Linking to external template

[AusQB]

I've got a fairly good grasp of web design, but I still have a lot to learn. Right now, I'm creating and updating my pages using a single "master" dynamic web template. It works fine except for the fact that I have to re-upload all the pages attached to it when it gets changed. In my case, this means every page (about 40 pages).

What would be ideal is if every page dynamically fetched the template using a link, much like it fetches styles from an external style sheet. What are my options?

 

[AusQB]

Sorry to bump, but I'd appreciate an answer.

 

[smashwebs]

I'm not sure how your current one is set up, but if it is just HTML/Tables you could redo your site in CSS. That would allow you to specify the majority of the design/colors/positioning all from a master External Style Sheet, but for the most part it's a better idea to have the code on the actual page that's loaded and not have to fetch it from another page like you want to do. I'm less experienced with what you want to do, however, so hopefully somebody else can chime in with a better idea if you don't want to redo in CSS.

 

[AusQB]

Currently, I have one "master" template, which contains things like nav buttons, editable areas and a single table which hold those editable areas and also the footer (the reason I put the footer in this table is a long story).

I recently created a CSS for the layout of these items, but if I make changes to the template itself, such as modifying the table or adding new buttons etc., I have to update all the pages linked to the template, which I have mentioned is in the order of 50, and then re-upload those pages.

Basically what I am envisioning is a technique akin to C, whereby using a <link> tag or similar, textually insert the contents of the file I link to in the current file (ie. all the pages linked to the template).

 

[suz]

Have you considered using a content management system? If not and you would rather stick to your current method then you could do a search for SSI, server side includes

 

[AusQB]

Is an ASP master page considered a content management system? How easy/hard would it be to convert my site, which is completely XHTML, to ASP.NET?