Products
Creating websites since 2005...
Ilikecake have a range of products to enhance your website. Many of these can be intrgrated with existing websites, so you can easily add functionality without the cost of a complete new website development.
Ilikecake also offer a range of services to suit your website development. We can undertake everything from website design, template creation, website development, template and content accessibilisation, database development, custom Javascript, JQuery, AJAX, ASP and PHP coding.
Many of our customers also avail of our Website Maintenance packages.
We can also undertake usability and accessibility audits of your existing site.
Animation
Animated photos and images can be placed on your website's home page. This is an eye-catching, quick and easy way of allowing users to easily see the range of activities your organisation is involved in.
The animations can slide, fade or use a variety of other transitions. The images can also be linked, if required, to pages deeper inside the site, acting as supplementary navigation. Often a caption can be added to offer a snippet of information to capture your audience's interest.
Clients with this feature include:
Article Search
Allow users to search a reference database of publications & articles, relevant to your organisation.
Ilikecake can put in place a MySQL database which will hold details of pdf articles, including:
- Author
- Title
- Publication Date
- Journal Name
- Reference
- Link
- Keywords
- Summary
- Conclusion
The article database will be searchable, on several fields, and will also have article upload, input, update, & delete admin facilities via the CMS. A search return and display page will also be created inside your existing website template. While article search is most useful for organisations or education institutions involved in research activities.
Clients with this feature include:
Blog
'Blog' style pages can be integrated with the CMS which will allow users of the site to post comments. A show/hide option for the website administrator is available so that comments can be easily enabled / removed from display via the CMS.
Ilikecake's blog facility also has a facility to ensure that comments will not go live until approved by admin via the CMS. Blog style pages will be created in the same fashion as regular pages. An 'Allow Comments' checkbox in the settings for each page can turn a page into a Blog page, or vice versa.
Clients with this feature include:
Bookmarking
With social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, playing an ever increasing role in any web user's routine, the advantages of having built-in bookmarking tools are obvious. These allow users to post a page instantly to their own profile on the social networking site of their choice.
A large number of bookmarking links can be incorporated into an understated and relatively small area of every webpage on the site, along with useful tools to print the page and send a link to any email address. This facility can be made in accordance with accessibility requirements and will degrade gracefully while remaining fully functional for users with accessibility needs.
Clients with this feature include:
Calendar
The event calendar is configured with a calendar interface which highlights dates which have an associated event and links to 'more info' pages. It also facilitates multiple events on the same date, by linking to an intermediate page with linkes to each event.
The calendar has a next / back facility to facilitate easy browsing, a return to current month link, and is self archiving. The current month is displayed as standard by default, but users can browse forwards and backwards through months.
Events pages can have associated images and links as they are essentially regular pages linked to by the calendar. If you also have the Paypal Shopping module installed, Paypal items will also have the facility to be added to the calendar, for example in the event of an event requiring payment.
Clients with this feature include:
CMS
Ilikecake's Content Management System (vivaCMS) can be integrated with your site, and customised to suit your organisation's requirements.
vivaCMS has the following features
- the addition of unlimited amounts of pages
- additional links can be added to the navigation areas
- adding and updating news & events
- uploading and linking of PDF, word and other file types
- photos can be upload, edited and added to pages and galleries
- easy integration of videos from both youtube and vimeo
- integration of any additional modules into a one-stop-shop for the site
vivaCMS does not require any installation on the client’s computer. In most cases because of its simplicity and most peoples’ proficiency with word processing programs such as MS Word, it requires very little or no training. However, should training be required Ilikecake can provide training in your own office. Over the phone support will also be available following this.
vivaCMS can be installed as part of the web development phase in a new website development, or can be added to an existing site in a matter of days.
This content management system is capable of outputting code which is compliant with the W3C WAI WCAG 2.0 Accessibility Guidelines.
For more expert users, vivaCMS also allows access to the source code so that custom code can easily be added.
