Twitter integration

'Why Study Languages' is a site which forms part of the Routes into languages initiative. It's aim is to provide fun materials to enhance language learning which teachers can use in the classroom.

The site was intended to remain fairly static once launched, so the Drupal CMS was selected as a base platform due to its familiarity to the content editors and the speed at which the site could be deployed. I translated the photoshop design to an XHTML and CSS Drupal theme, utlising jQuery for various interface enhancements including table-of-contents scrollers, image carousels and a floating social media box. The design specified some custom fonts, which I was able to implement by integrating the TypeKit font library into the site. Client-side integration with the twitter and facebook APIs was also included to help spread the word via online communities.

The site content made extensive use of video and Adobe Flash quiz content. The fancybox jQuery plugin was used to present this content in a popup (with a fallback link to the file for those without javascript). Looking to the future, video was implemented using the HTML5 video element for browsers supporting it, presenting both Theora (OGV) and H.264 (MP4) formats to support all current HTML5 video browser implementations. For older browsers with no HTML5 video support, the script falls back to the flowplayer flash video player using the same H.264 encoded video. Complex javascript and CSS was needed to keep the various popup and video overlay elements from conflicting with each other.