Title: TAMU Sigmas

Author: jrojr

Date: August 24, 2005 9:47:40 PM or Wed, 24 August 2005 21:47:40

Summary: 

TAMUSigmas is a community based website for african-american students and professionals.

Body: 

The TAMUSigmas.org project is a complete overhaul of the TAMU Sigma chapter website. The original website was static in nature, making it difficult for others to update as the years went by and webmasters of varying skill were held responsible for its content. In addition, the HTML coding was so poor that it was impossible for search engines to index the content of the site, thereby relegating the website to low traffic and low visibility. The chapter was also interested in being able to communicate through the website by way of an internet message board, and the capability to do this did not exist with the current setup.

A solution to all these problems was found when I discovered the Xaraya content management system. An added (and not to mention necessary) benefit of this open source CMS is that it is developed from the ground up to be standards-compliant. There is strict separation of style and presentation, which aids those interested in designing templates for the CMS from scratch.

Due to the aforementioned Xaraya characteristics, I was able to create a tableless layout for TAMUSigmas.org. Elements in the layout were positioned solely with CSS, resulting in a design that could very easily be changed without having to completely rewrite the HTML.

In addition to a message board, the site also features a news section, an events section, a history timeline, photo galleries, a directory of links, and membership registration. All members are able to contribute content to the various sections; the roles and privileges modules in Xaraya are used to manage member access to these functions.

Notes: 

Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated — Alpha Lambda Alpha Chapter

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