Developing A Realtor Theme For Hugo: Step 1 Building the pages

#html #css #javascript

Introduction

I decided to develop a theme for realtors in my city as A LOT of realtors in my city are still using wordpress and I wanted to create an alternative for them.

The Plan

Here is the game plan:

Find an SSG that will work
Build out the pages first in HTML, SASS and JS
Build out the templates
Find a CMS that will work with the themes and SSG

For this article, I am going to cover the SSG and Pages

The SSG

For the static site generator, I decided to go with Hugo. It is simple to use and the templating engine is awesome! After reading the docs I think it will work with what I need.

Building out the pages

So, the main pages I require are:

Home
Listings
A listing
Staff Page
Contact Us

Home Page

Listings

For the listing page I will need to set up a filterable gallery.

The Gallery

I decided to go witht thise style of gallery I think it looks nice. Next to add some filtering

The filters

// File#: _3_advanced-filter
// Usage: codyhouse.co/license
(function() {
  // the AdvFilter object is used to handle: 
  // - number of results
  // - form reset
  // - filtering sections label (to show a preview of the option selected by the users)
  var AdvFilter = function(element) {
    this.element = element; 
    this.form = this.element.getElementsByClassName('js-adv-filter__form');
    this.resultsList = this.element.getElementsByClassName('js-adv-filter__gallery')[0];
    this.resultsCount = this.element.getElementsByClassName('js-adv-filter__results-count');
    initAdvFilter(this);
  };

  function initAdvFilter(filter) {
    if(filter.form.length > 0) {
      // reset form
      filter.form[0].addEventListener('reset', function(event){
        setTimeout(function(){
          resetFilters(filter);
          resetGallery(filter);
        });
      });
      // update section labels on form change
      filter.form[0].addEventListener('change', function(event){
        var section = event.target.closest('.js-adv-filter__item');
        if(section) resetSelection(filter, section);
        else if( Util.is(event.target, '.js-adv-filter__form') ) {
          // reset the entire form lables
          var sections = filter.form[0].getElementsByClassName('js-adv-filter__item');
          for(var i = 0; i < sections.length; i++) resetSelection(filter, sections[i]);
        }
      });
    }

    // reset results count
    if(filter.resultsCount.length > 0) {
      filter.resultsList.addEventListener('filter-selection-updated', function(event){
        updateResultsCount(filter);
      });
    }
  };

  function resetFilters(filter) {
    // check if there are custom form elemets - reset appearance
    // custom select
    var customSelect = filter.element.getElementsByClassName('js-select');
    if(customSelect.length > 0) {
      for(var i = 0; i < customSelect.length; i++) customSelect[i].dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent('select-updated'));
    }
    // custom slider
    var customSlider = filter.element.getElementsByClassName('js-slider');
    if(customSlider.length > 0) {
      for(var i = 0; i < customSlider.length; i++) customSlider[i].dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent('slider-updated'));
    }
  };

  function resetSelection(filter, section) {
    // change label value based on input types
    var labelSelection = section.getElementsByClassName('js-adv-filter__selection');
    if(labelSelection.length == 0) return;
    // select
    var select = section.getElementsByTagName('select');
    if(select.length > 0) {
      labelSelection[0].textContent = getSelectLabel(section, select[0]);
      return;
    }
    // input number
    var number = section.querySelectorAll('input[type="number"]');
    if(number.length > 0) {
      labelSelection[0].textContent = getNumberLabel(section, number);
      return;
    }
    // input range
    var slider = section.querySelectorAll('input[type="range"]');
    if(slider.length > 0) {
      labelSelection[0].textContent = getSliderLabel(section, slider);
      return;
    }
    // radio/checkboxes
    var radio = section.querySelectorAll('input[type="radio"]'),
      checkbox = section.querySelectorAll('input[type="checkbox"]');
    if(radio.length > 0) {
      labelSelection[0].textContent = getInputListLabel(section, radio);
      return;
    } else if(checkbox.length > 0) {
      labelSelection[0].textContent = getInputListLabel(section, checkbox);
      return;
    }
  };

  function getSelectLabel(section, select) {
    if(select.multiple) {
      var label = '',
        counter = 0;
      for (var i = 0; i < select.options.length; i++) {
        if(select.options[i].selected) {
          label = label + '' + select.options[i].text;
          counter = counter + 1;
        } 
        if(counter > 1) label = section.getAttribute('data-multi-select-text').replace('{n}', counter);
      }
      return label;
    } else {
      return select.options[select.selectedIndex].text;
    }
  };

  function getNumberLabel(section, number) {
    var counter = 0;
    for(var i = 0; i < number.length; i++) {
      if(number[i].value != number[i].min) counter = counter + 1;
    }
    if(number.length > 1) { // multiple input number in this section
      if(counter > 0) {
        return section.getAttribute('data-multi-select-text').replace('{n}', counter);
      } else {
        return section.getAttribute('data-default-text');
      }

