Hey guys, I've got a site that has well over 500 pages I'd guess at http://www.travoholic.com and it's some to reel this unruly bad boy in and get back to work on it! Problem is that I designed it all with Notepad (which I still use for some odd reason) well before I knew about the world of SSI (which I have learned and use on my other sites) or templates in programs such as Dreamweaver (which I know nothing about). So in order to make updating this thing as pain free as possible in the future I'm going to have to so something with SSI or templates. Changing to SSI will be a nightmare because I'll have to change all the .htm files to .shtml plus put redirects from the old web addresses to the new ones. I don't even know if this is practical. I don't have Dreamweaver or any other web editors but I'm thinking they are obviously the way forward. Just wanted to check to see what would be involved to make a template for this site. Is it something that's feasable and relatively pain free? Would I be able to keep my files as .htm? Any other options I don't know about or tips and advice to help me with this really annoying project would be great! Thanks for reading, Kirsty
Have you considered using a content management system (CMS) such as Joomla, Drupal or Typo3? http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=51 -jay
I've looked into them for other sites but don't really know anything about them... is there a big learning curve? Would I be able to use the CMS to make the layout look exactly like the HTML version of my site? I think I'm a big doubter of them because most CMS sites I've seen are really bland and aren't that creative or nice to look at. I don't know if that's because the people using them don't tend to be web design types or if it's a limitation of the CMS... what do you think? Plus would I be able to use a CMS and still have the same file names ending in .htm?
If you're writing your site in notepad then there shouldn't be much of a learning curve. Not sure about keeping the same urls - you'd have to research that. Bottom line is that everything is a trade off. With a CMS you can focus on the content and not the coding or you could rewrite it in php using a header/footer/browse metaphor and have absolute control over everything but you're going to have to learn php and most likely a SQL Db. Which means that your time will be spent coding instead of producing. I've built several Joomla sites and its pretty easy to customize the UI. I'd bet that Drupal/Typo3 are similar in that respect. If you have a cpanel host, use fantastico to install one or more of them and build some test sites and get familiar with the packages. All three of them have very active forums - read through them and if you can't find answers to your questions ask the community(ies).
You are doing it the hard way! The new programs, like Dreamweaver are a breeze to use and update. You can hand code, or use the WYSIWYG editor that makes some tasks super easy. Dreamweaver is the way to go if you don't want to change your file names. You can create a template in Dreamweaver and put all your pages into it... You can keep the .htm extention. When you change and upload the template, all the pages will change to reflect that... It's a pretty easy system, although it will take some work, as you would have to take all 500 pages of content and move it into the new template... That's the option I'd do if you are dead set on keeping the .htm. If you are just worried about people (and the SE's) getting to your pages, you can always do a "Perminently Moved, Redirect" of all .htm pages to .shtml or .php pages... I can't really tell you how to do that, but it definitely can be done...
Thanks both of ya. Guys that's pretty much exactly what I wanted to hear about DW... I'f been putting off getting it for ages and really have to sort my stuff out and get a move on! This site has been stagnating for ages because updating anything is a huge mission so hopefully once I put the time in to sort things out I will be happy to work on it and keep things going. Cheers! Kirsty
travoholic Nice website by the way. From my own experience, I had to do the leap-of-faith as well, by changing all my .htm files to .shtml to incorporate SSI. What I did was in the old .htm file, I put the full URL of new .shtml location. When search bots arrive at the old .htm page, it will go to the .shtml URL and index the new page. Yes, I did have my reservation at first, but I did it. So far so good. I guess you need to switch to SSI for your own good. Re-indexing should be no problem because the bots will see the older .htm pages are now empty, so they will read the content of the new .shtml files. Good luck!
There is no compelling reason to change extensions from .html to .shtml. In the Apache config or in a top level .htaccess file, set XBitHack on. Then, as you convert a page to SSI, chmod +x on that file. That will allow you to maintain your current naming structure. cheers, gary
If you do decide to stick with using SSI on the files, note that there are a few ways to change hundreds of files quickly. For example, BK ReplaceEm: http://www.orbit.org/replace/ Also, NotePad++ has a find/replace option that will work on all your files. Of course, you want to backup before you do it. But I've used it to change thousands of files in a matter of minutes, and it's not bad at all. However, it is single-line. BK ReplaceEm will let you do multi-line replaces, and even regex replaces, if you need. -Tony
Is there any great advantage to SSI that I don't see? My only motivation for any change is to be able to make changes to the template-type portions of my site and if I can do this with Dreamweaver without any problems then I don't see the point of messing around with changing file names, redirects etc. Any thoughts? Thanks again!
