Re: client side includes

On Sat, Sep 13, 2003 at 04:09:29 -0700, Hills Capital Management 1.800.474.1532 wrote:
>    Suppose you set your site up with DIV containers for your layout (not
>    a tables or frames layout). You only use tables for actual tabular
>    data, as per the W3C specification.

>    How does one fetch external data (data that is within the domain of
>    the website in question, but is not embedded or included in the web
>    page in question.) into those DIV containers to create DHTML effects?

Why do you need to? The data could be included on the page as normal,
and then manipulated using scripting.

>    In a Frames layout, it's easy, you change the SRC attribute of a
>    frame.

A div with an external data source? That sounds like an iframe. Iframe
is deprecated for a reason.

>    In Tables, it's easy, too. But with DIV's, you can't do it.
>    DIV's don't have a SRC attribute 

Tables don't have a SRC attribute either. How do you do this with tables?

>    If DIV's had a SRC attribute, you could easily use javascript (or
>    possibly even CSS) to change that SRC attribute. It would be a simple
>    one-line bit of code that could be melded into the traditional 'a
>    href=' link with the onclick event. This would allow search engines /
>    screen readers / text-only browsers to follow the 'a href=' part to
>    the actual HTML file that is to be requested, while compatible UA's
>    would simply change the DIV SRC, the DIV would fetch the external HTML
>    file, and display it. Imagine the flexibility that one could have by
>    doing this with nested DIV's.

For JavaScript read "the target attribute". For DIV read IFRAME. You
can achieve all this today, but the concepts behind the technique are
so unwieldy and prone to becoming inaccessible, that the relevant
parts of HTML have been deprecated.

-- 
David Dorward                                       http://dorward.me.uk/

Received on Sunday, 14 September 2003 05:07:55 UTC