Open-source software

This site, like millions of others, makes extensive use of open-source software. This page is a small nod to the some of the key technology that's open for all to harness and enjoy.

Site Design

Our website design is based on the Bootstrap "responsive" framework – the basic building blocks of a website – delivering smooth content delivery across all (relatively modern) browsers. It was originally developed by Twitter and know as Twitter Blueprint before being released as open-source and becoming ubiquitous. It makes extensive use of the Javascript web scripting language via the jQuery library. The framework's careful use of CSS or 'stylesheets' allows easy development of bespoke designs. This site hasn't been heavily customised — what you're seeing is fairly 'vanilla'.

Images

Icons are largely courtesy of FontAwesome (although freeware, we're currently using the paid-for version). Other icons were created using InkScape, a vector drawing program. Irfanview and FileOptimizer were used for image editing and optimisation.

Typography

The site makes use of Bootstrap default styles and Google fonts.

Content Management

Content Management Systems (CMS) allow web Developers to deliver an easy-to-use interface for content Editors and site Designers to manage content, usability and aesthetics. This site uses CMS Made Simple - a powerful all-rounder which is underpinned by the Smarty templating engine which runs on the ever-popular PHP web scripting language. It makes good use of third party modules to assist with site templates, image management and a host of other tasks. It's largely based on stom66's Bootstrap4 theme which is a great introduction to some of CMSMS's advanced features (template inheritance, image handling, ease of site management, use of markdown, etc).

Hosting

The devoranexplorers.org domain, email and web hosting relies on Bytemark Symbiosis which enables easy-to-use management of the Debian Linux operating system (currently based on v9, "Stretch"). Linux is a vast world of open-source software with Debian being particularly well suited to secure and stable hosting. There are far too many packages to mention but key components of the distribution include the Apache webserver, PHP web scripting language, MySQL databases and secure transport via OpenSSL and Let's Encrypt. Security certificate renewal is managed by Symbiosis using the Ruby scripting language. Email is largely derived from Exim and Dovecot.