Client-side nested HTML pages

I'm not clear on what you want but Javascript includes sound like the ticket.

Can you explain what you want to do?

do you want one file that you can update to make sitewide changes and do not want to use PHP?

I wanna display an HTML page (complete with formatting, links & images) in a certain area of another page. But it won't just be the content of the page, the nested page will include html,head, & body tags.

The reason is cuz I'm gonna completely redesign a site for someone, but they've paid heaps of money for 2 years of being able to use a really pointless asp-powered content-management system (though through some mindless idea to lock them into the system they can't actually deal with the asp script files themselves.

They think this system makes it easier for them to update content on their own (it really doesn't help that much), but there's no way I'm going to design every parts of their pages to deal with the damn thing. So what I wanna do is connect some bare HTML files to the system which only include data for the small areas they want to update, then I want those HTML pages that they can edit using the other system to be displayed in certain areas of the pages I'm going to make.

Let me know if that isn't clear.

If you want a head etc inside another page with that stuff I recommend Iframes. It's about as compliant as any other client side method since it's been a standard tag for a while.

Would that work? just include the asp CMS pages in iframes in the pages you design.

Thanks a heap, Craven. I'll reasearch Iframes now. I think it'll work fine.

Did IE 4 support iframes? I'm assuming IE 5,6 and the very latest versions of Opera & Netscape support it. If it's been around since IE4 it should be fine.

I believe it started with IE 5.5 and Netscape 6. But just about as many browsers that don't support IFRAME don't support javascript etc.

Ok, I just checked. Should be compatible with IE4.

Excellent. If it were only IE5.5 up that would be kinda pushing it, methinks.

(As a bit of a rant as well as explanation why I'm doing this, the company that offers the CMS system (they design some of the world's ugliest pages) refuses to tell me the tags I'd need to make templates for the system on me own, which would mean no matter what I give 'em they're gonna end up charging a fortune to re-code the pages anyway. By just nesting pages in specific editable areas all I'll need to ask them to make in the the way of templates for the CMS will be blank pages.)

He he, watch them include some javascript to break out of frames. ;-)

You evil bastard, Craven! Youse just gotta mess with my mind like that don't yew.

If they do that I's gonna give birth to a whole herd of bovine!

LOL, is the CMS script remotely hosted?

Yup.



..Umm, fer future reference, have you worked with/know of good CMSes?

I use one based on phpbb. ;-) The most famous is prolly php nuke but I detest that thing. The one we are using for the CMS pages here is the only one I have really tinkered with down to the core.

Ok, you can also just use a blogging system like moveabletype or some such. Those are a piece of cake.

Hehe, oh well me's wasn't talking 'bout forum-oriented CMSes
I'll have a look at moveabletype sometime

Well if you think about it, it can either be a simple CMS or have a full fledged "comments" feature for articles.

I could make a really nifty CMS based on PHP.

But one of the blogging tools is the way to go if you want easy. You can either install some blogging software on your server (moveabletype) or you can leave the software on their servers and have them FTP the updates to your server. They usually require a linkback and that's it.

Thanks for all the info, Craven. Movabletype looks pretty cool. I'll try to set up a web server at my office so I can mess with that kinda thing (never did do any server-side anything before). I'll see how it goes.

It seems movabletype could be useable for a variety of situations, but overall it seems it's put to best use in blog-type pages (not exactly what I'm after). Do ya know what kinda control it gives you with the navigation system, or if you can include external javascripts in pages or suchlike (I'm new to CMS systems)? I'll try it out and see how it goes.

I wanna git me feet a bit wet with this kinda stuff so, um, are there any more powerful systems you recommend that're still moderately easy to use? Well, basicaly what I wanna do is be able to update areas of pages, have navigation that updates itself (while still giving me a lotta power to mess with it) whenever new pages are added through the CMS, be able to add pages easily, and be able to handle things like guestbooks and newsletters and suchlike (I wouldn't need a CMS to handle anything design-related). Any leads you have would be interesting.

Greymatter is supposed to be good blog software too if you need an alternative.

http://noahgrey.com/greysoft/

I'm no fan of CMS solutions that are too automated. You can accomplish all that with custom coding and have more flexibility.

I have never worked with blogging systems (to this day I am confounded by the popularity of blogs) but I know that most offer a great degree of customization.

As to guestbooks and newsletters you should really keep that separate from CMS. To ahve it all integrated you'll prolly have to accept a shoddy overall system.

The first packaged CMS I will work with will probably be Links SQL from Gossamer Threads. But that costs $450.

Thing is, I'm not that big on CMS at all. Unless it's a system for hundreds of people to contribute content to I don't like to automate it too much.

Yeah I know what you mean. I wouldn't dream of using a CMS for any website I'd have ongoing control over. It's just that a couple people want me to use something like this for them, but I'll prolly be recommending them to avoid it anyway.