Alighten offers navigation features that integrate automatically with the content management system (CMS) that Alighten offers. These navigation features can be tied to XML datasources, custom database datasources or to the built in CMS datasource. When tied to the CMS datasource, as new pages are published in the CMS system, the advanced navigation controls automatically update to reflect the changes, throughout your web site, without any additional programming changes. A complete list of the advanced navigation available to you when you choose contract Alighten to program your client's web site follows:

Dropdown menus - This navigation feature is the most common method of navigating through large web sites. Dropdown menus can display data from the datasource in either a horizontal or vertical menu bar and can be styled to match any web site design.

Panelbar - The panelbar navigation feature is most commonly used to display two levels of hierarchal data, but can be used to display hierarchal data from a custom database for efficient searching of products, images, and other categorical data. A panelbar can be styled to match any web site design.

Tabs - This navigation feature displays the hierarchical data in a vertical or horizontal tab strip, can be styled to match any web site design, and can be configured to only show specific levels in the datasource hierarchy.

Toolbars - This navigation features is used to display a toolbar of actions available to the web site visitor. A toolbar can styled to match any web site design.

Sitemaps - This feature is commonly added to a sitemap web page to allow for easy navigation by web site visitors. Sitemaps provide easy access for search engines to index web site content. The sitemap features can be styled to match any web site design.

Bread crumbs - This feature can be added to web site pages to allow the web site visitor easy navigation to previous pages and to inform the user of their current location in the web site. Bread crumbs also provide additional links to pages for improved search engine indexing. The bread crumb feature can be styled to match any web site design.

Alighten offers many options for displaying data to the web site visitor. Displaying tabular and hierarchal data to the user is a very common task for most advanced web sites. Alighten's advanced data display feature can be tied to XML datasources or custom database datasources. Alighten offers many advanced data display methods. Two examples of advanced data display features are the data grid and treeview.

Data grid - A data grid displays tabular data in rows and columns similar to Excel. The data grid feature allows users to sort, filter, export to Excel and page through large quantities of tabular data. The data grid feature can be styled to match any web site design.

Treeview - The treeview is ideal for displaying and navigating hierarchal data to the user. The treeview expands when an items "+" sign is clicked and contract when the items "-" sign is clicked. The treeview control can be styled to match any web site design.

Alighten offers features that give your designs a polished, professional look when converted into a web site. Some web site programmers offer web site components from different vendors and, when pieced together, can do the job. Alighten offers the most professional web site UI features available on the market. Not only do Alighten UI features allow every detail to look professional, but each UI component is reliable and skinnable to match every aspect of your web site. A few examples of Alighten's advanced UI features are the color picker, popup window, tooltip, slider and splitter bar just to name a few.

Color picker - The color picker feature is a powerful, Ajax, customizable color picker that allows you to choose the color option that will be available to your client's web site visitors. The color picker can be styled to match any web site design.

Popup window - This amazing popup window is an powerful, Ajax window that opens any url. This feature is ideal for loading external pages while keeping visitors at your client's web site. This feature also functions as a quick way for users to submit forms on your client's web sites. The popup window can be styled to match any web site design.

Tooltip - The tooltip, shown here,  is an ideal way to display data and collect user feedback with Ajax functionality. The tooltip can also guide users through complex processes. This feature can be styled to match any web site design.

Slider - The slider allows users to adjust properties on your client's web site with Ajax functionality. By sliding a tab along a track a numeric property adjusts automatically. The slider is ideal for selecting sizes and percentages. The slider can be styled to match any web site design.

Splitter - The splitter feature enables users to dynamically adjust the proportions of the screen. The splitter bar is is a powerful Ajax feature that when clicked dynamically and dragged can adjust the proportions of two vertical columns or two horizontal rows. The splitter can be styled to match any web site design.

Alighten offers a comprehensive Ajax approach to every web site. A basic understanding of Ajax and how we use Ajax are listed below.

What is Ajax? - Ajax or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is the process of sending a request from the web site visitors browser to a server, receiving an XML response and then writing the response as HTML to the screen using JavaScript. Over time Ajax has come to encompass the entire dynamic JavaScript arena. Ajax is a broad field that has affected many areas of web site development including web services, data access, and dynamic user interfaces to name a few.

How we use Ajax - We apply Ajax features based on your client's needs and when Ajax is needed as part of the overall web 2.0 approach. Alighten purchases the best comercial Ajax tools, work with the latest open source Ajax and JavaScript Frameworks from Google, Yahoo, JQuery, Mootools, ASP.Net Ajax and many others, and creates our own Ajax functionality. We are constantly updating are toolbox with the latest Ajax tools and techniques so that we can offer your client the most complete Ajax feature set.

Alighten offers companies the most powerful tool on the web for communicating with clients, vendors, partners, and suppliers...web services. A basic understanding of web services and how we use web services are listed below.

