Templates/inclusion in the new age

[Nathan Funk]

I used to work as a web designer a couple of years ago, but I haven't
been closely in touch in the past years. Has anything changed recently
for managing content that is common among many pages (menus, headers,
footers...)?

The main options I recall are:
- Frames :P
- Server-side includes
- Dreamweaver templates
- PHP includes

I used Dreamweaver templates a lot -- learned to love them -- but now
I'm working on a project with another guy who does not have Dreamweaver.
I don't want to force it on him.

Is there a standard in XHTML or newer HTML standards that allows file
inclusion (much like CSS inclusion)? Or, is there some type of
pre-processor that I can run on my files to generate the final pages
(like Dreamweaver does it internally)? Ideally I would like the content
to be viewable off-line (e.g. no server-side includes)...

Thanks in advance fellow web monkeys!

Nathan

[Brian]

Nathan Funk wrote:

I used to work as a web designer a couple of years ago, but I haven't
been closely in touch in the past years. Has anything changed recently
for managing content that is common among many pages (menus, headers,
footers...)?
No, the options are the same as you remember.
Is there a standard in XHTML or newer HTML standards that allows file
inclusion (much like CSS inclusion)?
xhtml offers nothing that html does not offer by way of markup.
Ideally I would like the content
to be viewable off-line (e.g. no server-side includes)...

The best way to do that is to run a web server on your production box.

--
Brian (remove ".invalid" to email me)

[Pierre Goiffon]

"Nathan Funk" <no**@none.co m> a écrit dans le message de
news:HNuuc.6266 09$oR5.331266@p d7tw3no

Has anything changed recently
for managing content that is common among many pages (menus, headers,
footers...)?

The main options I recall are:
- Frames :P
- Server-side includes
- Dreamweaver templates
- PHP includes

You can add iFrame (and for XHTML? object but I don't think it is as
supported as iFrame)

[Lachlan Hunt]

Nathan Funk wrote:

Is there a standard in XHTML or newer HTML standards that allows file
inclusion (much like CSS inclusion)?

Not specifically for XHTML, but there is XInclude [1]. This is
specifically for including XML fragments within another XML document.
Although it's still a candidate recomendation, so don't expect it to be
*widely* implemented in the common browsers for a while, if at all.
This may be more useful with some kind of XML preprocessor that parses
you're pages and includes the necessary files automatically before
sending to the client.

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xinclude/

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://www.lachy.id.au/
la**********@la chy.id.au.updat e.virus.scanners

Remove .update.virus.s canners to email me,
NO SPAM and NO VIRUSES!!!

[Nathan Funk]

Brian wrote:

Nathan Funk wrote:

I used to work as a web designer a couple of years ago, but I haven't
been closely in touch in the past years. Has anything changed recently
for managing content that is common among many pages (menus, headers,
footers...)?

No, the options are the same as you remember.

Thanks for the reply, but that's just sad. It's probably one of the main
features that would finally allow clean programming...

What would be wrong with an <include src="mymenu.xht ml"/> ? Something so
similar is already done for including CSS and scripts... why not also
plain content???

Maybe there's a good explanation for this. If so, you would make me a
happier person by letting me know :)

Thanks for all your responses so far,

Nathan

[kaeli]

In article <n7Xvc.667199$I g.175337@pd7tw2 no>, no**@none.com enlightened
us with...

What would be wrong with an <include src="mymenu.xht ml"/> ? Something so
similar is already done for including CSS and scripts... why not also
plain content???

There is. I dunno how cross-browser it is, but it works in IE6 and NN6.

<object id="file1" data="test.html " type="text/html" width="100%"
height="50%" standby="Loadin g test.html...">
Your browser cannot render embedded HTML documents.
</object>
--
--
~kaeli~
A man needs a mistress... just to break the monogamy.
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/wildAtHeart
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/kaelisSpace

[Spartanicus]

kaeli <ti******@NOSPA M.comcast.net> wrote:

What would be wrong with an <include src="mymenu.xht ml"/> ? Something so
similar is already done for including CSS and scripts... why not also
plain content???

There is. I dunno how cross-browser it is, but it works in IE6 and NN6.

<object id="file1" data="test.html " type="text/html" width="100%"

That's embedding not including.

Embedding opens up a new viewport inside the existing viewport.

--
Spartanicus

[Jan Roland Eriksson]

On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 15:21:02 +0100, Spartanicus <[e-mail] > wrote:

kaeli <ti******@NOSPA M.comcast.net> wrote:

What would be wrong with an <include src="mymenu.xht ml"/> ?

There is. I dunno how cross-browser it is, but it works in IE6 and NN6.
<object id="file1" data="test.html " type="text/html" width="100%"

That's embedding not including.
Embedding opens up a new viewport inside the existing viewport.

As per SGML tradition, 'includes' are handled through the entity
expansion mecanism.

It is something that has been there for ages but since in SGML the word
'entity' was not spelled out as 'include' we do have the lack of
understanding of the difference betwen the described noun 'entity' and
the sometimes implemented verb 'include'

I hope that Nick has kept a usable interface for this illustration of
mine.

http://css.nu/markup/markup-entities.html

All the best...

[Spartanicus]

Nathan Funk <no**@none.co m> wrote:

I used to work as a web designer a couple of years ago, but I haven't
been closely in touch in the past years. Has anything changed recently
for managing content that is common among many pages (menus, headers,
footers...)?

No, the options are the same as you remember.

Thanks for the reply, but that's just sad. It's probably one of the main
features that would finally allow clean programming...

What would be wrong with an <include src="mymenu.xht ml"/> ? Something so
similar is already done for including CSS and scripts... why not also
plain content???

Let's assume that HTML 4 would have added a client side include method,
all existing UAs (Google etc.) would then have been broken,
unacceptable.

Now let's assume that HTML 4 would have added <poem></poem> markup,
compliant pre HTML 4 UAs would ignore this unknown markup as per spec
and render the content. This is acceptable behaviour for a markup
language which is meant to be backward compatible.

Afaics it's possible to add Client Side Includes to something like XHTML
2, since it's designed to be not backward compatible.

It might be nice to have that coupled to css media rules, so that you
can include code depending on the output media.

--
Spartanicus

[Nick Kew]

In article <hm************ *************** *****@4ax.com>,
Jan Roland Eriksson <jr****@newsguy .com> writes:

I hope that Nick has kept a usable interface for this illustration of
mine.
/me looks up ...
http://css.nu/markup/markup-entities.html

Ah, yes. I think you can take that as stable for the forseeable
future (ie unless something very bad happens, like a new security
problem concerning OpenSP that I can neither live with nor fix).

Did you notice http://valet.webthing.com/catalogue/ ?
Not an online demo, but a very practical application of the concept.
Well, in a manner of speaking: SGML is perhaps not an entirely
conventional choice of tool for the job:-)

--
Nick Kew

Nick's manifesto: http://www.htmlhelp.com/~nick/