I am developing a static website using HTML/CSS. I have 7 pages in my website and each page has the exact same header content. Is there some sort of import/include capability in HTML?
Here is an example of the kind of thing I would be looking for (note I completely made up the syntax):
[Source (header.html)]
<html>
<head><title>Source Page</title></head>
<body>
<div id="myheader">Hello, World!</div>
<body>
</html>
[Page That Imports From Source]
<html>
<head><title>My Title</title></head>
<body>
<div import="id:myheader;source:url('header.html');"/>
<body>
</html>
Thank you!
Jan
Not as such, no. There are several options, in order of accessibility and ease of use:
Server-side includes (assuming your static file server supports them - most do).
iframes
Single Page Application style (requires JavaScript).
framesets (Legacy, avoid if possible).
Examples
SSI
<!--#include virtual="header.html" -->
iframes
<!-- Assuming HTML5 -->
<iframe src="header.html" seamless></iframe>
Javascript
<script>
// We have a magic ajax function
ajax("header.html", function(data) {
document.getElementById("header").innerHTML = data;
});
</script>
framesets
Just don't :-)
No, HTML does not offer such functionality. However, you can achieve the result using either server-side (many options here, depending on your server setup) or client-side (JavaScript, load the extra content with AJAX) solutions.
You can achieve same with HTML templates.....if you are using dreamweaver then create 1 .dwt file for your header footer and common layout accross the site..........it will be included automatically to all of your pages.....:)
no need of any server side scripting just plain html......................
Related
My main web page (index.html) follows a common structure (simplified):
<html>
<head>
<title>...</title>
<meta name=description content="...">
<link rel=stylesheet href="main.css"/>
[... including #font-face loads ]
</head>
<body>
<div id=menu>...</div>
<div id=mainContent>
...
</div>
<div id=footer>...</div>
<script src="jquery.min.js"></script>
... more scripts
<body>
</html>
The web server is well configured such that all the static files are cached and don't get reloaded on the client side if refreshing the page.
Upon choosing a link from the site, mainly from the 'menu' or the 'footer', I want to display different content within the div tag 'mainContent'. Page layout, CSS, fonts, scripts, menue, footer - all is the same. I have identified several means to achive this:
Construct a new subPage.html file copying everything from index.html, then rewrite the div 'mainContent'
with the desired other stuff and change page specifics like title, description etc.
Or use php to include the desired content in mainContent and to change the page specific values like 'title'.
Link from index.html goes to href="subpage.html".
Drawbacks:
Maintenance: when changing anything in the outside 'wrapper', I'll have to edit
every subPage.
no idea how to easily transport values from index.html
to subPage.html, beside cookie (not always permitted) or URL
parameters.
use a javascript onClick handler (event listener) to load requested content from server using XHttpsRequests and exchange the innerHtml of div mainContent.
Drawbacks:
no noscript version possible.
my changing content is probably not indexed by Google bot and alike, since it is not loaded with index.html. Would it change the situation if the 'alternativ content' was saved in .html files in the base directory, such that it would be browsable and discoverable?
Pre:
keeps javascript variables
no need to reload outer page, thus best user experience.
use a 2nd div 'mainContent2' with style="display: none". With a javascript onClick handler toggle display style of both mainContent divs to none <-> block.
Pre:
easy to implement.
all content loaded and thus SEO indexed.
Drawback:
Everything has to be loaded at once, so the index.html might get pretty big.
[4. iframe probably not an option (as the src attribut is static)]
I tend to opt to alternative #2.
Any other technics recommended? What is the 'best practice'? How is this generally done by the pros? Suggestions? Please elaborate.
I'll give you a few answers based on each option:
PHP
You can use PHP to import the header and footer instead of the main
content, that way you have just one file with a header and another
with a footer and all the pages that you create with different
contents will import the header and footer, avoiding duplications.
JS
Do you need a no-script version? I have never seen someone who disabled js but I don't know your app, it could be a pre-requirement.
