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SET THE TABLE Written by: FLO |
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| SSI?? WHAT IS THAT? | |||
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| Sounds like some secret service group! So please explain this latest bit of "alphabet soup." SSI means Server Side Include. The server that your page is hosted on can be set up to use special tags to include things from another file ito the first file, which becomes your page when a viewer clicks on it. Now, if you use MSNTV's Page Builder, SSI tags won't work. But if you have an account at Arbor, Domania, the Zone, etc, you can use SSI tags. They save a lot of time. Here's one way to set up the first page for a website--the following tags go after the body tag: <tr><td>Here's where the main page content goes</td></tr> <tr><td>(or use <th>)Your codes for a footer. Links, name, contact info, date last modified, etc.</td></tr></table> Suppose you want to have several pages, maybe even many pages, in this website. You want them all to have the same title and footer. Here's where the SSI tags come into play! First set up two more files. Name them something like header.html and footer.html. Do not put the <html> and <head> tags on these pages! Put only the codes for the header in that file and only the codes for the footer in the other file. Now back to your first page: <!--#include virtual="header.html" --> </th></tr> <tr><td>Here's where the main page content goes</td></tr> <tr><td>(or use <th>) <!--#include virtual="footer.html" --> </td></tr></table> CAUTION: Make sure there is NO space after the opening bracket, but ONE space after the name of the file before the closing bracket in the include tag. All the codes in both of the included files will show up on your page! Now, when you want to change the info in either the header or the footer, you'll change only the header or the footer FILE, not all 10 pages of your website! One other thing: when people source your page, they'll see all the codes for the header and footer, plus the codes for the rest of the page. They won't see that you've used an SSI tag or two. Here's a little secret! See the two crows and the link at the bottom of this and all other pages in the Tribune? Guess what? Yep, that's an include file. You can include anything you want on your page by using SSI tags and files.
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