FAQS - BACKEND REQUIREMENTS

It is required that an edit-system be created to allow administration of the content of the "FAQs" section by the "non-expert" users.

The system itself should provide the following functionality:

BROWSING THE FAQs

FAQs are to be divided into categories (user defined with the exception of "Miscellaneous").

To access a list of FAQs in a category the user will be able to select the category they are interested in from a drop down list located in a frame of approximately 30 pixels in height. Selecting a category will load a list of FAQs contained in that category into a frame beneath the category selection frame which represents the remaining vertical frame space ("*").

Each FAQ will be displayed with a "file" icon; the heading of the FAQ; and it's numeric place in the list.

Each question entry should encompass the following aspects:



   Question        To be added as free-text into a textarea.

                   When parsed into HTML, single carriage returns 
                   are to be treated as line-breaks, while double 
                   carriage returns will be treated as paragraph marks, 
                   when parsed to HTML.

                   It is required that the textareas in all the admin tools 
                   have WRAP="virtual" provided as an explicit attribute to
                   the TEXTAREA tag. 

   Answer          To be added as free-text into a textarea.

                   When parsed into HTML, single carriage returns 
                   are to be treated as line-breaks, while double 
                   carriage returns will be treated as paragraph marks, 
                   when parsed to HTML.

                   It is required that the textareas in all the admin tools 
                   have WRAP="virtual" provided as an explicit attribute to
                   the TEXTAREA tag. 

   Category        Selected from a drop-down list generated according
                   to user-defined categories the default setting of which
                   should be "Miscellaneous".

                   An additional category admin tool is required to control 
                   which categories are available in the list as these will 
                   not be fixed.

                   This tool will allow the user to add new categories; 
                   edit existing category names (except "Miscellaneous"); 
                   and delete categories (except "Miscellaneous").

                   The user will only be able to delete categories which 
                   do not contain FAQ items.

   Publish date    The date on which the question should automatically 
                   become accessable via the site.

                   The date will be entered as a set of numeric values 
                   selected from three horizontally aligned drop-down
                   menus.

                   The first menu represents the day (01 to 31).

                   The second field represents the month (01 to 12).

                   The third field represents the year providing a list
                   of years from the current year up to three years hence
                   (ie: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002).

                   The default values for these fields (to be automatically 
                   set in the form when creating a new question) should 
                   be the date on which the question is being added.

                   On submission of the question, it will be necessary to 
                   validate the dates being submitted (ie: 31 02 2000 is 
                   not valid). If an invalid date is entered, then the 
                   nearest previous valid date should be substituted (in
                   this case 28 02 2000 as it is a leap year).

Display of the questions will be as a single page listing each question and answer sequentially as separate entries according to the numeric value attributed to it in the edit system.

The list would allow questions to be re-ordered individually according to the user's preference. This is to be controlled using the same method as for that of news items.

SECURITY --------

Access to this area of the site should be restricted by the provision of an approved username and password.

It is our requirement that no access by any means to any of the admin tools be provided unless a valid username and password - ideally stored separately on the system in a suitable encrypted form - has first been submitted to the system by the user during that session and that the username and password submitted to the system will not be recorded as an entry in any server logs and statistics. Under no circumstances should access to any administrative tool be given to the user without an approved username and password first being supplied.