Including other pages

what about placing the menu in a frame?  That would solve your problem.

I would rather not use frames.
I did plan to cut and paste the menu code into each page, but wanted to keep the file size down by using an include command.

One little navigation bar shouldn't add that much to the weight of your html pages.

I would cut & paste the first time, and if you are using an editor like Homesite, you can make code snippets to paste the whole block in, and you can use global replace if you have changes in the future.

Betsy

i did this once. i saved the menu as a jpg and then divided the menu into different pictures. than i put to every picture a link and it worked as a menu. i hope this helped little bit.

I guess you need to move ISP since your current ISP does not support Server Side Includes.

Is your current ISP a free one?  If you are paying then I would demand Server Side Includes or else go to a different ISP.

I can recomend http://www.ewebcity.com for excellent Free Hosting.  As well as being free they fo not put any adverts or pop up windows on your site and they also allow Server Side Includes, Activer Server Pages, Server Side Databases, ODBC etc.

Hope this helps

Dave

I am currently using Freenetname for hosting as they give you a free .co.uk or .org.uk domain.

I have not yet tried uploading the pages to this server, instead I am using local web servers (IIS and PWS).  Neither seem to work with the #Include command.

In order for your local server (at least IIS or PWS on NT wks) to support include files, the file must be processed by a specific .dll before being delivered to the client.  There are two options, asp.dll or ssinc.dll.  Pages are directed to one or the other of these .dll's, based on the file extension and the application mappings for the directory.  In general, .asp or .shtm files will support includes.

ASP are Active Server Pages, which can include code executed at the server prior to being sent to the client.  .shtm files are simply HTML files which can contain server side include files.

You can check this out using MMC (Internet Service Manager).  Right click on the directore, access the Properties page, and click the Configuration option of the Home Directory tab.  The App Mappings dialog box should identify appropriate extensions for sending a file to either of these .dll's.

The directory you choose will have to be enabled as an application.

Let us know if this does not get you pointed in the right direction.

As far as uploading the files to an ISP's server, it will depend on the ISP.  Many web servers, when they are configured properly, support server side includes.  This is not very difficult, but it is a problem which must be resolved between you and your ISP.

FWIW, the FP webbot is simply a way of providing the same functionality.  It is not necessary to achieve this.

HTH,

Tom

Active Server Pages, Server Side Includes, DLLs, Perl templates:  none of that is so easy to use without some experience or someone holding your hand.

If you need to get up & running with this, remember KISS: keep it simple. How many pages do you have on your site? If it seems like a manageable number, just do the cut & paste for now.

I used to think that way, too, but SSI, once it is enabled, can be a great timesaver.

Sort of like CSS files.  They seem a bit daunting, at first, but, once you start working with them, you find that they can save a whole lot of time.

IMHO, using CSS and includes IS keeping it simple.  I'd rather spend an hour or two figuring out how to implement an SSI than spending a couple of minutes per page editing every time I wanted to change something.

(Of course, someone will say "get a program which will do a global search and replace", and that's a valid comment.  Still seems safer to single-source, if you can.)

Just my $.02,

Tom

Ah! someone asked a question and we all just jumped in to answer - without finding out the requirements or finding out about the users. Does he have 5 pages or 500?

Because he originally mentioned he's writing in frontpage, i leaped to the conclusion that he does not have an extensive programming background and i was trying to give him a simple way to get the task done.

if he's using frontpage, how is he going to use a server without frontpage extensions anyway?

my 2c.

Betsy:

You are right.  Unfortunately, all too often, people ask questions here without providing "critical" information, and we jump in with our own assumptions.  Tends to prolong the discussion without yielding fruitful results.

The only issue I would take with your last comment is that FP can be used to create any number of pages without requiring FPx on the target server.  You just can't use any of its components or web management capabilities.  For simple webs, you can create the entire web on a development server using Front Page, and then ftp up to an Apache (or other non-FPx) server.  I'm not even sure you would need to have FPx on your development server to use FP as a WYSIWYG version of Notepad!!  When I need to try a quick page out, I frequently just open the Front Page editor and toss something together.  All it does is create HTML.

As far as the original question goes, I assumed, since bostonLtd asked about using include files, that they had enough skills (or interest) to make them work, if the configuration was set up properly.

I guess it all comes down to offering suggestions and letting the questioner decide what works for them.

Tom

off the topic and *not* to get involved in a flame war, i had understood that if you used frontpage you must use IIS and nt, that you could not port your pages to a unix server.

and as long as i'm rambling - this is pure speculation - i would have expected frontpage to have some kind of global feature to "insert header here" that would do the trick for bostonLtd.

FP has lots of these capabilities.  Many of them, I don't know about (I don't use it a lot).  I know it has navigational headers/footers/sidebars, but I suspect they are FP components, and would not be supported without the extensions.

I certainly don't consider a discussion about program capabilities anywhere near a flame war, and that's certainly not my intention.

So far as I know, whether or not you can port pages created with FP to a UNIX (or any other) server is solely a matter of the HTML produced.

The issue of the Front Page server extensions has to do with  little "extras" which are available in FP.

It's collection of "components" (i.e., webbots) are scripts/programs which require the extensions to be installed on the server in order to function.  The extensions are also required in order to use (some of?) the web management capabilities (e.g., publishing via HTTP, etc.).  However, as I said, you can create pages in FP and ftp them to your UNIX server, provided there are no Front Page components included.

FWIW, Microsoft (in conjunction with others?) have developed Front Page extensions for various flavors of the UNIX servers.  (I have a site on an Apache server running UNIX which supports FPx.  I think you will find that many of the non-NT hosting providers are now supporting FPx.)

Hope this provides some useful info for you.  No flames intended; sorry if I created that impression; just sharing info.

Kind regards,

Tom

dovcamp:

I was busy typing while you posted your comment.

My comment about headers, etc. was based directly on shared borders.  Interesting that it seems to work without FPx.  I would not have guessed that.  Shows how much I know. (:-}

Tom

It took a while of messing around with an NT Server with the FP extensions and an Apache Server (yes you can have FP extensions on UNIX) where I enabled and disabled the FP extensions, to figure out what features work where.  But, FP 2000 sums it up pretty well in the help file in an article called "enable or disable the FrontPage Server extensions."

Basically, the features that only work with servers that have FP extensions are:

- Hit Counter (Insert menu, Component submenu)
- Confirmation Field (Insert menu, Component submenu)
- Include Page (Insert menu, Component submenu)
- Scheduled Include Page (Insert menu, Component submenu)
- Categories (Insert menu, Component submenu)
- Search Form (Insert menu, Component submenu)
- Additional Components (Insert menu, Component submenu)

The best way to be sure you are not using anything that requires the FP extension is to go into Tools > Page Options and Take the check out of "Enabled with Front Page Server Extensions."  This will grey out all components that cannot be used.

Cool!!  Good info, dovcamp.

Tom

>> Shared Border feature...  This allows you to create a left, right, top,
>> or a bottom border that will show up on some or all of your pages

So boston, that's what you should do - it's within the context of your environment

about the flames - i didn't give my opinion of fp :-)

Thanks everyone.

I am not using the FPx but just use FP to set the layout and so on.  After many attempts I have got ASP working with the include command but have hit another problem.

After a conversation with the technical support helpline of Freenetname (my ISP) I have discovered that after all this work they do not support ASP, or anything server-side.

My final request is for a top notch free ISP that will support ASP, SSI, FPx (not essential), secure directories (.htaccess) and will host my domain name.  If any one knows of somewhere, please let me know.

Many thanx.

My point was that you don't need FPx to use shared borders and that they accomplish what you are trying to do.