How to keep menu in a single place without using frames

Question

This is probably a duplicate, but I can't find the answer anywhere (maybe I'm searching for the wrong thing?) and so I'm going to go ahead and ask.

What is the accepted standard practice for creating a menu that is stored in a single file, but is included on every page across a site? Back in the day, one used frames, but this seems to be taboo now. I can get things layed out just the way I want, but copy/pasting across every page is a pain.

I have seen php-based solutions, but my cheap-o free hosting doesn't support php (which is admittedly a pain, but it's a fairly simple webpage...).

Any ideas for doing this that does not require server-side scripting?

Answer 1

If your web hosting supports server side include files, you could store the menu in a separate html file with just the code (no html, header, body, etc. tags). On the page(s) you want to reference the menu, to call the code you'd use an SSI, a reference that would look something like this: <!--#include virtual="http://www.yoursite.com/includes/menu.html" -->.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

You could run a script to complete your pages prior to uploading to the server. After all, what stops you from running PHP locally and then uploading the results?

Answer 3

Tough question, but we still have some workarounds to try on:

Server-side includes (SSI)

If you server allows that, you can use @SubTypical solution

XML + XSLT

Yes, none so far told about this one. Will not extend the conversation:

http://www.google.com/search?q=including+files+with+xml+and+xslt

It can be a little pain, but worth while.

Answer 4

I hate to even mention this, but it would probably work... you COULD do it in javascript as a bunch of document.write statements and then the script could be mainatained separately from where it's called.

I'd move to a host with PHP though before i messed with that. I'm with hostmonster.com. They offer multiple domains, PHP, MySQL a lot of add ons and it's like $5/month.

Good luck.

Answer 5

You could create a separate page then use an ajax JavaScript request to retrieve and fill out the menu. This really should probably be on stack overflow.