AIR

The name AIR comes from the principles behind the application itself. AIR is a lightweight, transparent, and low-friction development environment ...ok so there are a lot of metaphors in there, put another way: AIR is a small development environment that can be customised to match a client's needs, effortlessly integrates with other applications, and due to its simple design, allows for even complex solutions to be developed in a short timescale - like this website; from design to deployment in 8 days.

Visual management of content

One of the key features of the AIR environment is its visual interface for managing content.

Visual editor

The AIR environment's built-in content management system (CMS) allows the user to visualise content in its true form whilst they edit it. Users can even navigate the website whilst in the editing environment. This method of editing saves time and helps creativity. Uniquely the AIR environment uses only (X)HTML (no Javascript) which ensures you can use the editor in any browser. When changes are made to content, those changes are recorded as page history. A page can be reverted to any previous historic state (unlimited undo/redo support). Before a page is reverted to its previous state, the user can review how it previously looked, and also see the differences between its content and the current page's content. Show content differences Being able to view the differences between content changes is especially useful when a web site is multilingual. Being able to see what content has changed saves translation time and costs. In a multilingual website when a page's content changes, all the relevant users associated with that page and its various translations are informed of the change by email. They can then login and view the changes online, enabling them to determine what action they should take.

A friendly multi-user environment

The AIR environment is a multi-user environment that uses privileges to control what actions a user can perform, and on what content they can perform the action. The number of users supported is not limited, each user is assigned one or more roles, and each role is defined by a set of privileges. To cater for situations where a user temporarily needs additional privileges, a user can be assigned privileges that expire on a specified date and time. Because multiple users may be editing content at the same time, document checking is supported. Document checking is a mechanism for assigning ownership of a document to a user whilst they are editing its content. If a user tries to edit a document that has been checked out, the system warns them that the page is already owned and they must then decide how to proceed.

Intelligent document handling

Although making content available in (X)HTML is the preferential option, it's not always practical. Clients may wish to make their content available in different formats, for example:

• PDFs can be used to allow visitors to print content (such as brochures) in high quality.
• In the case of an intranet/extranet, content may be held purposely in formats such as an Word or Excel document.
• The client may not have the time to convert all their content (at least initially) to (X)HTML.

To help make the documents available to visitors, the AIR environment can read the content of foreign file formats, including images containing text. The file's content is stored in a searchable database table, and will allows visitors to find them using the built-in search system.

Accessibility

The "Accessibility" word is banded about a lot these days, so what does it mean? Well, in simple terms it describes how you make your content accessible to the world. The broader the medium in which your content is available, the more accessible it is. To help ensure that content is accessible, several organisations exist to provide standards (W3C, The Internet Engineering Task Force, The Web Standards Project, The Web Standards Group, etc.) Adhering to these standards helps (but does not guarantee) your content is accessible. The AIR environment ensures your content adheres strictly to web standards, but standards alone won't make your content accessible. Our advice and training is a key part of helping you produce symatically correct content for the web. AIR uses nothing but (X)HTML, though our solutions can be enhanced for users who support additional technologies such as Javascript, Flash, and Cookies - we always ensure they work without. Accessibility is also a key factor in making content search engine friendly.

Learn more...

The AIR environment is capable of far more than can be discussed in one article. If you want to get a real feel for what's possible why not call us and we'll arrange a demo?