Introduction
So you want to have a page that has a menu in the left, your banner in the
top and the copyright and contact info below. I call this the classic
layout.
Usually you use frames to accomplish this wish. But if you don't want to use
frames, you would have to copy the almost static parts of each section of the
page to each page in your site. That's ok.
But if you have to update the menu or the contact email, you would have to
change a lot of pages, which is a kind of boring :-/, and it would cost you a
good amount of time.
The solution I have is to use server side includes for those parts that are
static (menu, copyright info, banner, ...). With the use of tables you'll have a
framework for your pages.
So to update one of this static items you change the include file and all the
pages will be ok.
The example will have this
look:
These are the include files:
- left.asp : for the left menu
- top.asp : for the banner image
- bottom.asp: for the contact and copyright stuff
Using server side includes in ASP is easy: just create a page you wish to
include (your menu, top banner, bottom copyright etc) and then in your main page
add the declaration:
<!---->
where include_file.asp is the file you wish to include. "#include virtual="
means the page's path is specified relative to the web root. You can also use
"#include file=" which means the path is specified as relative to the current
page's directory.
More information about include files can be found typing "#include" on the
index page of MSDN.
