Updating website navigation links

[PatOverHere]

I googled this and got info about using SSI. It shows the example of

<!--#include virtual="/includes/nav.htm" -->

but when I look at existing web pages on the net, I do not see any instances of this

#include

is using SSI the way to go? Is there an example web page where I can find a working example?

thanks

[PatOverHere]

I read that SSI needs .shtml extension. I do not see many pages with .shtml extensions nowadays. Must be done some other way than SSI.

I would think this is one of the most common procedures a web page dev does (be able to update the navigation links on a multi page website).

[twiss]

As this is server-side (as the name suggests), you normally won't see it in the source.

[PatOverHere]

Thanks for replying.

Since I know nothing about 'server side' coding, and you do not see anything in the source of the webpage, how does it work? Is server side something like a .bat file in DOS? You code something like:
- get each .html file in turn
- look for a <li> tag
- change as required

Is there a 'server side for dummies' anywhere?

[twiss]

Generally, you change the extension of the files you want to execute server-side code in - to be dynamic, if you will. Then your server will (hopefully) interpret or get an extension to interpret that file. The result of this will be sent to the browser.
The most widely used server-side language is PHP. There are also others, such as Perl, Ruby on Rails and Python, but these might not be installed on your server (if you're on a shared host. If not, you can install them yourself of course). There's a tutorial on php here, but my way of learning it was learning something new if I needed something new.