Including content of one file of HTML in another? (take II)

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

John Posada reports: <<Hate to say this, but Front Page does this well with
no templates>>

Yeah, but as it happens, Guy pointed out that his daughter is already using
Dreamweaver. Why ask her to upgrade when her existing software already does
the job? More to the point, what you described for Front Page is no more
efficient than using a template. In fact, this approach is based on
"stationery", standard elements (called templates in Word, for example) that
the authoring software can include easily. This approach is by no means
unique to FP; it dates back at least 20 years. The include files you refer
to later in your message are what Dreamweaver calls "library items" (also
well documented). You noted:

<<On each page that you want to include a navigation menu, use a feature of
FP called "IncludePage" and specify the appropriate
navigation page.>>

And just like in Dreamweaver, when you update the included pages, all pages
that contain the "included" text update automatically. Although it's nice to
know that FP can do this, I don't see any advantage to its approach.
Moreover, if you create new pages based on a Dreamweaver template, you don't
have to go through the process of inserting the "includepage" (which, from
your description, seems to be necessary in FP): the included material is
already there when you open the template. Doesn't FP provide templates?

<<I know how a number of people feel about FP. However, the question was can
it be done. yes it can, and FWIW, the most recent FP uses very little "bad
code".>>

My understanding is that Microsoft has indeed cleaned up their act, and do
generate much cleaner code in FP. However, Dreamweaver used to be far more
standards-compliant than FP, and I'd be curious to hear whether Microsoft
now produces HTML that displays equally well in most common browsers--or
whether it's still optimized for Internet Explorer. One problem I see with
FP is that it provides so many nice prebuilt features that it's tempting to
use them without confirming that they'll work in all browsers; in many
cases, they won't, because they rely on Microsoft-specific technology such
as that used by Internet Information Server. (Can't provide specific
examples, since I'm basing this assertion on my understanding of a recent
review in PC Magazine. Please correct me--publicly!--if I'm wrong about
this.)

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
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