Personally I think the switch wont be that bad. But at 500 pages you may want to hire someone with some linux scripting knowledge, they can make this kind of mass text conversion a snap if they know how to use the right tools. SSI will help you greatly IMHO. And personally, I'd suggest sticking with notepad or something just a few steps above it (like notepad ++ which has syntax highlighting). I hate the bulk/bogus/crap code web design software puts in (and trust me, it will put it in). edit : about SSI server side includes allows you to have one file for say, the menu on each of your pages. this way you can update one file instead of 500. so, in a sense you can have a ssi file for your -menu -header -footer -ads then your web pages will mainly consist of just their content with a bunch of SSI tags to bring in the other hum drum stuff. make sense ?
Thanks Gary but I don't even know what Apache is... or chmod +x for that matter!!! Plus all of my files are .htm not .html, is that ok? I'm sure I can work it out using the link you sent but just wanted to check first. Cheers, Kirsty
Hi Kirsty, Apache is the web server application. Better than â…” of all web sites are served up by Apache. Yours among them In modern operating systems, like Unix, BSD and Linux, each file has certain 'permissions', readable, writable and executable, for each of the file's owner, its group and for all users. chmod is a utility that lets the file owner change those permissions. "chmod +x" says make this file executable. We won't actually execute the file, but with Apache's configuration rule, XBitHack on, Apache will use the executable flag as its signal to parse the file for SSI. Ask your server administrator to set it for your virtual domain, or read up on .htaccess files, and do it yourself. Whether .htm or .html won't matter. The .htm comes from the limited file naming conventions (up to eight characters for the name, and up to three characters for the extension) of MSDOS, a holdover from 8-bit CP/M. The Web is Unix based. It wouldn't hurt if you could get your employer to put Linux on an old PC. Becoming familiar with the *nix way of doing things, especially by working in the shell, will make a lot of things easier to understand. cheers, gary
Thanks but the site I want to update is actually http://www.travoholic.com Can you tell me what's running that one or let me know how to check? All sounds tricky but I will have a crack at it!
You should—without fail—be using Firefox as your prime testbed. The Firefox developer's extension will let you view the server response headers. Your host is using a version that should have been upgraded many times. It is sorely behind in critical upgrades. If they won't do things right, especially where security issues are involved, you should move to a better host. The current is Apache 1.3.34 in the 1.3 version. cheers, gary
Thanks gary! They're also ridiculously expensive for what I get (Hostway.com) but I signed up years ago and have been lazy about changing. That's another reason to get off my ass and switch over! Thanks again for you help guys! Kirsty
Some notes on Dreamweaver: Yes, templates will make life much easier for future pages. On the current pages, you'll get the eventual benefit of being able to, say, update the template with a new link along the top to the lovely shores of Madagascar or somewhere and it will update all 500+ pages once you've saved the template. Or say you switch to a different hosting company who for whatever reason doesn't allow index.htm as a default home page. They railroad you into using welcome.htm as the default. Dreamweaver will allow you to change the hyperlink on your Home button to reflect this change, and then when you re-save the Template, it will update each page with the same hyperlink change. There is a downside however. Dreamweaver templates use editable regions to control what content is the same from page to page, and what content is allowed to differ. When you first start switching your pages over to the template, you'll have to open each page individually, copy the contents you want to keep and paste it into a new document based on the template in an Editable Region, and re-save the page (or delete the contents that is being replaced by the template, save the page, and use the Apply Template to Page command). Personally, I believe in Dreamweaver's Templating. It truly does save a lot of time once it has been implemented. Taking a 500+ page site and trying to get it done "easy" may take some work on the front end, but Dreamweaver's abilities to manipulate Template children are wondrous. Especially for a pure HTML-based site with no server-side scripting. **EDIT** I had an afterthought about how Dreamweaver's Template system works. I'd like to put your mind at ease. NO, you don't have to change your .htm extensions. Templates are known to Dreamweaver through setting up a site in the program (basically, just pointing DW to the root folder, the images folder, and if you want, setting up ftp info to allow it to transfer the files for you). Once a site is set up, you can create a Template using standard HTML markup, add in an Editable Region from the Insert toolbar, and choose to Save As Template. Any pages you want to be based off of the template can be created from scratch, or you can choose to use the "Modify --> Templates --> Apply Template To Page" command on pages that already exist. Dreamweaver does the rest of the bookkeeping, leaving you more time to create new content instead of tediously re-inserting the same stuff over and over again on every page. You can always give DW a test drive. 30-day trial copies are available for download from the Macromedia/Adobe website and are fully functional...no "You can do everything but save the file" type junk. Try it and see what you think.