Slightly OT: Building a modular page with CSS Positioning

[CJM]

Up until recently I've almost exclusively used a frame-based architecture
for my websites; now I'm trying to move to a single page system using
validated CSS positioning... do it properly in other words...!

My company intranet will be my first guinea pig....

I've knocked up the bare bones of a template for a single page, with a
standard 3 column layout - left and right navigation divs, plus a liquid
'content' div in the middle.

However, at 20k+ for each page, it's a bit larger than it needs to be, and
having the standard navigation and page decoration in each page is a
maintenance nightmare.

So I though about moving the core code out into #Include files - the problem
here is that my content pages (each in a subdirectory somewhere) cant refer
to my .inc files - the file path cant start with '/' or '..'

The alternative approach is to have a standard page near the top of the tree
that #INCLUDEs different relevant content as needed. This could be done
easily in ASP using a querystring to indicate the content to include in the
middle. But this doesnt seem like good practice and I'm not sure about
accessability issues (text-readers etc).

Can anyone give any guidance? Any templates/sites out there I should look
at?

Thanks

[Curt_C [MVP]]

remember...there are two types of INCLUDES
FILE and VIRTUAL
That won't get you what you need?

--
----------------------------------------------------------
Curt Christianson (Software_AT_Darkfalz.Com)
Owner/Lead Designer, DF-Software
http://www.Darkfalz.com
---------------------------------------------------------
..Offering free scripts & code snippits for everyone...
---------------------------------------------------------
"CJM" <cjm...@yahoo.nospam.co.uk> wrote in message
news:eg1Ud6rpCHA.2444@TK2MSFTNGP10...

[Stephajn Craig]

> The alternative approach is to have a standard page near the top of the
tree
> that #INCLUDEs different relevant content as needed. This could be done
> easily in ASP using a querystring to indicate the content to include in
the
> middle. But this doesnt seem like good practice and I'm not sure about
> accessability issues (text-readers etc).

This actually is good practice. For starters, you've got only ONE page to
maintain for content, navigation and layout rather than a tonne of
individual pages. This is exactly how I designed our company intranet site
and it works GREAT. Our designers LOVED me when I told them I only needed
them to design one page and leave me some space for the content. You affect
this one page with stylesheet information, and then as each page is included
underneath it, the style flows down onto each of your included files.
(Makes for a long case select...that's for sure. But it runs VERY VERY fast
for us)

if you check out www.spcworld.net you'll see that this is precisely what I'm
doing. (As you navigate, take a look at the querystring and you'll see
what's happening)

This is also good because you could do something like this to hide the
layout of files on your site.
For example, a url that looks like this:

default.asp?inc=blargh

could wind up actually including a page from

rootofsite/folder1/folder2/folder3/folder4/filename.asp

and no one would know any better.

But that's my two cents. :)

Remember, when you do it this way, all you ahve to change is ONE page for
all navigational needs, and the stylesheet is in one place as well. Makes
managing the site MUCH MUCH easier in my opinion.

Stephajn Craig

"CJM" <cjm...@yahoo.nospam.co.uk> wrote in message
news:eg1Ud6rpCHA.2444@TK2MSFTNGP10...

[CJM]

Virtual??

Well you learn something every day!

Cheers

CJM

"Curt_C [MVP]" <Software_AT_Darkfalz.com> wrote in message
news:#rkrFBspCHA.2764@TK2MSFTNGP09...

[David C Holley]

I'm not familar with CSS Positioning, however my web site is designed in
a manner similar to what you describe with a few differences.

First,
I have an ASP page for each page of HTML content that I want to present.
This page contains a table that utilizes INCLUDE files to load the
content. The HTML on the ASP page is essentially...

<table>
<tr>
<td>
insert include file for index here
</td>
<td>
insert include file for content here
</td>
</tr>
</table>

Second, when designing the folder layout of the site, I chose a flat
folder approach where all files are one level away from any other
folder. All files utilized for the site are containted one folder level
down from the site root. As such, I can relocating a file merely
involves updating the links to that file. I do not have to change any
links in the file itself.

Sample directory tree:
C:\inetpub\wwwroot\GatewayOrlando
\content
\contentincludefiles
\images
\scripts
\data

While there are subfolders, they do not contain any content intended for
public consumption. My design is modeled after the library architecture
of an AS/400 (aka iSeries). I have found, so far, that this design has
been quite useful and have not encountered an issues to date.

David

[David C Holley]

Also, since I don't utilize subfolders for content, I have a naming
convention in place to help organize the files in the folders.