You can use a modern js framework like Next + React / Nuxt + Vue / Remix / Svelte / ... There is a lot of options here that can provide you an SSR (Server Side Render) and make Google Bot happy
SPA
This seems to be a SPA. You can use some of the modern js frameworks that I mentioned in the second item. You need to think about lazing load the images too. I don't know how big is this content, but you can try google lighthouse to see if there is some problem with page size in this approach, also, you could enable the gzip on the server.
OR...
All of the above
You can use all of them together too. A frontend with a framework getting data from an API written with PHP, why not? PHP can validate the request type and delivery an HTML if it's the first request or a JSON if the application is already loaded.
Most common solution probably a variant of your option 1. But different then you think. Create a header.php with the content
<html>
<head>
<title>...</title>
<meta name=description content="...">
<link rel=stylesheet href="main.css"/>
[... including #font-face loads ]
</head>
<body>
<div id=menu>...</div>
and create a footer.php with the content:
<div id=footer>...</div>
<script src="jquery.min.js"></script>
... more scripts
<body>
</html>
Then create an index.php like
<?php include('header.php'); ?>
<div id=mainContent>
...content index page...
</div>
<?php include('footer.php'); ?>
And then create subpages like subpage.php
<?php include('header.php'); ?>
<div id=mainContent>
...content subpage...
</div>
<?php include('footer.php'); ?>
This way if anything in the header or footer needs to change you edit the header.php file and the changes will take effect on all pages because the header.php gets included on every page.
I've been using W3Schools' Javascript library to handle HTML includes onto other HTML pages. Everything has been going good, except I'm running into some formatting issues. When the include processes, it puts the HTML into the body tag when I'd prefer it into a different tag. I don't want my body tag formatting to impact the HTML content that's imported. I'm open to any solutions, but I'd prefer something that allows me to specify a specific tag in the HTML document to be imported into.
I've tried putting the Javascript call into the head or outside of the body tag but haven't had any luck.
Here's the code used by W3Schools: https://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_html_include.asp
<script src="https://www.w3schools.com/lib/w3.js"></script>
<!-- import header -->
<div w3-include-HTML="./includes/header.html"></div>
<!-- import navigation bar -->
<div w3-include-HTML="./includes/navbar.html"></div>
<!-- Script to Handle W3Schools HTML Includes -->
<script>
w3.includeHTML();
</script>
Thanks for the help! I'm hoping there's a good way to do this, otherwise I guess I can format my text outside of the body tag... That's far from ideal though.
Did you try to replace <script> w3.includeHTML(); </script> by <script>includeHTML(); </script> ?
I am looking for a simple way to get a default header on all the pages I make.
Each page has different content but uses the same header and footer throughout, also the pages rely on the scripts set in the header and footer of the page to format the content.
I have tried using frameset but the content doesn't get the scripts or style defined in the header.
Basically I want to just specify the content in the html and automatically get the html of the header and footer. (i hope this makes sense)
(this is the header of the page, sorry its messy, this is for work and i was given a site and asked to fix it)
header.html pastebin
You can try something like this. You can save the data in a html file and load the data into other using the jquery.
You can use the jquery methods to load the data into header and footer, you may use a single html or even two files.
<html>
<head>
<script src="jquery.js"></script>
<script>
$(function(){
$(".header").load("other.html");
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div class="header"></div>
</body>
</html>
Other.html
This is header data.
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/html-import/ Check this link, you may get an answer.
With each new page I have to update the navigation panel. Which means I go from page to page copying and pasting my navigation bar. The more pages I add the harder it gets. Now I have in-consistent navigation bars. So what I'm looking for is a way to make an html file that contains only the navigation bar, then embed it into my code, like I'd do with CSS and JavaScript. That way if I edit the one file all other pages get updated. If I use the iframe tag there would be way to many problems, but I know of no other tag that can do what I need. So what should I do? I've done some research but all I can find is the iframe tag.. What should I do?
