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Taming the Update
Monster
Teacher: Steve
Wood
Have you ever spent two hours
changing just one word that recurs on each page of your website?
Anyone who has maintained a web site with many pages for an
extended period of time knows the nightmare of having to edit
a word or date that recurs on each page, such as copyright
information. Having to edit every single page can be very time-consuming
and tedious and often gets avoided for as long as possible
(usually too long). But it doesn't have to be that way. There
are good programs now that allow us to perform “search & replace” on
multiple files, but there is an even better way to accomplish
this task, and you won’t have to worry about inadvertently “replacing” something
by mistake. By using simple Server Side Includes (SSI), you
can streamline and simplify the maintenance of your site.
SSI can be used to accomplish
a variety of things on your web site including running CGI
scripts and posting the results on the web page (as in polls),
posting the current time and date on the page, posting the
date of the last update, etc. However, in this article, we’ll
just talk about the simplest use of SSI, the "Include" command.
Before you can implement this SSI strategy, make sure you know
whether your web site host allows the use of SSI. If it doesn't,
find a host that does.
The "Include" command allows
you to create a text file with your common information, and
then place a directive (tag) in your HTML file that "points" to
the text file. When you view the web page, the server places
the contents of the text file where the tag is in the HTML
file. You can use this trick for anything that recurs on each
page of your website. For instance, you can put a header and
footer on each page. The header and footer would be contained
in text files called "header.txt" and "footer.txt". These files
would contain the html that recurs on each page, such as text
links, contact information, copyright information, etc. In
place of this html on each page, you would place these tags:
<!--#include file="header.txt" -->
<!--#include file="footer.txt" -->
Now, whenever anyone views the
pages containing those tags, the server will place the contents
of the text files in the appropriate place and the viewer will
see the header and footer. Whenever a change is needed within
the header or footer, only ONE file needs to be edited -- the
text file. All of the pages using that file will be "automatically" updated.
Changing the copyright date or address or phone number on every
page of your web site will now take only 30 seconds because
only one file has to be changed!
The easiest way to do this is
to create a web page with everything you'd like to have on
it. Those parts that will recur on every other page are where
you will use SSI. All you have to do is "cut & paste" all
of the html that will be used on each page, pasting it into
a text file. Where you "cut" the html, replace it with the
tag, such as:
<!--#include file="header.txt" -->
Do the same thing for the footer,
if needed. Save the HTML files using SSI with the extension ".shtml".
Also, depending on how your server is set up with your host,
you may have to make sure the text file is in the same directory
as the .shtml file.
This also makes the initial design
and development of web sites go much smoother. You can now
have a "template" for each page using the header and footer
directives, and then simply add the content in between for
each page.
I guarantee that this little
trick will save you hours and hours of tedious work. As I stated
at the beginning, if you've been through these "simple" edits
before, you will need very little convincing! Don’t let
that ugly monster ever rear its head again!
About the teacher:
The author, Steve
Wood, designs & hosts web sites and offers a web site design
course at http://webdesigncourse4u.com.
He owns and operates Wood Interactive, LLC at http://woodinteractive.com.
You can receive Steve's Web Site Design Tips & Tricks by
sending a blank message to: mailto:tips@woodinteractive.com
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