slate blog

We’ve had two projects recently where slate has really shined. The reason why is the speed with which we were able to react to and finish projects. The first was the College of Law’s Dean Search site. The second was the new WVU Alert site. Lets look at Dean Search first and why it was a success.

Dean Search: All About Multi-tasking
The site was requested in the AM. We had it delivered by close of business for review. The really killer thing was the multi-tasking aspect of the process. We were able to set-up a site in slate, start entering content, and had a rep from CoL have access to it even before we had a design done and approved. We were able to slap the design on after the fact without any hiccups or issues. I’m so used to a linear process in web development or at the very least in producing a site. You create a design in Photoshop, get it reviewed, and do the template all before you can start entering content. Here we were doing it all at the same time. It’s pretty sweet how our themes work just like that auto-magically. Now let’s look at WVU Alert.

WVU Alert: Programmable Templates
Tuesday morning I walked into the office to learn that we would be rolling out a new text messaging alert system Friday morning (today!). I hadn’t seen the product, had no idea what was involved, but knew we had to produce. After reviewing the product it was an easy decision to add it to the existing Emergency Information site being run out of slate. The next question was, “Who would have access to sign-up for the service?” The answer, “Only WVU personnel but it had to be extremely easy to sign-up.” Our solution relied upon one of the coolest and unexpected features of slate’s templating system. It’s the ability to drop in raw Ruby in a template which allowed us to detect referrers and IP addresses as well as authenticate users against an LDAP system. It only took an hour or so to implement but it’s a really nice customization for a site all without touching the real code base of slate. If you’re off-campus you can figure out for yourself how we’re making it easy. If you’re on-campus, well, it should be a breeze to get to the sign-up form :) Oh, and sign-up if you haven’t already ;)