Technical Standards & Guidelines

• (Server-Side) Application Development Standards

  Standards for (server-side) application development to ensure that applications maintain the integrity and security of bbc.co.uk.

• Audio-Video Standard

  AV standards, including links to technical information (bitrates, frame size, frame rate) for narrowband and broadband, streaming and download AV content.

• Using Barlesque to Develop bbc.co.uk Sites

  Guide on how to use the Barlesque templating system to create bbc.co.uk sites that comply with the Visual Language Guidelines.

  (This standard supersedes the previous Barlesque Standard v1.0 and the standard.)

• Browser Support Standard

  Standards for browser support and testing for bbc.co.uk

• Clickthrough (Go-) Tracking Standards

  Standards for the use of clickthrough (go-) tracking on bbc.co.uk links (mostly used to track use of external links)

• C++ Coding Guidelines

  Best practice C++ coding guidelines for bbc.co.uk projects.

• Cookies Standard

  Standards for cookie use on bbc.co.uk.

• CSS Standard

  Standards for use of Cascading Style Sheets on bbc.co.uk pages.

• Database Design & Development Standards

  Standards for designing and developing live database (backed) applications for bbc.co.uk.

• Download Standards

  Standard giving requirements for normal page weight and methods for reducing page weight. This standard also gives guidance on how to optimise pages to achieve the best possible download speeds.

• Email Standard

  Standards for collecting collection of user email addresses and formatting, processing, delivery of email for bbc.co.uk.

• File Extensions Standards

  Standards specifying valid file extensions served from www.bbc.co.uk and news.bbc.co.uk.

• .htaccess Standards

  Standards for the creation, use and maintenance of all .htaccess files on www.bbc.co.uk servers.

• JavaScript Standard

  Summary of standards for JavaScript pages on bbc.co.uk. (Previously part of the HTML Integrity standards)

• Mapping Guidelines

  Defines which mapping providers site producers can use on bbc.co.uk.

• Multimedia Plug-In Content (Flash) Standards

  Standards for the use of multimedia plug-in content on bbc.co.uk, including: approved formats; advice on the choice of Flash version; requirements on the provision of alternatives to plug-in content; how to optimise, test, deliver and embed plug-in content.

• RSS Guidelines

  Initial interim guidelines for the use of RSS on bbc.co.uk – specifies acceptable formats, how to let users know an RSS feed is available, the help users should be given to consume RSS feeds etc.

• Semantic Mark-up

  The BBC endorses the principle of separating content from presentation in web pages, using HTML as a semantic markup language.

• Sitemaps Guide

  This guideline document describes what sitemaps are and how they can be used to increase the speed of recognition of new content by search engines.

• XHTML Integrity Standards

  Summary of standards for XHTML pages on BBC Online (bbc.co.uk), including: doctypes; validation; browser support; code style; scripts; CSS.

  This standard supersedes the HTML Integrity Standard.

• XML Standards

  Initial standards for the use of XML on bbc.co.uk – includes: XML vocabularies, use of Schema languages, and creation and use of XML Namespaces.

• XSSI (eXtended Server Side Includes) Standards v1.1 (deprecated)

  Summary of how to use XSSI(eXtended Server Side Includes) on Apache servers.

  This standard supersedes the XSSI Standards v1.0.

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