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When I put in SSI, can't see page to edit

I just started using Dreamweaver 8 (I've been working in MX) and hit a funny error. It may be something I'm just not understanding, but when I'm working on an shtml page, everything works fine in DW until I add the SSI code to include a topper. At that point, the DESIGN view only shows the topper and it won't let me visually edit the page I'm working on (I can edit it in code, but not visually). Is there something I'm missing?

Jason Thompson

I often run into this problem when I have a complex table set and there's a form on the page (moving or deleting the close form (</form>) usually fixes that), but I haven't had it happen with SSI's.

You could try changing it from a <!--#include file... to <!--#include virtual...

You could also try a PHP include instead:
<?php include("header.php"); ?>

Otherwise, maybe you could post it somewhere for us to take a look at?

Cheers!

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Rouchie

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Jason C. Levine

>> It sounds a bit like there may be a tag in the SSI file that is not closed. For example, an open paragraph without
>> closing tag etc. When DW tries to read it back it can't render the page because of the anomaly.

This is usually the case. A lot of people put in SSI calls to wholly complete pages that have <html><head></head><body></body></html> structure intact. At some point, one of the closing tags closes a tag on the parent page and DW will not allow further editing.

Kevin Smith

ASKER

It ended up being a body tag issue like Jason mentioned. Thanks guys! By the way, should the pages containing the SSI have the head, etc, or should all of this be done in the ssi header code?

Kevin Smith

ASKER

Or I'm sorry...like Rouchie mentioned first :)

Rouchie

Tags can go in either the main page or the SSI files - there's no rules. Just put each tag where it is easily managable to avoid issues like this one!