CSflim

Hi, I am currently building a site, and I would like to create a 'template' html file which will include the menu links, headers and footers etc, and then create seperate 'content' pages.
This way I can change the template in a single location rather than having to edit a dozen pages to add a new link on the menu. What is the best way to do this? I know that it can be done with server side includes - but the problem is that I don't know anything about the server that this site will be deployed on. I want to keep things as straight forward as possible, and to avoid anything server side like PHP, SSI, etc.
Any ideas?
Thanks,

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feelgood

Option 1

<script src="b.js" type="text/javascript"> </script>

The file b.js is a javascript file can be a file that is filled with print statements like

document.write("<table>")
document.write("<tr>")
... and so on

It's ugly, some user's browser might not even have their own javascript enabled.

Option 2
You could use a frame, but that's bad practice.

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Looking out the window, that's an act of war. Staring at my shoes, that's an act of war. Committing an act of war? Oh you better believe that's an act of war

CSflim

Hmmm...neither of those are particularly appealing.....
So, do most sites just do it with server side includes, or something like that?

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ratbastid

Sure, server-side includes are what you're after.

If your server doesn't support SSI (it has to be configured to do so) but DOES support PHP, you can rename your file filename.php and do:

<? include('filename.php') ?>

That target "filename.php" can contain plain HTML and embedded PHP too.

CSflim

OK, cool. Thought there might be an easy way to do it client side, but it doesn't matter. I'll check into what capabilites the server has. Thanks both of you.

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theFez

nope, html is stateless and single request response. so either ssi/scripting server side or javascript client side. probably be just about the same code, only difference is where it gets executed. I would opt for server side myself.

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# chmod 111 /bin/Laden

feelgood

I thought you didn't want ssi

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Looking out the window, that's an act of war. Staring at my shoes, that's an act of war. Committing an act of war? Oh you better believe that's an act of war

CSflim

I wanted to avoid it if possible. Thought there might be a simple way to do it client side. But neither javascript nor frames are ideal.
The site if for a college project, and I will be emailing the files to my lecturer. He will be responsible for actually putting it online, and I don't know anything abut the target host, so you can understand why I would have preferred plain old html.

Anyway, not a problem.

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nezmot

You could look into using XML, XSLT and CSS - all the work is done on the client, and with some forethought, you can create a really nifty looking site, that's completely updatable just by swapping in and out of the various XML files.

manalone

You could try an iFrame, which is html 4.0 compliant.
http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/ht...al/iframe.html

YMMV though

The w3c seems to recommend using the object tag:
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/stru...dded-documents

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Man Alone
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Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.