Archiving Articles

[Filipe]

Which is the better way of going about storing and displaying articles on a content-rich website (all search engine considerations excluded):

1. Have the scripts for each article hard-coded with the article in the page

2. Have the articles in their entirety stored in the database, and have one script retrieve these articles based on URL parameters, e.g., "browsearticle.php?article=12345" (or whatever scripting language)

Or a different method?

[agerhart]

Filipe,

I wouldn't think that option #2 wouldbe the best one off the bat as you will have to deal with the roadblock of query strings in your URLs, unless you use an ASAPI filter to take care of that.

What are the details of option #1?

[Filipe]

I'm not familiar with ASAPI. How does that work?

The first option is very simply like having a hardcoded web page, but with the layout stored in SSIs and other executable dealies on the page.

I only ask about the second because it looks like that is what moreover is doing - and it seems like a good way to give content-writers administrative access to articles without having to have them write it, submit it to techies, and have them insert it and upload it.

'Course, another option is to give them administrative access, and whenever it's changed, the server can write a hardcoded version of the updated article.

[rogerd]

One other thought - consider using blog software as a cheapo content manager. I have experience with movabletype, and it creates article pages using templates. You can customize the pages to your heart's content, and you can also index them in various ways. When you want to redesign the pages, you change the template. Users can be given various kinds of access, and create/edit their own articles.

Whether you use blog software or templates (like Dreamweaver), I like SSI for making very rapid changes to large sites - for example, if your nav menu changes, you need only change the include file. You won't have to change a template and regenerate/upload hundreds of pages; rather, you change the included navmenu, upload it, and visitors will start seeing it right away.