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by fergie 1253 days ago
But I just want to be able to specify a header or a footer in vanilla HTML...
2 comments
VoodooJuJu 1253 days ago
Although not vanilla HTML, server side includes are the closest to this that we've got. I use them quite extensively. This is basically what my boilerplate looks like:

  <!DOCTYPE html>
  <html lang="en" class="no-js">

  <head>
    <!--#include virtual="/ssi/head.html" -->

    <title></title>
    <meta name="description" content="">
  </head>

  <body>

    <header>
      <!--#include virtual="/ssi/header.html" -->
    </header>

    <main>
    </main>

    <footer>
      <!--#include virtual="/ssi/footer.html" -->
    </footer>

  </body>

  </html>
I'll put all my favicon, CSS, and other common head data in the /ssi/head.html file. Nice and simple and good enough for me. Can make it even more minimal by moving the <header> and <footer> tags into their respective SSI files.
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fergie 1253 days ago
Unfortunately SSIs dont work on s3 and some other plaforms, thereby negating their utility for running static sites on CDNs or keystores. But YES- why isn't there an SSI equivalent in the HTML spec?
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extra88 1253 days ago
> why isn't there an SSI equivalent in the HTML spec?

Because HTML Imports died in the spec drafting process. Unless you want a client-side SSI equivalent that doesn't require any JavaScript, HTML Imports wasn't that. I'm not aware of an alternative proposal that doesn't.

https://www.w3.org/TR/html-imports/

https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/127482/on-wha...

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tiagod 1253 days ago
What's stopping you? We've had flexbox and grid for quite a while now.
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fergie 1253 days ago
Pretty sure that you can't define an HTML snippet in one file and then include it in two or more other files using flexbox or grid? Or maybe I am wrong?
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prox 1253 days ago
I do this using PHP. It gets the template file, the data and off you go.
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fergie 1253 days ago
Right- but you cant do it in plain HTML
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