What are web services - If you are not familiar with web services, web services are a way for computers to communicate over a network (internet) without browsers or HTML. Web services run completely behind the scenes when called from a web site or PC application. Web services our not only cross browser, but cross platform compatible. This means that a web service created with the .Net Framework and hosted on your client's windows server can be accessed (if allowed) by a Java desktop application running on a Linux computer. This is made possible by XML or more precisely, simple object access protocol (SOAP).

How we use web services - Alighten leverages the power of the Microsoft.Net framework to speed the development of XML web services. Alighten web services can be used to accept orders on remote web sites, send inventory quantities to clients, and many other applications. Alighten can work with other web services to get remote data on interest rates, prices from vendors and many other applications. Combined with Alighten Ajax techniques, web services are a powerful way to gather data and display it dynamically to web site visitors.

Alighten offers full featured charts and graphs for displaying data on your client's web site. Charts add professionalism to your client's web site when displaying data. Alighten charts are ideal for displaying large quantities of data to the web site visitor. Alighten charts can be styled to match any web site design.

Chart Types - Alighten offers all of the most common chart types for use in your client's web site. Bar, Area, Line, Pie, Point, Gant and Bubble charts are available.

Integration - Alighten's charting feature can be tied to XML datasources, web service datasources, or custom database datasources. Also, Alighten can integrate your client's charts with Ajax to display additional detail to the web site visitor without refreshing the screen.

Alighten's drag, drop and dock module is a powerful Ajax feature that allows your client's web site visitors to customize and save content areas. Combined with a secure login, the docking module can encourage visitors to personalize areas of the web site which leads to longer average time spent on the site. Display user data, industry news, or any other content in a fun intuitive format.

Alighten offers a number of features to improve the usability of your client's web site forms. Alighten's form features encourage accuracy in data input when collecting information from web site visitors. Some of the features included with Alighten's form features are textbox validation, textbox masking, numeric textbox formatting, combobox, calendar, WYSIWYG textbox and file upload.

Validation - This feature allows your client to precisely control the type and quantity of data input by the web site visitor. If a field is empty when required or incorrectly formatted, the validation reminds the client of the correct syntax.

Masking - This feature displays the correct format for data entry to the web site visitor as he/she is typing in a field. Common examples of textbox formatting include phone numbers, zip codes, social security numbers and credit card numbers.

Combobox - While selection boxes are common to all web site forms. Unlike common combobox, Alighten's combobox can be styled to match any web site design.

Calendar - The calendar feature allows users to select a date by choosing it from a small popup calendar. This prevents data entry errors by forcing the user to enter the date in the correct entry. Calendars are also very intuitive to most web site visitors. The calendar feature can by styled to match any web site design.

WYSIWYG editor - The "what you see is what you get" editor replaces any text box to allow users to format content in a form using Word style editing option. WYSIWYG data is stored as HTML. The WYSIWYG editor feature can by styled to match any web site design.

File upload - The file upload feature is a powerful tool that allows users to upload files when a form is submitted. The file can be saved in a custom database or to the servers file system. The Alighten file upload feature offers a progress bar to indicate to users the time required to complete the file upload.

Alighten offers a powerful url rewriting feature that can be easily applied to your clients custom database modules. A basic understanding of url rewriting and Alighten uses it is listed below.

What is url rewriting - url rewriting is a way of modifying the url that appears in the address bar to be human and search engine readable while still providing a unique identifier to a specific entity. The entity could be product in a shopping cart or an image in a photo album or any other database of items. (e.g. www.alighten.com/products/website.aspx replaces www.alighten.com/products?ID=12341234)

How we use url rewriting - Alighten will implement url rewriting, on nearly all custom database modules, to make your web site easier for web site visitors to understand.

Alighten offers a complete multilingual package for CMS web sites. Alighten integrates multilingual support for language content, so you can effortlessly create and maintain content in multiple languages. The character set to use for the display of the content can be defined on both page and content level. Language versions of a page are created for each language desired. The original language page can be copied to the new page version and then edited to reflect the new version. Default languages are easily set in the CMS System configuration. This allows your client to set multilingual menus and page titles as well as web site content. Alighten's multilingual support allows you to offer this powerful feature, normally reserved for large companies, at a fraction of the cost.

Alighten offers the industry standard in security for your client's sensitive information known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). A basic understanding of SSL and how we use SSL are listed below.


What is SSL? - SSL is a method of encrypting and verifying messages passed between the web server and the web site visitor. SSL uses a public and private certificate to verify the security between the client and server before sensitive data is passed.

How we use SSL - Alighten uses SSL certificates to secure all of your client's sensitive information. Any web site page in the CMS system can be configured to use SSL. Typical uses of SSL include payment gateways where credit card numbers are entered, forms where social security numbers are entered and secure login screens.