• About Us
• Subscribe to the mailing list
• Technical Information
• Contact us

A summary of the technical aspects of this site.

RationalMedia

This site is maintained using RationalMedia, an XML-based Content Management System. RationalMedia enables editors to update the site without knowledge of HTML or other web technologies. It uses a simple but highly extensible system of templates, which define the style of pages, in conjunction with an interface to edit the content of each page. It also enables management of documents, images and mailing lists.

Torchbox

The site was designed and developed by Torchbox, who are the creators of RationalMedia. Torchbox are an Oxfordshire-based company who specialise in developing websites and internet software for the charity and public sectors.

Fathomfive

FathomFive is a comprehensive, open source solution for spidering, indexing and searching collections of sites, created by Torchbox. The core of the indexing engine is based on the Apache Lucene project. FathomFive is used on the Biodiversity Economics site as the software behind The Spider, allowing users to search across a range of related sites.

Open Source

This site uses a number of open source technologies, including Apache, PostgreSQL and FathomFive. These technologies are free to install, use and modify. Open source technologies are usually well supported by a wide range of developers who give their time for free.

Design

The site is designed with usability and accessiblity as key priorities, whilst still being visually pleasing. From the usability point of view, the menus and 'breadcrumb trail' aim to make it clear to the user of the site exactly where they are in the site's structure at any point within it. The site complies with level 2 WebXact accessibility standards, as well as allowing text resizing from the browser, and keyboard shortcuts for the menu options. Full details on accessiblity can be found on our accessibility page.

Servers

The site lives on an Evesham machine called Griffindore, running Redhat Enterprise. Pages are served up with Apache 2. FathomFive runs on top of Apache Tomcat.