    } else {
      if(number[0].value == number[0].min) return section.getAttribute('data-default-text');
      else return section.getAttribute('data-number-format').replace('{n}', number[0].value);
    }
  };

  function getSliderLabel(section, slider) {
    var label = '',
      labelFormat = section.getAttribute('data-number-format');
    for(var i = 0; i < slider.length; i++) {
      if(i != 0 ) label = label+' - ';
      label = label + labelFormat.replace('{n}', slider[i].value);
    }
    return label;
  };

  function getInputListLabel(section, inputs) {
    var counter = 0;
      label = '';
    for(var i = 0; i < inputs.length; i++) {
      if(inputs[i].checked) {
        var labelElement = inputs[i].parentNode.getElementsByTagName('label');
        if(labelElement.length > 0) label = labelElement[0].textContent;
        counter = counter + 1;
      }
    }
    if(counter > 1) return section.getAttribute('data-multi-select-text').replace('{n}', counter);
    else if(counter == 0 ) return section.getAttribute('data-default-text');
    else return label;
  };

  function resetGallery(filter) {
    // emit change event + reset filtering 
    filter.form[0].dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent('change'));
    filter.resultsList.dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent('update-filter-results'));
  };

  function updateResultsCount(filter) {
    var resultItems = filter.resultsList.children,
      counter = 0;
    for(var i = 0; i < resultItems.length; i++) {
      if(isVisible(resultItems[i])) counter = counter + 1;
    }
    filter.resultsCount[0].textContent = counter;
  };

  function isVisible(element) {
        return (element.offsetWidth || element.offsetHeight || element.getClientRects().length);
    };

  //initialize the AdvFilter objects
    var advFilter = document.getElementsByClassName('js-adv-filter');
    if( advFilter.length > 0 ) {
        for( var i = 0; i < advFilter.length; i++) {
            (function(i){new AdvFilter(advFilter[i]);})(i);
        }
  }

  // Remove the code below if you want to use a custom filtering function (e.g., you need to fetch your results from a database)

  // The code below is used for filtering of page content (animation of DOM elements, no fetching results from database).  
  // It uses the Filter component (https://codyhouse.co/ds/components/app/filter) - you can modify the custom filtering functions based on your needs
  // Check the info page of the component for info on how to use it: https://codyhouse.co/ds/components/info/filter
  var gallery = document.getElementById('adv-filter-gallery');
  if(gallery) {
    new Filter({
      element: gallery, // this is your gallery element
      priceRange: function(items){ // this is the price custom function
        var filteredArray = [],
          minVal = document.getElementById('slider-min-value').value,
          maxVal = document.getElementById('slider-max-value').value;
        for(var i = 0; i < items.length; i++) {
          var price = parseInt(items[i].getAttribute('data-price'));
          filteredArray[i] = (price >= minVal) && (price <= maxVal);
        } 
        return filteredArray;
      },
      indexValue: function(items){ // this is the index custom function
        var filteredArray = [],
          value = document.getElementById('index-value').value;
        for(var i = 0; i < items.length; i++) {
          var index = parseInt(items[i].getAttribute('data-sort-index'));
          filteredArray[i] = index >= value;
        } 
        return filteredArray;
      }
    });
  }
}());

A Listing

Images

Tabs

I set up some tabs to host all of the main content for the listing. I think this will help separate everything and make it easier for the user to navigate.

Information

There is a lot of information that goes into the listing. So I used a template for a FAQ section and separated all the information within it.

How to reduce TTFB

In the past few years in the web dev world, we’ve seen a significant push towards rendering our websites on the server. Doing so is better for SEO and performs better on low-powered devices, but one thing we had to sacrifice is TTFB.

In this article, we’ll see how we can identify what makes our TTFB high so we can fix it.