Community

Campus Web Group meeting

Tool Tip: Server-side includes

How to code a server-side include, how to make use of such files, and how to organize them. Note: everyone can use this, even FP or Dreamweaver.

Basic Rules

Any file containing a server-side include instruction must have a file extension of .shtml -- if you just use .html you won't get the include, nor will you see an error message.

Include files can contain any html instructions, and can make calls to other includes

Includes happen server-side, so the browser never sees the include instruction. There's no way from the client side to determine where the includes are. Best Practice: put comments in the include, to delineate where they begin and end.

The include directive can go anywhere in the body; never in the head

Common uses for includes are headers, footers, navigation, and news or features boxes.

Best Practice: the include file should have a file extension of .inc

Best Practice: place the include file in a /inc folder. Just like images or styles, this folder should hold all the include files for the site

Syntax

<!--#include virtual="path/inc/filename.inc"-->

The path must be local; you cannot include files across servers or subdomains.

News

Google Apps for Education update
pending.... No new news here.
Subdomains, "microsites" and site naming
OIT is encouraging (requiring?) that all sites be boisestate.edu/sitename. Skip will talk about why
A change in assigning rights
Process on the back office side is changing. Skip will now review all requests and will assign the rights.
Improving processes: new site requests and account requests
Do you have any suggestions on how to improve the process? How about a checkbox saying you've read the rules? How well does the current form ( http://oit.boisestate.edu/accountrequest/ )work for you?

Discussion

Our main challenges and what we do to meet them. Skip has posted initial comments to the discussion board for CWG.

  1. Time (priorities)
  2. Technical skill
  3. Continuity in web editing position and in management positions
  4. Quality of Content
  5. Improving what we have
  6. Maintainability and documentation