Clients with this feature include:
Course Search
In order to allow users of the your website to find relevant training and educational courses quickly and easily, Ilikecake can add a courses database containing the following fields for each course:
- UniqueID
- Course Title - eg Architectural Technology and Design (Year 1)
- Award Level eg Certificate Level 5
- Category - eg Architecture / Design / Construction
- Course Duration - eg 1 year
- Award / Awarding Body - FETAC / HETAC / BTEC / ECDL etc
- Course Time ; - ; Day / Night
- [if night] which Night – Mon / Tue / Wed etc
- Read More Link - link to more information on College website
The Course Search will allow users to search any of the fields listed eg by course title, or category, or award, or duration. In addition, users will be able to select general categories of courses from a drop down menu, and select whether they are interested in day or Night courses only, or both.
Clients with this feature include:
Extranet
Our extranet system allows secure password protected document sharing with apporoved users. It consists of a password protected set of pages, insert, upload and delete facility, categorisation of documents into sections. Subsections can be added as needed. All the data is held in a database with encrypted links to relevant documents. A search facility is also available so that you can find documents easily.
Clients with this feature include:
Ezine
Ilikecake can create a HTML Email newsletter template which can be used to send newsletter emails as needed. We normally use the same styling as the main website design, but with a simplified layout. As email clients are not standards compliant, this helps to ensure that the design is seen by the subscriber as intended.
A Sign Up form will be added to the main site, to allow users to subscribe to the newsletter if desired. This will update a database table, which can be used to populate the recipients of the newsletter. You will also be able to add email addresses to this table via the CMS.
Clients with this feature include:
Foreign Language
Ilikecake can help you to provide multi-language content on your site. We can add foreign language content provided by you, or we can arrange to have it professionally translated on your behalf.
We would normally link to foreign language content via small linked flags indicating the language spoken in the countries to which the flags relate. The CMS will also allow the site administrators to add pages in a range of languages should this be required.
If professional translation is beyond your budget, Ilikecake can also add a Google language translation tool which will automatically translate the content into a range of languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish etc. Although this is not a perfect tool in that it is automated, and therefore potentially inaccurate, it is much more cost effective than having content translated by professional translators.
Clients with this feature include:
Forum
Ilikecake can put in place a PHPBB Forum, which will be styled to match your site. The forum will allow users to create accounts, and post and respond to topics under discussion. A private message facility is also available. Moderators can delete posts and topics, and initiate new ones. Please note that the forum code is open source, and will be installed as-is with styling modifications to match the current site. The underlying functionality, however, cannot be modified, and the accessibility cannot be guaranteed on this item.
Clients with this feature include:
Gallery
Display your organisations images in a pretty easy to navigate gallery, in a selection of styles.
A lightbox gallery will allow users to click on a thumbnail image, and open a larger image to view. The larger image is superimposed on top of the website, which is slightly faded out. Users can navigate from one large image to the next via next and back buttons.
A galleria gallery will generate small clickable thumbnails which highlight on hover, and which update the large image visible on the page.
Both galleries styles can be updated via the CMS. Ilikecake can also integrate any other JQuery gallery style with the CMS and your website, on request.
Clients with this feature include:
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. A Google analytics account can be set up and integrated with your site by Ilikecake. This allows the easy analysis of site statistics. You can compare your site usage metrics with industry averages and track Flash, video, social networking sites and applications. You can also visualise data and uncover trends & patterns.
Clients with this feature include:
Google Maps
Allow users to quickly and easily find you, or your regional branches, or partner & member organisations via an interactive Google Map. Each point of interest will be easily identifiable with a simple, clickable marker. Additional information about each location can be placed in information bubbles which open on clicking a specific marker. This normally includes address, phone, email, and a picture, either of the front of the premises, or a logo.
CMS users can update the map, markers and locations using an easy to use location finder map, which returns the coordinates for each location to the New Marker submission form.
A clustering option to simplify the interface can also be made available where the map has many overlapping markers. The interface can also be presented in normal, satellite or hybrid formats.
