Website Standards

Welcome to the FreeBMD Website standards page.

This page is designed to show the conventions an standards used to ensure that FreeBMD has a consistent Look and Feel. It is written (so far as possible) to conform to the standards.

Remember that achieving a consistent "look and feel" is only 20% of writing good web pages. High quality content, proof read by somebody else is far more critical.

• The title should contain a long description of the page
• The page heading should always appear alongside the stamp, aligned center, black font in H1 style.
• The page heading should repeat the page title, but in a concise format, omiting the word "FreeBMD"

Main Headings

• Main Headings describe major sub-divisions of the subject matter
• As a rule of thumb, if people are likely (on first coming to a page) to jump direct to a section, it is a Main heading. If they are likely to read through paragraph by paragraph, it is a sub heading (see below)
• Main Headings are left aligned, in red in style H2.

Sub Headings

This is a sub heading

• Sub Headings provide a single line preview of the subject matter of a paragraph
• The difference between sub headings and main headings is described above
• Sub Headings should be used in long text pages to break up large blocks of text
• Sub Headings are left aligned, in black, in style H3.

Lists

• Make use of UL to produce bullet points
• Make use of OL to produce numbered lists

Tables

• Use tables without borders to achieve a neat layout

  Column 1	Column 2
  Text	Text

• Use tables with borders to present data.

  Column 1	Column 2
  Text	Text

Bold Italics and Colour

• Where Emphasis is required, use Bold Italics or red
• Use emphasis sparingly
• Avoid the use of other colours
• Use background colours to match events

  Ordinary Colour	Dark colour
  Births	Births
  Marriages	Marriages
  Deaths	Deaths

General Layout & Exceptions

General Layout

• No horizontal rule between the heading and the page
• Use an introductory sentence about the page before the first sub heading
• Use emb3.jpg as the background
• Handcrafted HTML, produced by craftsmen (and women) is the order of the day. MS FrontPage gives us apoplexy.

Exceptions

• The Main Index and Search page use a modified header that incorporates an extra "hosted by rootsweb" graphic at the top, and a rootsweb banner advert.
• Pages that actually display index data use a modified copyright strapline that incorporates ONS copyright of the data above and below the data
• The Main Index page omits the "hosted by rootsweb" graphic from the footer (because it looks odd!)
• The Homepage (curiously) has no link to the Homepage).

Page Foot

• The code at the foot of this page (from the link to the home page onwards) is standard for all pages (except those that are noted elsewhere)

FreeBMD Main Page