Content design
The Immediacy Content Management System (CMS) is designed to
enable rapid site development and deployment.
Immediacy allows designers to create templates in any design or
editing tool of their choice. The designer can designate areas of
the page as editable, and others as non-editable by the insertion
of simple XML tags at certain points in the template. Typically,
converting a standard page design into an Immediacy template takes
minutes. Any number of templates may be used across a site and its
sections. They provide a consistent look and feel for a site, and
allow subsequent editing to take place without merging the content
with the design.
Separating presentation from content
Content within the Immediacy CMS is stored in a central
repository as XML and XHTML. This allows re-purposing of content
for different platforms. By separating presentation from content,
content can be re-used effectively in different settings, using
different templates for a different audience.
It is straightforward to create a completely new visual design
or style for a site or its sections without losing content. Layout
is governed by templates and cascading style sheets (CSS). More
than one style sheet may be created and users with permission can
select the style sheet that they wish to use. The font styles
themselves are applied to the page using a drop down list, which
also provides a preview of the styles in the same way as Microsoft
Word®.
Switchable templates
These allow content to be re-formatted by changing the
underlying page template. A good example of this capability is the
'Text Only' template which provides high contrast page views
automatically when selected by the user. This capability can be
extended to a wider range of requirements such as delivering
content to different devices where switching can be driven
automatically through device/browser detection.
Template dropdown in the Immediacy
Editor
Multiple style sheets
These allow users to use different style sheets to change the
look and feel of pages while retaining a consistency on the
website. Style sheets may change the background, the choice of
fonts and a whole host of pre-set features that form part of style
sheet capabilities.
Style sheet dropdown in the Immediacy
Editor
Mandatory accessibility switch
With the increasing pressure to make
websites more accessible, it is vital that site
developers and publishers have the mechanisms for enforcing and
policing accessibility guidelines and best practice. A global
administrator 'switch' allows site-wide enforcing of 'alt' tags and
long descriptions for images, summaries for tables and titles for
hyperlinks.
Content reuse
The Immediacy architecture allows a page to be created either as
one whole piece of content, or split into numerous 'editable
areas'. These can be treated as objects and incorporated into, and
amalgamated, to form new pages.
The shared content plug-in replicates content from a content
area (or element) one page, 'a source page', to another
'destination' page. This approach means that content is edited in
one place only and that any changes on the source page are
automatically updated to the destination pages independently of the
other content that may exist on those pages or the templates and
style-sheets used.