Clients with this feature include:
Google Search
With Google Custom Search, you can harness the power of Google to create a customized search experience for your own website. Ilikecake can add a Google search facility to your website to provide supplimentary navigation to the site main navigation areas. Google Custom Search will be configured to only search your website domain unless other domains are also required to be searchable. Both the search box and the search results are displayed inside your main website template and will return pages and documents from your site that are listed with Google. Ilikecake can also customize the look and feel of the results to match your site.
Clients with this feature include:
Incoming RSS
Ilikecake can add a custom made incoming RSS feed to your website. This feed will automatically update daily with any new news added to any incoming feeds with no work from the website admin once set up is complete.
The website administrator has control of which feeds are included in the display via the CMS and can add and remove newsfeeds here.
The feed can also be fine tuned by the addition of words to both positively and negatively weight the results to suit your particular target audience's needs.
Clients with this feature include:
Irish Language
If your target audience includes Irish lanuage speakers, you may be interested in adding Irish language content to your organisations website.
Ilikecake is experiened in updating and maintaining Irish language and duel English-Irish language websites.
Our CMS also facilitates Irish lanauage content, and we have a custom made dual navigation facility within our CMS available for duel language sites.
Clients with this feature include:
Maintenance
To ensure that your new website is kept up to date and performing for you, a maintenance support package can be put in place. For a medium sized website, we would recommend maintenance of 1 hour every month initially. This time may be used to advise on CMS & database issues, make modifications to the site, search engine optimization etc as required by your organisation.
Support time can also be used to ensure the accessibility of the website even where a CMS is in place.
Many of our clients use the CMS for routine updates and use the maintenance hours for larger or more complicated content updates.
The majority of updates are undertaken within 24 to 48 hours depending on the complexity. In many cases the updates are undertaken within a few hours.
Your organisation will receive maintenance statements from the Ilikecake Project Management System twice a year detailing all services carried out on the site. This details each job with a job reference number & time stamps of when the job was undertaken. Any time not used by your organisation within a calendar year is carried forward indefinitely and may be used to undertake any service which does not involve third party development.Clients with this feature include:
Moveable Widgits
Add visual interest and interactivity to your site with interactive moveable widgets. Ilikecake can put in place a facility to allow users to move & minimise boxes of content available on the screen. The title bar of each widget is the handle by which they are draggable. Positioning the mouse over the blue title bar (the pointer will change to a four-pointed crosshairs) and clicking and holding the left-mouse button will grab the widget. Once grabbed, you are able to move the widget around the page. As the widget leaves its place-holder, a shaded and dashed area shows where it will be positioned if it is dropped at any given time. As the widget is moved over other suitable locations, the place-holder area rearranges the other widgets on the page to show possible layouts. Releasing the mouse button drops the widget in the new location. All of the widgets that possess the small dark arrow in front of the title can be opened and closed. All widgets, by default, will start in the open position the first time you visit the website.
Users can customise the interface to suit their own requirements. It is an unusual eye-catching feature that might appeal to younger users.
You will need javascript enabled in your web browser, and be able to accept cookies to use this facility. Most mainstream web browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Opera, Chrome + others) usually install with these requirements already enabled.
Clients with this feature include:
Outgoing RSS
An Outgoing RSS Feed can be set up where the CMS users can add a page to the feed by simply ticking a check box in the settings for any particular page. The outgoing RSS is an XML file that can be read by RSS readers or included on other sites as an Incoming RSS feed.
Clients with this feature include:
Print Style
Allow your users to print your website content with no excess waste of paper with a custom made print stylesheet for your site.
A print stylesheet also ensures that the content is presented in a clear and concise manner on the printed page. In most cases we would turn off the navigation, header & footer.
Clients with this feature include:
Shopping
Ilikecake can integrate Paypal Online Payments facility with your website and CMS, to allow for online selling of items, and for the collection of charitable donations.
Ilikecake can create a shopping system, viewable & editable with the CMS, which will allow users to view and select items for sale, add to cart, and checkout and pay using Paypal. The system will allow the CMS administrator to add and update items, including descriptive text, a selling price, shipping price and an image for each item.
User information is added on the Paypal site, and returned to the CMS database where it is stored and available to website admin.
