Forum Moderators: phranque
But as the years go by, I added more pages and pages and pages.
Regular .html pages that is.
Was just wondering if theres a program out there that can edit several of my pages at once? For instance if I want to add a 'Top Horizontal Navigation' now to all my pages..I'd have to go and edit each page manually.
I know there has to be something easier out there these days...I hope ?
Im not looking for an expensive DreamWeaver. (not even sure if that could do it) Just something basic that could get the job done.
Any help is much appreciated.
As far as navigation goes, you can keep your navigation in a single chunk or snippet of code and "include" that code in each of your site pages. There are many server-side technologies that allow you to do so, including the Server-Side Includes (SSI) built in to Apache, PHP includes, etc. A server-side scripting language like PHP is going to offer you more flexibility in the future over regular SSI.
Dreamweaver does do this, but before Adobe took it over MM had a program that came with the suite called HomeSite. This is the best editor I've found, it supports multiple programming languages, can save files in PC or Unix format, has color-coded editing, the list goes on forever. I use it for ALL web text editing.
However, I'm not even sure you can get it any more. Adobe has eliminated support for HomeSite, but if you can get your hands on a copy, TRY IT. There should be other recommendations, many of them free, that should be able to do the multifile search and replace.
If you don't want to change every.single.file every time you make an alteration to your navigation, there are two options:
SSI (server side includes.) This IMO is the right tool for the job, it's what it is designed to do. You create the nav in a single plain text file:
<a href="link1.html">Link 1</a>
<a href="link2.html">Link 2</a>
<a href="link3.html">Link 3</a>
In your page files, you add a directive that instructs the server to include this file at where the directive is located:
....
<body>
<!-- #include file="my_navigation.txt" -->
<h1>Heading</h1>
.....
The downside: you have to name the files with an .shtml extension which tells the server to parse the file for directives, OR configure your server to parse all files for SSI's, which may or may not be resource intensive.
The other option, which people are using a lot these days, is to use PHP to include the file. IMO, this is overkill; PHP is a robust programming language for complex dynamic interaction - connecting to databases, emailing forms, all that. The same is (kinda) true, you have to save your files as .php files for the include to work.
UE UltraEdit looks like what im looking for.
Henry, so this program is easy to change several pages at once ? Is it ok with Linux servers ?
I'll probably download it soon. Thanks for recommending.
Just a word of caution it is a powerful tool as such before hitting “start” or “replace all” in search and replace mode just be sure to select what you are really looking to accomplish from replacing within highlighted section or all of your open pages or (dangerous!) all over the place :)
That tool is a client side tool, not a server side tool
As with all editors of that kind you need to FTP your changes to your server
It has a FTP function
But I highly recommend using the free WinSCP that allows you to “FTP” in a secured SFTP mode.
<edit>Typo</edit>
