How do I generate multiple pages at once

looking for a tool

[dan_popescu]

When building a website I first create a template and then all pages are based on this template. I'm looking for a tool to generate multiple pages at once by entering their names instead of creating them page by page. This would save a lot of time.

Also, I wanna be able to modify multiple pages at once (such as title, description). My HTML editor has an option for editing selected pages, but it's pretty basic and it doesn't let you make more complex changes.

Thanks.
Dan

[dan_popescu]

Anyone?

[BlobFisk]

Hi dan_popescu,

That's not an easy one. You can search for a replace the same string in multiple files with a new value, but I can't think of an easy way of what you are trying to do.

Anyone?

[narrowboater]

Hello dan_popescu,

Not sure if I've interpreted your needs properly but I'd certainly suggest taking a look at a piece of software called WebMerge. I use it a lot and it can be as sophisticated or simple as you want. Pop WebMerge into Google and it comes up first in the SERPs.

Cheers Jon

[Mark_A]

Hi Dan

Its not too hard to do this if you start to use a database on your PC to enter the page contents into. I would describe this as a static database solution.

You have designed your template code already with slots in it for page title, meta tag, h1, body text etc.

You can reformat this into one table in a database perhaps 10-20 fields (including those which are blank waiting for content).

You can now make a second database (data table or whatever) to create the actual page records including perhaps unique filename, page title, meta tags, h1, p text images etc

Now you have a single template data table/file and a contents data table/file which can be fitted / knitted together to create completed multiple pages each of which has its own unique filename.

So you can merge the data to make a new table which contains only two fields, filename and file contents, then write this out to files (depending on the database you are using and your skills you may need a seperate script to do this bit)

et voila

Plus you now can change things like menus or any template item site wide and the contents you can type in your database and then change site wide.

Such a method would generate static html pages which would then need to be uploaded to your server.

You can also do this kind of thing in a more dynamic way by having a database on the server which does the merging of contents and templates as pages are requested. Like this forum for example, I am typing content into a form now yet in a moment this content will be served back (in fact now) when you request the page to read it and it will then be framed in the page template.

Hope that helps.

[dan_popescu]

Thanks very much guys.
I'll try WebMerge since they have a trial version.
Mark, that's such useful info, thanks for sharing.

Dan