A handful of database tables, several months of development, thousands of lines of code and more bugfixes than I care to mention; I have finally reached the stage where I’m happy to push the new PilatesPlus web site that I’ve been developing out in to the wild.
It’s a huge system, pretty much doing everything except online payments. We invite clients in and store and sort all of their data for use by PilatesPlus staff. Every term the site goes through a rebooking procedure, managing all the queries and turning users input in to a meaningful data representation for staff. The first version is packed full of features I had put on the roadmap for version 2 or beyond, and some of the tools for data manipulation and social media integration are pretty cool.
The site works around my own library of functions and classes. There’s the odd piece of third party software – a very handy open-source GoogleAPI class from Justin Silverton and an adaptation of Abraham Williams’ Twitter OAuth class. Needless to say there’s some Analytics bundled in, with a pretty cool chart for administrators to admire. There’s no WordPress or Drupal, and definitely no Joomla. Everything the site needs has been crafted to work as part of the solution, with no ugly add-ons and plugins.
Best of all, the site’s using the latest technologies and web standards. With the exception of ancient versions of Internet Explorer, the site works the same in every browser, on every computer. All the Flash on the old web site has gone, or where it still lives there’s an almost-as-good HTML alternative underneath. Lovely curvy corners and subtle shadows render beautifully in CSS3 browsers such as Chrome, Safari and Firefox, and it all looks just as beautiful on iPhone.
What’s next? Well, I plan to package up the product as a Pilates/Yoga studio booking system and make it available to people everywhere, as well as developing a handful of new features. As far as I can tell there aren’t any other products that meet this (rather niche) market; but there’s no reason that businesses like these shouldn’t be able to make use of the latest web technologies. Oh, and I’d better start my new refurbishment project too.