Update Your Site Instantly with SSI
Copyright © Les Goss
2003
Summary: In a large site, updating identical information (such as
the copyright date) on every page is a time-consuming task. Make
short work of it using Server Side Includes (SSIs).
Update Your Site Instantly Using SSI
There are probably two main ways you currently update your site.
The first, and most important, is adding new content. Whether you
are updating a calendar, adding a new page, or putting in a photo
of a new product, you are enhancing the value of your site for your
visitors.
The second, and more time-consuming changes are those that are made
to every page of your site. These might include copyright dates,
contact information, the date and time, or navigation links. If
you have a large site, changing just your company phone number on
every page can be a time-intensive, boring job.
Modern web development tools such as Macromedia's Dreamweaver offer
a template feature that allows your web designer to change one section
of a single page (say the contact info) and have the software automatically
change all the pages that were made from that template. Those changed
pages are still on the designer's computer, however, and must be
uploaded to your server one page at a time. Depending on the number
and size of the pages, and the speed of your designer's modem, updating
a site this way can take awhile.
A simpler and faster method uses something called Server Side Includes
(SSI). We'll use the example of updating your contact information,
which is currently found at the bottom of every page of your site.
Here's How It's Done
Your designer originally creates a new page that only contains your
contact information. This page is saved as a regular HTML page.
Next, the designer decides where on each page of your site to place
the contact info. In that spot, instead of typing in your address,
phone number and email, he places a single line of code that might
look something like
< !--#include virtual="../includes/newsSSI.html"-->.
This code tells the server to take whatever is on the SSI page and
place it in this location.
Each page is then saved with the .shtml suffix instead of the plain
.html ending. For instance, the URL of your home page might be www.yourcompany.com/index.shtml.
This tells the server that hosts your web site that this page has
a Server Side Include in it which must be dealt with before the
page is sent back to the visitor. Every time this page is called,
the server will check the SSI page and load its content into the
designated area of the web page.
How This Saves Time
Once the system is in place, updating every page of a large site
is a two-step operation. The SSI page is changed (perhaps the phone
number) and that one page is uploaded to the server. That's it!
Now every page with a dot shtml ending will show the change instantly,
without the entire site having to be uploaded to the server.
I use this on my site every time I add a new article. At the top
of each page is a pointer to my SSI page. On that page it just says,
"This week's article is..." with the article name and
a link to it. Every time I add a new article to the site I just
change the title and link on the SSI page and upload it to the server.
Instantly, every page on the site has the new article name and link.
Probably the most common use of SSI is to automatically post the
current date and time. Just insert the code <
!--#echo var="DATE_LOCAL" --> where you
want the date and time to appear and the server will take care of
the rest.
Conclusion
If you have a relatively small site, you probably don't need to
use SSIs, but as your site grows, these little snippets of code
can save your designer a considerable amount of time, which should
save you a corresponding amount of money.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For all your web design needs, or to join our mailing list, visit
ZebraMoon Web Design . To catch up on the articles you may have
missed, please come to our article archives http://www.zmoon.com/webdesigntips.html
Return to Beginning HTML Tutorial Index
Free
Text to HTML Converter for Web Publishing
|
WEBSITE101 TUTORIALS
HTML Tutorial
| CGI tutorial
| Email Tutorial
| Spam
Tutorial | Cookies
Tutorial | Privacy Tutorial
| Windows
Tutorial | DreamWeaver
Tutorial | Domain
Name Tutorial | Business
Plan Tutorial | Search
Position Tutorial | Online
Advertising Tutorial | Ecommerce
Essentials Tutorial
|