If your page is strictly HTML+JavaScript, you can use HTML DOM innerHTML Property.
Here is an example:
index.html
<body>
<nav id="navMenu"></nav>
<div> rest of web page body here </div>
<script src="script.js"></script>
</body>
about.html
<body>
<nav id="navMenu"></nav>
<div> rest of web page body here </div>
<script src="script.js"></script>
</body>
script.js
document.getElementById("navMenu").innerHTML =
'<ul>'+
'<li>Home</li>'+
'<li>Services</li>'+
'<li>About</li>'+
'</ul>';
Important line here is nav tag, and all you need to do is to add this line in other pages in this example about.html.
I also recommend PHP or similar to accomplish what you need!
If your page is strictly HTML then you will just have to do copy and paste. It would have been a lot better if you were using may be PHP then you can simply do an include or require but as the situation is now, all you need is to do a clean HTML coding for your navigation. Indent your codes well then it will be easier for you to copy and page across all pages.
If you can use simple PHP codes then read this: http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_includes.asp
I'd strongly recommend using PHP:
<?php include "header.html"; ?>
However, if that is not an option, you can use Server Side Includes:
File in the same dir:
<!--#include file="header.html"-->
File in a different dir:
<!--#include virtual="/header.html"-->
You'll need a Linux/Apache (not Windows) server for this to work. You'll also need to use the .shtml file extension.
Alternatively, given that you want to keep .html extensions, you can make Apache "think" that all .html files are actually .php:
Create a .htaccess file at the root of your website and add this line:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .html .htm
If your are running PHP as CGI (probably not the case), you should write instead:
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .html .htm
(Taken from this answer)
If you would like to use PHP to achieve, this, you can do something similar to the code below. You'll have 2 "template" files, and then however many "content" files you need.
header.php will include content on the header (logo, nav menu, etc)
footer.php will include content on the footer (bottom navigation, copyright, disclaimers, etc.)
content.php will include the actual content you wish to display. You can have an infinite number of "content" pages.
Note that while these files have .php extensions, HTML code still works perfectly fine. So you can do something like this for every content.php:
content.php
<?php include "header.php"; ?>
<div class="content">
Your page content will go here
</div>
<?php include "footer.php"; ?>
header.php
<html>
<body>
<div class="header">
Header content such as nav bar here
</div>
footer.php
<div class="footer">
Footer content such as copyright here
</div>
</body>
</html>
In this way, you can change the contents of header.php and footer.php just once, and the changes will be reflected in all the pages you've included the files in.
If you have any further questions or would like something explained again, feel free to post a comment.
In fact, if you are doing only front-end stuff like I do, using load() with jQuery is more than enough. Just like what Skitty and fskirschbaum said.
But I would like to add a few points,
1. based on #Skitty's comment, it is important to load your navbar.html on the server side, like simply host it on your github.io website and refer to it by its URL like
$(document).ready(function() {
$('#nav-container').load('https://berlinali.github.io/test%20header%20template/header.html #nav');}
2. if you have css file, just put it inside < style >< /style> in the < header > part of your html file.
I push my code on github if you need some reference. Hope it helps!
https://github.com/BerlinaLI/berlinali.github.io/tree/master/test%20header%20template
You can use server side scripting languages like php or ruby. Or you can create some say menu.json file and create menu from that in javascript.
With serverside you should setup server or you can use XAMPP for fast setup.
Create header.html with all your menu links
Inlude menu file by using <?php include 'header.html'; ?> line (all files where you use it should be with .php extension or you can edit php config file for .html extension)
PHP would probably be the best method in this case, but since it sounds like you already have everything set up in pure HTML and JavaScript, you could consider using jQuery to load an external file into the DOM.
jquery.load('header.html')
This, of course has its own set of concerns, but you can effectively control everything from a simple .js framework without having to use php includes and doesn't require an iFrame.
You'd still potentially want to address a fallback for browsers without JavaScript turned on, so I only suggest this without knowing all the details, and I would still suggest that php would still be a better solution since you're allowing the server to do the heavy lifting.