Clients with this feature include:
Social Networking Accounts
Ilikecake can undertake the setting up of accounts on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, youTube / Vimeo, LinkedIn etc behalf of your organisation. This includes account creation, linking to your website and the uploading of images and introductory text. Your staff will be responsible for the maintenance of these accounts once created. Ilikecake can also provide up to 1 hours training as part of this setup. The social networking accounts will also be integrated into the main site design if the site is also undergoing a redesign.
Clients with this feature include:
Style Guide
A style guide tailored to your new website design and corporate image can help you to identify your new image to those working with your promotional materials.
Ilikecake can create a style guide for the website in conjunction. This is a printable pdf document which could be distributed as needed to those who have access to update the site, and could also be used as a reference point for the design of other documents such as brochures, flyers and posters.
Ilikecake would initially populate the document with styles specified by the website style sheet. Additional information provided by you can also be added as needed, with regard to language tone, writing style etc. Typical sections can incude:
- Style Guide Cover
- Introduction
- Who We Are
- Language Style and Usage
- Logo Exclusion Zone
- Logo Usage
- Colour Palette
- Typography Usage
- Photography Style
The final digital pdf document can be distributed by you by email, or printed by you as needed.
Clients with this feature include:
Tag Cloud
Allow your website's users to search your site using a fun and pretty flash-based interactive tag-cloud search.
Our tag cloud search uses the most common words on your site (picked up from CMS database records) to generate a tag cloud which activates a site-specific search with that word. This can be made to look quite pretty and is an eye-catching feature to have on a homepage.
Although this facility uses JavaScript, this has been designed to degrade gracefully so that those with scripting disabled can use the simple text version of the search.
Clients with this feature include:
Testimonials
Allow your website visitors to leave testimonials on your site, in a few clicks.
Ilikecake can create a testimonials page which will show all approved testimonials and contain a submission form which will allow customers to add testimonials to the database. These will not go live until approved by you via the CMS - the testimonials facility includes a show/hide option so that testimonials can be easily enabled / removed from display via the CMS.
Testimonials can also be displayed randomly on pages throughout the site as additional webpage content.
Clients with this feature include:
Video
A video gallery can be added to your site which allows multiple videos from sources such as Vimeo and Youtube to be added to the system via the CMS. The last video added is displayed by default. Other videos are accessible via a thumbnail scroller to the bottom of the gallery.
Optionally, we can display videos in a lightbox format, where the rest of the page fades out and the video displays in the centre of the page.
[NOTE] If you don't currently have a YouTube or Vimeo account we can also create these for you. Vimeo has a free weekly upload limit of 500 MB, which should be more than adequate for most clients requirements, however for 60 dollars per year this limit increases to 5 GB per week.
Clients with this feature include:
Website Design
Our clients are very aware of first impressions and generally look for their website to be designed and developed to make it user friendly, professional and attractive.
We begin the design process with a meeting with the client where we discuss the clients requirements for the website in terms of both functionality and look and feel. From this we'll draw up our initial design concept, which is forwarded to the client for review and feedback. Many times, only one design concept is needed, however in some cases we will do two or even three concepts of the home page.
Once a design conecept has been approved by the client, we normally tweak the design to match their exact requrements, and then undertake an innerpage design to match the home page.
Once the final designs have been signed off by the client, we then move to the development phase.
Clients with this feature include:
Website Statistics
Access statistics packages which gives a full breakdown of how many visitors your website is receiving.
The statistics package we offer also gives in depth breakdowns of other user information such as:
- How long they stay on the site
- What browser they use to look at the site
- What are the most visited pages
- What type of computer they used to look at the site e.g. PC or Mac
- What are the most common words users search for when they find the site
- Which pages are the most visited
All statistical information is also archived for 1 year to look for trends in visitors. At least one Admin contact within your organisation will be given access and basic training in the control panel. The statistics are availabel in text and chart format suitable for use in end of year reports.
This statistics package is available at no extra cost when hosting a website with Ilikecake, however an additional package such as Google Analytics can also be put in place if required.