Automatic updates, Sorry for the lousy description Options

[Gohst]

Hello.

Firstly, let me apologise for any confusing statements you may read in this post. I do know what I want, but I don't know how to say it, so please stick with me, if you will.

When I needed help making my site look like what I wanted it to, I came here and received fantastic help, so thanks for that. What I would like to now now is, now that I have my site (here: mybrain.ej.am) I have to manually update each page when I put a new one up, I have to go through each page of code and insert a new link to the new page.

At first I thought it wasn't going to be a problem, but now with even less than 20 pages on the site, its becoming quite a chore. Is there a way to have, sort of, a central list of links? And each page, like, "calls" it or something, to display it in the left hand side column?

I'm sorry, I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I hope you get the idea.

That way, I'd be able to drop a new link in the bottom of this "link file" and each page would have all the links they need. I think that would be easier, but trying to figure out how to do it, is too hard for me to figure out.

I thought, seeing as though it calls the 2col.css thing, that we could put the links in that? so that when the page displayed, it showed the links? Though I thought thats probably a very incorrect way of doing things.

[Effovex]

You have 3 choices: frames (which come with many problems of their own and so should be avoided), server-side processing, and preprocessing. See the FAQ entry how do I include a file in another

[Gohst]

Thanks for that.

I did read it just then, though I have to admit, most of it was gobbledygook to me. Although this Using server-side inclusion (a potentially powerful tool) merely as a way to insert static files such as standard header/footers has implications for perceived access speed and for server load, and is better avoided on heavily loaded servers. makes a bit of sense. My site isn't what you'd call successful, or popular. And what I want to include is just text and links, so... I don't know. The "potentially powerful tool" part makes this option seem like overkill for my little site. Would you reccomend the other option in my case over the "server-side inclusion".

I'll be taking your word for it here, because honestly, I don't really understand.

[Tom H.]

If you don't have a whole lot of pages which require updates, it might be more convenient to make the changes to your local copies, then upload the modified files. If your page editing tool supports batch find-and-replace, that would be an easy way to add or remove content. Most decent text editors have that feature, and some text editors have their own method for file inclusion.

[stjepan]

A look to your site reveals tha you need some CMS. Take a look at sNews, it allows you to use it when you want, and to make a design at wish.

[Gohst]

some text editors have their own method for file inclusion.

Really? I didn't know that. Which ones, for example? I'll take a look at that. I'm assuming you mean on the part of my webpages where the links are, when I type the page at a .txt stage, and save it, and when it saves, it includes the extra links.txt in the correct place? Because if that really is what you're talking about, I can live with that. I guess. Or would I have to re-save every page every upload? Could become tiresome.

A look to your site reveals tha you need some CMS. Take a look at sNews, it allows you to use it when you want, and to make a design at wish.

I need some CMS, you reckon? I'll take a look at sNews... see what it is.

[pandy]

Hey, let's stop and think a little... If SSI taxes the server too much a CMS taxes it more. Not that I think it's a problem in either case. The text you read is a caution that has been around a while.

If all you want is to include the menu on each page I think you should do just that. It's a good starting point. K.I.S.S. Do it on the server with SSI or PHP or do it locally before you upload the files. Basically you can do it with (advanced) Find & Replace. It isn't even much of a hassle to do it by hand if you don't have more than a couple of dozens files and don't update daily as long as you keep a copy of the menu in it's own doc and mark the menu out with comments in the other documents. You update the special menu doc, copy it and paste it over every commented menu section in the HTML documents. SSI/PHP is a little more handy though.

[Gohst]

I've been updating each link section on each page manually every time I've wanted to add a new page. The only reason I don't update the site daily or whatever is that every time a new page goes up, its more and more pages I have to open, paste new links into, save and upload. Its more of a hassle each time and would, I imagine, shortly begin to take longer to do than actually write the pages themselves.

Hence, my asking for a quicker, easier way.

This post has been edited by Gohst: May 10 2007, 09:01 AM

[pandy]

So go for includes.

[Christian J]

I agree with pandy about the includes (use PHP, if available, it's not harder than SSI but can be used for much more). Only (minor) problem is that includes won't work in your own computer's file system unless you install your own offline server, so you can't easily preview the included parts before uploading.

A text editor with batch find & replace works too, but sometimes you get unexpected results with find & replace. I use TextPad, but Notetab or EditPad are probably good as well.

[pandy]

Thou shalt always agree with pandy.

[Gohst]

OK. I'll look up how to do includes.

Failing that, I'll go with sNews. That looks alright. Quick question, you said it might slow down the site... would it be like drastic? Or would it be one of those "slow downs" which just adds a tenth of a second onto the page load? Because that's just not really a lot. Really.

[Christian J]

Includes will not noticeably slow down the server. It might well be less than 1/10 second, but I haven't measured.

A databasedriven site (like sNews?) might be a little slower depending on a lot of things.