]Reductive Navigation[/caption] Reductive Navigation allows a user to narrow down the products that they see by a set of factors (long tie, spotted, etc).
  • Pro: provides the user a quick way to narrow down the possibilities to relevant products only, very elegant solution that doesn’t take much, if any, extra page real estate to implement, looks clean throughout the navigation process.
  • Con: can easily confuse less experienced web users (who don’t understand that in order to see ‘all items’ that they will need to remove the parameters they have set by choosing specific categories),  Search Engine Optimization on a site with reductive navigation requires a significant amount of extra work to enable search engines to effectively crawl and rank the pages of the site.
[caption id="attachment_588" align="alignright" width="100" caption="Embedded Links"]Embeded Links[/caption] Embedded Links are text links within a block of text.
  • Pros: give the user an opportunity to click on a term to learn more about it, convenient and intuitive for users who are reading
  • Cons: don’t stand out, can’t rely on embedded links to be used by anyone other than someone spending time reading everything on your site (rare)
[caption id="attachment_589" align="alignright" width="100" caption="Graphic Buttons"]Graphic Buttons[/caption] Icons & Graphics are links that appear in the form of graphics: buttons, photos, etc.
  • Pros: get user’s attention and can be extremely obvious that they are clickable (think about glossy buttons)
  • Cons: accessibility can be a problem if alt tags are not properly used, load-time can be affected if graphics are not properly web optimized or are too large.
[caption id="attachment_591" align="alignright" width="100" caption="Sitemap"]Sitemap[/caption] Site Map is a page that provides links to every page on the site in the content area.
  • Pros: excellent tool for SEO, can be useful for the rare user that likes to see an alphabetical listing of the pages on your site
  • Cons: can’t be used as any sort of main navigation system as the multitude of links and lack of useful organization would quickly drive users away.
[caption id="attachment_592" align="alignright" width="100" caption="Tabs"]Tabs[/caption] Tabs provide an excellent symbol of a common physical organizational system, where the selected tab is set apart from the unselected using color, shape, and/or size.
  • Pros: extremely intuitive for users, can add quality texture to a site, and pros from Icons & Graphics
  • Cons: poor scalability as they are generally used on horizontal navigation bars, and cons from Icons & Graphics
[caption id="attachment_594" align="alignright" width="100" caption="Breadcrumb Trails"]Breadcrumb Trails[/caption] Breadcrumb Trails provide a visual path that shows the path that the visitor took in order to arrive at the current page.
  • Pros: answers the “Where am I” and “Where have I been” questions very effectively, retracing steps is simple, any page on the path is only one click away, excellent secondary navigation system
  • Cons: shouldn’t be used as a main navigational system as it is insufficient for navigating the entire site.
[caption id="attachment_595" align="alignright" width="100" caption="Search"]Search[/caption] Search tools allow users to enter search terms and forgo traditional navigation methods.
  • Pros: provides an excellent tool for users who know exactly what they are looking for, reduces necessary clicks to find a specific product or information, excellent secondary navigational system
  • Cons: shouldn’t be used as a main navigational system on the vast majority of sites
[caption id="attachment_596" align="alignright" width="100" caption="Step Navigation"]Step Navigation[/caption] Step Navigation (‘Pager’) allows users to step through pages when all of the elements can’t be displayed on one page together.
  • Pros: very common and therefore intuitive for users, allows users to ‘be in control’ of the display, provides structure when there are too many elements to list on one page, excellent secondary navigational system
  • Cons: shouldn’t be used as a main navigational system on the vast majority of sites
Mix and Match The key to choosing a navigation style is not choosing just one - the best sites provide a navigation style for everyone: For the person who doesn’t know exactly what they are looking for, but really likes to see it in action, a strong graphic and icon navigation on the home page will work wonders.  For the shopper who’s in it for speed and knows the exact product name, the search tool will be invaluable.  The top navigation contains high interest links and the scalable left navigation contains category names.  Breadcrumb trails provide a rear-facing roadmap. Take a look at your site.  How many of these navigation styles do you use? What benefits or costs have you experienced that weren't mentioned here?

Coder’s Corner – Developer Tools You Can’t Live Without

Monday, March 9th, 2009
In an earlier post, Ryan posted a few links to some tools to help you increase productivity. Here is a similar list of development related tools that I simply cannot live without. In development, especially for AspDotNetStorefront, there are two tools which you absolutely must have in order to do any kind of extensive development in the .Net Framework.
  1. Visual Studio Express Edition Visual Studio is an editor that will help you make modifications to any pages throughout your site. Visual Studio Express is absolutely free, as it is a lightweight version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. Visual Studio has many different Express options which are geared toward different types of development. Depending on what you're familiar with, you may choose a different version. If you're not sure, choose the Visual Web Developer Express edition.
  2. SQL Server Express SQL Server Express is also free, as it is a lightweight version of SQL Server. With SQL Server Express, you can set up a new database, perhaps a copy of your AspDotNetStorefront database, and configure your application to use the new database on your local machine. This way, you can make changes to your site using Visual Studio, and you can see the changes locally, instead of making changes directly to your live site.
Beyond those two must-haves, there are several other tools I use on a daily basis:
  • Firefox Generally, I do all of my initial skinning and development in Mozilla Firefox. We always test in all the top browsers before releasing code into the wild, but Firefox is my favorite browser to work in because of all of the great tools available.
  • Firebug Firebug is a Firefox extension that helps enormously with debugging Javascript, CSS, and HTML issues. Because this is an add to to Firefox, you can easily use this tool to check errors and issues directly on the site you're browsing.
  • Web Developer Toolbar
  • This nifty Firefox add-on is something I end up using every day, on every project. Installing this will add a toolbar to Firefox that provides a multitude of options. It also comes with handy keyboard shortcuts to enable and disable certain features. One of my favorites is the CSS View Style Information feature. You can activate this by selecting it from your toolbar, or by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Y on your keyboard. When activated, a red border will appear around certain elements on the page, and the red border will follow your mouse movement. Once you've highlighted an area you want more detail on, clicking will open up a pane in the bottom of your browser window and give you all of the CSS styles that are associated with that element. Another great tool with this add-on is the resize window feature, which allows you to resize your browser window to different dimensions with a single click. You can set your own dimensions so you can always have the dimensions you like to test in readily available in a dropdown menu.
These tools allow efficient AspDotNetStorefront Development and Customization for your online store.