I figured it out myself, you can use a JavaScript file and use document.write then put this where you want it to go:
<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/sidebar.js"/>
Here's my js file:
document.write("<div id='sidebartop'>");
document.write("<p>Navigation</p>");
document.write("</div>");
If you want to use both double quotes and single quotes inside the line, be careful with that, and I think that the < and > signs have to be in double quotes. Here's my full code:
----/js/sidebar.js----
document.write("<div id='sidebartop'>");
document.write("<p>Navigation</p>");
document.write("</div>");
document.write("<div id='sidebar'>");
if (page==1) { var p=" style='text-decoration: underline;'" } else { var p=" style='text-decoration: normal;'" }
if (page==2) { var pp=" style='text-decoration: underline;'" } else { var pp=" style='text-decoration: normal;'" }
if (page==3) { var ppp=" style='text-decoration: underline;'" } else { var ppp=" style='text-decoration: normal;'" }
if (page==4) { var pppp=" style='text-decoration: underline;'" } else { var pppp=" style='text-decoration: normal;'" }
if (page==5) { var ppppp=" style='text-decoration: underline;'" } else { var ppppp=" style='text-decoration: normal;'" }
document.write("<p><"+'a href="http://brandonc.handcraft.com/"'+p+">Home</a></p>");
document.write("<p><"+'a href="http://brandonc.handcraft.com/about"'+pp+">About The Author</a></p>");
document.write("<p><"+'a href="http://brandonc.handcraft.com/sevenmages"'+ppp+">The Seven Mages</a></p>");
document.write("<p><"+'a href="http://brandonc.handcraft.com/comment"'+pppp+">Leave A Comment</a></p>");
document.write("<p><"+'a href="http://brandonc.handcraft.com/calender"'+ppppp+">Calender</a></p>");
document.write("</div>");
----In place where you want code to go----
<script>var page=5</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/sidebar.js"/>
Probably not the most efficient, and I'd defiantly recommend using PHP like in the other answers, but this works for me and doesn't need a .php after every url.
Simply use jQuery .load(). It is very easy to use. Here's an example
navbar.html
<div>This is the navigation bar</div>
index.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Home Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<!--HEADER-->
<div id="nav-container"></div>
<!--HEADER-->
<p>This is the homepage.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$('#nav-container').load('header.html');
});
</script>
</body>
</html>
about.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>About Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<!--HEADER-->
<div id="nav-container"></div>
<!--HEADER-->
<p>This is the about page.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$('#nav-container').load('header.html');
});
</script>
</body>
</html>
I am having 1 pure html page for ex. sample.html. I need to include this html into another pure html for ex.Orginal.html.How to do this? I am having a header image in my sample.html.It should come at the top of the Orginal.html page.
If you're using Apache web server, you could try using server side includes.
You can't do such things in pure HTML, unless you use frames or iframe element. But better merge them by hand...
Here is an example of how to do it in pure HTML with an iframe, which although strangely not mentioned in HTML 4 specification is supported by all major browsers (and is in the HTML 5 specification)
<body>
<h1>This is original page</h1>
<p>Some content on original page.</p>
<iframe src="sample.html" width="600" height="300"></iframe>
</body>
You can adjust the width and height and you can also remove the border if you want the page to be more seamless.
Be wary of JavaScript solutions to this problem, especially if you want to be viewed on mobile devices.
Additional note: Avoid frameset solutions also, as they aren't valid markup.
See Include One File In Another, which has a summary of the various techniques that are available (along with their pros and cons).
You could use JavaScript to load some HTML from one document into another. This task is fairly simple using the jQuery toolkit:
$("The ID of a container (a div element for instance) in which you want to load
the contents of a HTML file").load("path to html file you want to load");
<div id="inserthere" />
$(function ()
{
$("#inserthere").load("loadme.html"); // Load the contents of loadme.html
// and stuff it in the div with the
// ID of "inserthere"
});