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How to Use SSI Includes

Using SSI Includes can help you save a lot of time in developing your website. A simple code like this  <!--#include virtual="/anything.htm" -->  can be placed anywhere.  The anything.htm, used here for an example, can be used as a menu all across your entire website. This allows you to change every menu on every page that has this code by simply changing the anything.htm page.

In order to use an SSI Include you have to be using pages with a .shtml extension, or you will have to set your apache handler to parse the type of extension you used for your web pages.  You can ask your web host to do it for you, but it is really quite simple. Just go to your control panel, and click on apache handlers. You'll see two small boxes. The first will say extension over the top. Type in .htm or .html for example. Now type server-parsed in the second box. It's usually listed underneath so you could just copy and paste the word in. Now click add, and you are done. 

The code   <!--#include virtual="/anything.htm" -->   should now work. You can add just about any code to your page with this handy snippet. It saves a lot of time if want to add a link across your site. Remember you can name the anything.htm to any name. You can change images, links, text, etc. all in one whack by using this method. It could save you hours of labor if your web site is very large. This also a great method for inserting RSS feeds or other data feeds from a php page into an html page. 

Another method for those familiar with creating .htaccess files is to create a .htaccess file and add this line  "AddHandler server-parsed .htm " without the quotes. Then place the file in the main directory with your index page. I mention this because if you've already created an .htaccess file for some reason in your main directory then going through the control panel may overwrite what you've already done.

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