Dreamweaver SSI (shtml to htm Probs)

[traffik daddy]

Hi,

I wanted to use some SSI for an existing website but as the website ranks pretty well for a number of terms on a number of search engines I am reluctant to change the extension names of the from .shtml to .htm.

The website has been running for 2 years now but we are after expanding the website and I want to add a SSI menu because there are getting far too many pages for me to control now and I don't fancy adding an extra link to the menu on the planned 1500 .htm pages.

I came across a solution that will let me keep the existing extension on my existing pages to .htm so they can keep their page rank and their ranking in the search engines, its a simple .htaccess file in which I add the following:

AddType text/html .shtml .html .htm
AddHandler server-parsed .shtml .html .htm
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes

It all seemed so simple until I tried to add a .htm SSI menu file to an existing .htm file in Dreamweaver as everything just went totally wrong.

For instance, to the index.htm file I try to add the menu_left.htm SSI file but it won't work properly in Dreamweaver, yet it states that this should work fine on the server although I have not tried it yet.

Please help
Terry

[stever]

When you say it won't work properly, do you mean that you can't preview it in a browser or see it in layout view in Dreamweaver? All the things like ssi, php includes, are things that happen on the server. But Dreamweaver doesn't preview on a server so you won't see them until you upload them.

[traffik daddy]

So it will work when I upload? I suppose the best thing to do then it to take out the SSI in dreamweaver, change the page if I need to, insert the SSI and upload?

Its an ECom site so there may be need to change the pages due to the price structure changing all of the time which can be a real pain in the butt if I can't view the pages in DW.

I was looking a Macromedia Contribute, has anyone got any thoughts about that? How does that work? I need something that will allow me to change files whilst on the server.

Thanks
Terry

[limbo]

I was looking a Macromedia Contribute, has anyone got any thoughts about that? How does that work? I need something that will allow me to change files whilst on the server.

Contribute is OK as far as a CMS is concerned. But it relies on dreamweaver templates and editable regions to allow/disallow your assigned users to change content. So I am not sure this is what you'd want?