Using SSI's To Ease Site Maintenance
By Lauri Harpf
2003-09-27
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Using SSI
Before building a site, every webmaster has to make a decision on what layout method to use. Most seem to go with either a frame or a table-based layout, the latter being more popular in these days. While both of these have their advantages and disadvantages, a frame-based site is usually easier to update. If you happen to have a 200-page site with the same navigation on every page, adding one link to the navigation menu might require you to edit all of the pages if the design is built with tables. On the other hand, if the site uses frames, you can get by with changing just a few files and save yourself a lot of time.
No, I'm not trying to convince you to switch to frames. I myself use tables and am not going to change my layout. The only problem is that over time, sites tend to grow. It just might be possible to edit around 20 pages when you want to change something, but when we start talking 50 or over one hundred, it just doesn't seem like a good idea. Unless you are prepared to spend hours trying to keep your navigation menu up to date, you have to come up with a better way of doing things.
If you found this article interesting, you may want to read these as well:
» The Basic Uses Of SSI - Server Side Includes
» Taming the Update Monster
» The Background-Table Combo
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