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startup ideas, marketing ideas, conversations, etc.
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Server Side Includes and Why You Need ThemYou probably already know that you need server side includes, even if you've never heard of them.Most websites contain content of some form that appears on most if not every page of the site. Masthead, logo, and links are some prime examples. But what happens when you want to make a change? Server side includes are probably the closest thing a webmaster has to a magic wand. This is how it works: Instead of having the code for your site's masthead on each and every page, you include it once in a text file. Then, you reference that text file with a single snippet of code that is placed in each of your website's page's text files. That line of code is then inserted to each of those pages as if it was originally part of the page. The only difference is that you make the change once as opposed to hundreds or thousands of times. You can use server side include files for any section of a page that appears throughout your site. For most sites, that's almost everything except for the main body of text. I'll preface the rest of this post by stating that this isn't meant to be a technical tutorial for Server Side Includes. Instead, it's to make you aware of Server Side Includes and how they can save you an overwhelming amount of work. The exact method you use will depend on the server used in hosting your website. Some may require certain files to be uploaded to the root directory. To determine what you need specifically, try searching with the phrases "server side includes" and "include virtual" or "include file" using your search engine of choice. (Make sure to include the quotes to fine-tune your search results.) For discussions and explanations of the differences between "include virtual" and "include file" elements of the commands, use those parameters for searching. The web hosts a multitude of tutorials, articles, and forum posts on these two basic commands. As the name implies, the include commands are executed by the server. So, a good first step is to search for SSI information using the name of your web host. That's likely to yield forum postings that will be useful in determining exactly what you need in your specific situation. The server side includes are not inserted into the main file of a given page until they have been uploaded to your server. To see your page as it will appear when it's published, include all of the code in one file when you're working on it. Once you're done, you can cut and paste the various server side includes you're using. The appropriate server side include command will take the place of the text that is used in each of your server side include text files. Using comment tags to mark the start and end point of each server side include may be helpful when working, and especially when you're ready to create your server side include files. Here are two examples of comment tags: < !--SSI navigation1 starts here-- > < !--SSI navigation1 ends here-- > (The space at the beginning and the end of the tag should be removed. Spaces were added to prevent the tag from being read as an actual comment line which wouldn't have been visible.) In case you're not familiar with comment tags, they are visible in the source code, but will not be seen on your page. Some older browsers may be an exception. In either event, you can paste over them when you replace each section of text that becomes its own server side include file. Once you're finished, you may want to save a copy before you move each section to its separate server side include file. Having one copy with all of the code isn't necessary, but it might be helpful depending on whether you make substantive changes to your site at some point. |
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