Operation Manual

Table Of Contents
416
Coding
Last updated 11/30/2015
About server-side includes
You can use Dreamweaver to insert server-side includes in your pages, edit the includes, or preview pages containing
includes.
A server-side include is a file that the server incorporates into your document when a browser requests your document
from the server.
When a visitors browser requests the document that contains the include instruction, your server processes the include
instruction and creates a new document in which the include instruction is replaced by the contents of the included
file. The server then sends this new document to the visitor’s browser. When you open a local document directly in a
browser, however, theres no server to process the include instructions in that document, so the browser opens the
document without processing those instructions, and the file thats supposed to be included doesnt appear in the
browser. Thus, it can be difficult, without using Dreamweaver, to look at local files and see them as they’ll appear to
visitors after you’ve put them on the server.
With Dreamweaver you can preview documents just as they’ll appear after they’re on the server, both in the Design view
and when you use the Preview in Browser feature. To do so, however, you must make sure you are previewing the file
that contains the include as a temporary file. (Select Edit > Preferences, select the Preview in Browser category, and
make sure the Preview using temporary file option is selected.)
Note: If you are using a testing server, such as Apache or Microsoft IIS, to preview your files on your local drive, you do not
need to preview the file as a temporary file because the server does the processing for you.
Placing a server-side include in a document inserts a reference to an external file; it doesn’t insert the contents of the
specified file in the current document. The contents of the specified file should only contain the content that you want
to include. That is, the include file should not contain any head tags, body tags, or html tags (meaning the <html> tag—
formatting HTML tags, such as p tags, div tags, and so on, are fine). If it does, these tags will conflict with the tags in
the original document, and Dreamweaver wont display the page properly.
You cannot edit the included file directly in a document. To edit the contents of a server-side include, you must directly
edit the file that youre including. Any changes to the external file are automatically reflected in every document that
includes it.
There are two types of server-side includes: Virtual and File. Dreamweaver inserts File type includes by default, but you
can use the Property inspector to select the one that is appropriate for the type of web server you use:
If your server is an Apache web server, select Virtual. In Apache, Virtual works in all cases, while File works only in
some cases.
If your server is a Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), select File. (Virtual works with IIS only in certain
circumstances.)