Hexydec Web Application Framework

Building a Website is a bit like building a house: a good solid foundation will ensure the stability of whatever is built on top of it. Hexydec Website Framework provides a robust platform and well established interfaces from which to realise complex bespoke software.

The API provides a vast array of modularised functionality and development tools to enable rapid application development and better debugging. Low-level functionality handles common application processes enabling development of robust bespoke dynamic components. Native abstraction of logical layers such as HTML templates and database connectivity to provide better extensibility.

HTML Templating and Parsing

A website templating system unifies the common components of a website such as the website logo, navigation system and general site layout structures so it does not have to be re-created for every new page added to the site. Native systems abstract the HTML layout code to logically seperate it from the application code, making development simpler, and allowing the layout to be developed without intrusion on the application code.

Navigation System

A database driven hierarchical navigation system drives the links between the pages of your website. It is managed from a single location, and generates all the navigation bars on your website dynamically, ensuring all links to other pages of your Website always go to the correct destination, and HTML code does not need updating when you want to restructure your website.

The system can highlight links and their parents in any generated navigation bars which are currently being viewed, and generate a "breadcrumb" trail to see at a glance where in the website you are, and navigate back up the hierarchy.

Search Engine Optimisation

Hexydec Website Framework has been designed to take full advantage of search engine promotion techniques and allows page content to be stored in any number of folders from the Website root whilst still being able to easily access common components. Search engine information such as keywords and descriptions for each page can also be updated through the navigation database.

Database Connectivity

It is extremely important to have a well-written and established mechanism for connecting a database to a Web Application. Hexydec Website Framework handles all database connections through a separate database object layer, this provides a reliable and high-performance platform from which to develop complex database applications, and reduces the possibility of unexpected application errors. It also enables your database solution to be updated or changed at a later date, without having to reprogram any application code.

Performance and Optimisation

The framework provides bespoke applications with a number of transparent performance enhancements:

• Template caching - Caches templates to memory to reduce the filesystem overhead when reusing templates.
• Database Connection Management - Lazy loading only makes a connection to the database when required, datasets are cached to prevent the database being queried multiple times for the same data.
• HTML, CSS and Javascript Minification - Whitespace is removed from the HTML before output the the client web browser, reducing the page footprint by up to 25%. For javascript, the minification routine is more invasive, giving reductions of up to 50%. Multiple external files can be grouped to reduce the number of HTTP connections per page view.
• GZIP Compression - HTML, CSS, and Javascript files are compressed before being sent to the client web browser, reducing overall bandwidth consumption by between 30 and 50%, enabling your website to load faster and reducing the running costs of your website.
• Browser Caching - Modification dates and entity tags are sent out with each asset of your website, when the page is viewed again, the server notifies the client browser to serve the file from the browser cache. This makes your web pages load faster, and uses less server resources, bandwidth, and electricity.

View projects in our portfolio developed with Hexydec Framework

Read more about Web Application Frameworks - Wikipedia