This is a simple story about a website I helped create without using any programming at all. It took me two days because of the images and the logo design which I've commissioned to a friend.
The website is obuvki41plus.com which is a re-seller business my spouse runs. It specializes in large size, elegant ladies shoes - Europe size 41 plus (hard to find in Bulgaria), hence the name.
Required Functionality
- Display a catalog of items for sale with detailed information about each item;
- Make it possible for people to comment and share the items;
- Very basic shopping cart which stores the selected items and then redirects to a page with order instructions. Actual order is made via phone for several reasons which I will explain in another post;
- Add a feedback/contact form;
- Look nice on mobile devices.
Technology
- The website is static, all pages are simple HTML and is hosted in Amazon S3;
- Comments are provided by Facebook's Comments Box plug-in;
- Social media buttons and tracking are provided by AddThis;
- Visitors analytics is standard and is from Google Analytics;
- Template is from GitHub Pages with slight modifications; Works on mobile too;
- Logo is custom designed by my friend Polina Valerieva;
- Feedback/contact form is by UserVoice;
- Shopping cart is by simpleCart(js). I've created a simple animation effect when pressing the "ADD TO CART" link to visually alert the user. This is done with jQuery.
I could have used some JavaScript templating engine like Handlebars but at the time I didn't know about it and I prefer not to write JavaScript if possible :).
Colophon
I did some coding after the initial release eventually. I've transformed the website to a Django based site which is exported as static HTML.
This helps me with faster deployment/management as everything is stored in git, allows templates inheritance and also makes the site ready to add more functionality if required.
Comments !