Operation Manual

306 Adding Dynamic Content
To add a merge field:
1. Right-click on a page, and select Page Properties....
2. In the Page name box, click the
Insert merge field button at your
chosen insertion point.
3. From the Insert Text Field dialog, pick a field for insertion from the field
list, then click the Insert button.
4. Click OK.
After merging, each merged full description page will be correctly titled with
the currently viewable item.
Smart objects
Using Smart objects
It's quite common for Web developers to "inherit" content from existing web
sites to save time and effort, while bearing in mind any legal implications in
doing so. This is fine for simple graphic or text copying, but this process is not
possible for more complex, interactive objects such as counters, shout boxes,
blogs, etc, which collect information with the object. The power of, for
example, a hit counter lies in its ability to keep a count of the number of users
that have visited a page at all times. The count needs to be stored somewhere
and herein lies the problem. Storing object data (counts, chat text, blog text, is
not always encouraged or even supported on ISP web space—due to potential
security breaches and disk usage demands. So where can the data be stored?
To resolve the problem for Serif WebPlus users, WebPlus can place such
server-sided objects, called Smart objects, on the page and also store
associated object data on Serif's own secure server space. These objects are
available from Serif Web Resources, a secure online service for obtaining
objects and storing data at the same time. All Smart objects operate with a
range of languages.
An advantage of using Serif's Smart objects is that they are optimized and fully
tested for use in your current WebPlus project. In addition, the objects are
hosted online so new updates may be added over time without having to load
WebPlus and republish parts of your site.