E-mail this pageUsing Include Pages
The Include Page Component in FrontPage is allows you to embed the contents of one web page in another web page. This means that you can--for page elements like common menus or common page footers--very easily create a single page header file and a single page footer file and use these files across your web site. It also means that you can, with a single change to the included file, have that change take effect on all pages that use it.
In the section of this site named Building a Course Menu , the steps are outlined for creating a simple menu for a course web site. By using that course menu page as an included page, you eliminate the task of re-creating a menu (or contact information with a copyright notice) that you want to reuse on several pages.
If you arrived at this page after having completed the exercise at the bottom of the Building a Course Menu , you've already set up a web page that can be included as a menu on other pages on your site. If you haven't yet completed that exercise, please do so now.
Before we begin working with the Include Page Component , we'll make an additional web page that will serve as an include page for the bottom of each of the web pages on the course site. To do so, first make sure that you're in FrontPage's Page View and ready to work with a new, blank page. Click on File|Properties and in the dialog window that appears, set the title of the page to read "Included Page Footer." Then click OK to dismiss the Properties dialog.
Before putting any text on the page, insert a horizontal rule: Insert|Horizontal Line . This will serve to separate the information in the page footer from the information on the rest of your web page.
After you've inserted the horizontal line, add a copyright symbol © by using Insert|Symbol and selecting it from the list of characters presented to you. Then type the year, leave a space, and type your name. Although the copyright to your page is yours whether the symbol is posted to your page or not, the inclusion of the copyright notice is generally a good idea.
On the next line, type something that will permit site visitors to indicate who you are and/or how to contact you. A line as simple as "Address inquiries to your.name@plattsburgh.edu" will suffice.
Once you've finished these steps, save the file as footer.htm and close any files that may be open in Page view.
Using FrontPage's Include Page Component
To insert your header.htm or footer.htm onto any of your other web pages, you need only open the page(s) in question, position the cursor where you'd like the inserted contents to appear, and select Insert|Component|Include Page . You'll see the following dialog:
Clicking on the Browse button will return a list of all the files on your web site. Once you've identified the file you'd like to include, click OK . Once you've done so, you're finished. That's it. Nothing more.
Subsequently, every time you change the original menu file or footer file, that change will be echoed in all pages which have included that page. Bottom line: the FrontPage Include Page mechanism is extremely practical.
Note : An included page is not editable on the page it's been included on: to edit an included page, either open it directly or, if viewing a page that hosts it, right click on the included page area and select the menu option that allows you to open the file.
As you were selecting from the FrontPage Components, you may also have noticed an option for a Scheduled Include Page : the scheduled include page allows you to specify that one include page should turn up between certain dates and that another should turn up on other days. You could, using a Scheduled Include Page set up a notice of a special exam review session and have that notice appear only during a few days near exam time. Practical, huh?
Comments or questions? Please contact Dr. Peter Friesen , Instructional Technology Coordinator, Plattsburgh State University.