Web Applications

PHP MySQLA web application may consist of:
Content management systems
Shopping carts
Booking systems
Mailing list managers
Guest books
Blogging systems
etc.

Our primary development tools for web applications consist of Php, MySql and Ajax.

What is a "Web Application"?

You may be wondering what is the difference between a website and a website application, here is where we will give you the break down and make sense out of the jargon. In order to fully understand its meaning it is relatively important to understand a little bit of the webs progression over the last few years. Although web applications have been used now for many years we have seen a considerable rise in demand for them over the last couple of years.
In the early days most small scale and even some large scale websites would be what we call "static", this terms refers to a type of website where each page is individually created using html, the pages would then be uploaded to the web server and accessed individually over the internet. Although this metod is still widely used it can have some disadvantages for both the client and the developer. In order for these web pages to be edited they would have to be downloaded and the html page would then be edited. Editing an html page in most circumstances can only be done by those who are familliar with the html language otherwise serious disruptions can be made to the page sometimes rendering it unusable. For this reason website owners would often be reliant on web developers to carry out even the minor of web page addions and modifications, are you starting to see the problem for the website owner?
Additionally to the issues discussed above non css html static websites could also cause havoc for developers, suppose a static website contained 80 web pages and the client suddenly decided to change part of the colour scheme or to have a re-brand, this would involve downloading all 80 pages and editing them individually before re-uploading them to the server, alot of work for what might be a minor modification.

Now we reap the bennifits of the web application!

A good example of a web application for the developer:
We could build a single template file which will be used gloablly accross the website regardless of the amount of pages, the page content would then be pulled in dynamically into a defined area within that template seperating the design aspect from the page content, by re-deisigning that one template we could create a global re-design accross every page within that website, no longer would we have to update all those eighty pages but just one single page to account for all subsequent pages.

Ok but what is the advantage for the website owner?:
Firstly your web services bill would be cheaper as the required work  and labour hours would not amount to the same as that if the site was static.
Secondly remember the statement " the page content would then be pulled in dynamically into a defined area"?
A web application could seperate the design from the content, the content could be stored in a seperate database system, each link on your website would reference a particular record within that database and deliver its content directly into the website template. Now that your content is stored safely away in a database, updating the content and web pages is simply updating the content stored in the database NOT in the web pages so no longer can the html be damaged and cause conflicting errors on your web site.
Here's the good part, we can now build you a simple interface allowing you to securely login to the database and update the copy through a simple form-based layout, no longer would the client need any web skills in order to safely manage the pages and the content, you are now fully able to keep the site content fresh and up to date yourself and wave goodbye to web service bills every time you want to change a paragraph.

 This is just a small example of what a website application can do for you, see our content management system page for a more in-depth description of the application described in this page. Alternatively contact WebSpaceNine to discuss what kind of web application we can reccomend for your website.

A small handfull of sites that use web applications:
Google
YouTube
Myspace
Ebay
Argos
Itunes
and WebSpaceNine of course!