A way to beat frames?

[Rollchan]

On my website, I have a top header and a side bar, that I want to remain constant. THe middle page I obviously want to have change. Is there a way to keep sections of a webpage remain the same without haveing to use frames? Is there a script to do it? My friend said there was one.

[jonirvine]

You can use Server Side Includes but browsers still need to reload the whole page.

Eg:

Say you had a top and left navigation system and the right hand side was the site content.

If you placed the top and left navigation HTML in it's own file what you would then do is on every other page call this HTML to be added.

This may not be what you are looking for, but if it sounds familiar do a search for Server Side Includes (SSI) and you'll find more info on it.

Jon

[Rollchan]

Thanks for the info! I just have 2 more questions about ssi:

1. How do I change files into shtml format? If I try to change a text file and rename the file with .shtml, it still has .txt on the end of it.

2. Can I put more than 2 <!--#include virtual="SSI\INSERT.SHTML" --> files on the same page, or do I have to put one in the existing one to make it look like there are 2. CAn I put the tags in tables and such?

[Rollchan]

does anyone know?

[Dr. Web]

basically heres the deal on SSI:

You can include them wherever you want, inside a table/ frame/ layer.

BUT, be caeful. If you put a SSI in a table cell, the TD will expand to fit the contents of the SSI.

So make up your table, and put your SSI's wherever you want to. Then include your static content.

saving the file as shtml:

open the file in your text editor (notepad or whatever). Then choose save as, and make sure you have selected "all files" NOT TEXT. Then name it whatever.shtml, and save it. Then verify that it was saved,
What you are doing is changing the filename, but not the extention.... IE: your taking the file named this.txt, and clicking on rename, and typing in this.shtml ...... the result is this.shtml.txt . Just do it the old 'notepad' way and you should be all set.