Building easily updatable static sites?

S.M.B.

I'm just wondering what's the best/most common method for building large static sites which allows for updating specific area's of your site without manually changing each page.

Server Side Includes? PHP includes? Dreamweaver Templates?

jmcc

S.M.B. wrote: »

I'm just wondering what's the best/most common method for building large static sites which allows for updating specific area's of your site without manually changing each page.

Server Side Includes? PHP includes? Dreamweaver Templates?

Well a static large website generally involves a database somewhere. It may be just that the data is published out from the db to static html pages. PHP or ASP would probably be the best approach. However server side includes might work if it is well designed. The key is to address these questions when starting to develop the site as trying to do it half-way through causes a lot of problems. But your definition of large may differ from mine.

Regards...jmcc

herya

Also depends on what you want to update - simple text fields in existing pages? Adding pics to galleries? Adding whole new pages and sections?

Dreamweaver templates solution is good for small business sites if the owner likes to play with Contribute but terrible for big sites and inconvenient for the developer - checking out those templates ugh...

S.M.B.

Ok, when I said large I guess it's not really that large at all but making small amendments would still be bothersome. I'd say it'll come in at about 30 pages or so.

There's no database involved. I've just been asked to develop the front-end of a website with only the minimum content provided to me.

Basically, I just want to "include" the header so that if I make a tiny amendment to a link here it will effect every page and not force me to edit 30 pages manually.

Also, I'd like to do the same with the navigation but I'll have to use some form of coding to highlight a users location on the site. I can't just import in a basic set of links. I'd imagine a bit of PHP would be the best way to tackle this.

p

cushycms is pretty handy at adding to an existing site. Doesn't allow you to create new pages or anything like that though.

If you're just looking to create templates for your own use, then Service Side Includes is a very easy way to do that.

Personally, for sites that are only being edited by me, I use PHP includes because I can then add a bit more intelligence and coding if I need something extra later on.

S.M.B.

p wrote: »

Personally, for sites that are only being edited by me, I use PHP includes because I can then add a bit more intelligence and coding if I need something extra later on.

Going to go with this. I was just worried I was over looking something that I hadn't heard of myself.

Thanks for the replies.