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trevorsaint
October 4th, 2003, 05:12 PM
Hello all. I have a question for anyone who has knowledge of ssi (server side include) - I have spent one day repeating the same process over and over again, and quite frankly its getting boring, not to mention time consuming.

I understand ssi is a good method of helping solve the process. So effectively if I have 30 links, i.e partner links, I would not need to change them on every page, only modify the one version, i.e using ssi.

Dreamweaver apparently lets you view the outcome of ssi, which does, except when I look at it in the working window, it looks awful, tables are all over the place and I really get the feeling something is not right. Can anyone help me understand ssi more, and in terms of browser compatibility how does it do?

thanks

Trev
λ
October 4th, 2003, 05:51 PM
SSI means server side includes... so it works perfectly on the browser side, as everything is done on the server.

You omit the <html> and so on from the document, it's as if you copied and pasted over from one page to the other.

so say this is the code contained in the ssi document:



<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<!--#include virtual="include.html" -->
</body>
<html>
//include.html
<a href="http://www.sponsor.com">sponsor</a>
on and on.
abzoid
October 4th, 2003, 05:53 PM
The scenario you've described is ideal for using server side includes, as it allows you to modify just the one included file, and see the changes on any pages that include that file.

Server side includes are processed by the server (i.e. specified file content included in page) before it is sent to the browser, so there are no browser issues with using ssi. Any browser issues will be with the specific content in the included file.

I wouldn't rely too heavily on Dreamweaver's WYSIWYG view when previewing pages with ssi. Always check them on a web server with a web browser.
trevorsaint
October 4th, 2003, 08:37 PM
Ok I managed to get things sorted, my problem was I had left the body tag in the includes :( duh!.

However Now I am going about testing it on the server, but nothing shows, is there something that I have done wrong, everything seems in order, what is this file - virtual, my settings are file and it points to the location. I saved the files as *.shtml but still no joy and ideas???

cheers for your replies as well

Trev
abzoid
October 4th, 2003, 08:45 PM
Make sure you've uploaded the include file, made that mistake myself more than once. ;)

If that's not the problem then check the FAQ's at your web host to see how they implement SSI's.
trevorsaint
October 4th, 2003, 08:58 PM
I have renamed all the files with the ext *.shtml and it works, is this ok in forms of security issues, what more can I do ?

Trev
abzoid
October 4th, 2003, 09:08 PM
As far as security, there is no difference between *.shtml and *.html files.

To enable SSL, for secure form submission you'd used https:// if you have an SSL certificate for your domain.

SSL and SSI have nothing to do with one another.
trevorsaint
October 4th, 2003, 09:11 PM
That's great thank you for all your help abzoid :)