RE: Menus, navigation, and simplicity (Perhaps slightly off-topic )

Kevin Sesock wrote ...

"For those of us with little to no control over the server itself, and can
basically only put up .html pages that are just straight html (no
server-side anything), we are in trouble. I've been unable to find a way to
have the User Agent to "pull in" or import an additional html file, or
content, or whatever, in much the same way as the User Agent requests an
external css file with the appropriate code placed neatly in the headers."



I had a similar requirement on a site with approx 250 pages, with perhaps 5
- 10 page changes per month, i.e. a biggish site to manage, but with mainly
static information. It was hosted on a bog-standard ISP, with no server
scripting and, (as I found out) one in which .shtml, .php. .asp extensions
weren't sent with a proper content type (i.e. they prompted a file download
rather than just loading in the browser): only .htm and .html seemed to
work.

I got round it as follows:

1) Download Apache and configure so that files with a .htm extension are
server parsed. (This is genrally considered non-standard as it puts an extra
load on the server - but is no problem here as the server is going no
further than my laptop ...)

2) Write the site using SSI to generate the page navigation bars etc.

3) After creating a new page, or editing an existing one, I "generated" the
page by loading in a browser and saving the source. This is easier than it
sounds: I just right-clicked (in Opera) and chose "Save target As ..." into
the destination folder.

4) Upload the resulting pages to your webserver.

It's a bit of hassle, and given the opportunity, some kind of server
scripting will always be easier. But if you have no control over your
server, this method works, is not too onerous provided not too many pages
are changing, and it is free!

	Hope this helps,

		Tom



 
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Received on Monday, 14 July 2003 11:51:01 UTC