The Focus

Our goal at HobZob is to bring hobbyists and the information they desire together in one place. Whether you are into RC vehicles, games, trains or scale models, HobZob enables you to share your passion with others.

On HobZob your "workbench" (or home page) is where you show your gear. Sharing photo albums and posting blogs are among many features you will find. Find and sell goods, view and rate other gear, participate in challenges, leave comments, and more!

With HobZob groups, you can create a turn-key online presence for your own club or business, or start an enthusiast group. Here you can participate in discussion forums, share albums and videos, post events, and much more!

HobZob incorporates the latest in web technology while still providing excellent web accessibility.

Technical Jargon

We wanted to create an easier experience for our members at HobZob.com, which up until now meant reams of JavaScript, making pages inaccessible to screen readers, search engines, and anyone who disables JavaScript on their browser. Two focuses have emerged: Using "Web 2.0" techniques to give HobZob.com a slicker user interface, and creating a Web application in which AJAX and DHTML were a separate layer, instead of intimately intertwined.

HobZob.com was first designed as an old school web app -- full of links, and form buttons. The design of the site was completed after we had a fully functional application without JavaScript. When the visual skin was getting installed, we used JavaScript to intercept mouse clicks on already-working links to change the "every click reloads the page" experience to "common clicks update a piece of the page."

With Cascading Style Sheets providing the design and JavaScript providing easier functionality, we have separate layers to work with. Neither support for JavaScript nor Cascading Style Sheets is required to view content on HobZob.com, all though we have to admit, it's more fun with both enabled.

HobZob.com is a bold step into the "Web 2.0" arena. It's still a work in progress, and we believe we can create an animated, easy to use and fun Web experience without sacrificing Web accessibility.

Press

For press inquiries, contact us here.

Other Credits

Some useful open-source stuff we've used, thanks guys!

• PHP scripting language
• Code Igniter framework
• Scriptaculous javascript framework
• Mootools javascript framework
• Mazeguy icons