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Re: Global navigation that works with complex file structure
Subject:Re: Global navigation that works with complex file structure From:"Lou Quillio" <public -at- quillio -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 19 Sep 2005 15:03:15 -0400 (EDT)
On Mon, September 19, 2005 11:47 am, Youngblood, Susan said:
> For global navigation, the site used to use Flash buttons created in an
> older version of Dreamweaver. These buttons worked because the links were
> in Flash files (external to the html page, of course). I'm now changing
> the navigation to simple links that have their display controlled in CSS.
I'm guessing that the Flash-embedded links
1. worked anywhere because they targetted absolute URLs,
2. could be snapped-into any page, yet
3. could also be maintained globally.
If so, we're looking for a way to "include" a standard snippet of
navigation markup -- containing absolute-URL link targets -- into any
page. There are three.
* If it has to be HTML-only, use a frame or an iframe. Not recommended,
but will work.
* Most Web servers (Apache, IIS) will process standard NCSA-style #include
directives. Store the nav snippet in, say, `/includes/topnav.inc`
(extension doesn't matter) and have the server insert it into your pages
like this:
<!--#include virtual="/includes/topnav.inc" -->
The included file will appear at the exact spot of the #include directive.
Use an absolute path from the docroot. This syntax accepts relative
paths, but don't go there. The above example says to include the text
file `topnav.inc`, which lives in a directory called `includes` in this
server's document root. Doesn't matter where the calling file is located.
The server might have to be told to parse the files it serves for #include
directives, if that's not the default behavior.
* Server-side scripting exposes real programmatics, so it's the kahuna.
Any kind of 'intelligent include' routine is possible. Probably you have
PHP or ASP available. You don't have to learn everything about a
scripting language to use it. A little can go a long way.
Start with #includes, and switch to scripting if needed.
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