Whoooo are you? -Reply

[Michael Squires (michael)]

Going back to a discussion of a few months ago about the value of
server-side includes, this is one of the places that SSI can pay off big
time. Even if everyone can't quite agree on some of the look&feel issues
within a site, if you can get a consensus that "we will have some
standard 'stuff' at the top, and some other standard 'stuff' at the
bottom", then you can create an initial "topstuff.html" and
"botstuff.html", and have everyone just put the appropriate "#include
topstuff.html" etc. on their pages. Then the content of that can evolve
\without/ forcing everyone to go back and mung their pages by hand.

When you add this to the approach that Brian Carney outlined (have a
standard button that fetches more info about the page in question), then
you've got a very powerful and flexible approach.


	-----Original Message-----
	From:	Dan Lester [SMTP:DLESTER at bsu.idbsu.edu]
	Sent:	Monday, August 11, 1997 4:45 PM
	To:	Multiple recipients of list
	Subject:	RE: Whoooo are you? -Reply

	>>> "Brian Carney (carney)" <carney at sequent.com>
	08/11/97 02:26pm >>>
	We designed one solution to this problem, implemented in
	the digital library that is the center of our corporate
Intranet. 
	Pages include a 'pageinfo' button at the top which displays
	the name of the person who published the page, date and
	time of last update, content owner, etc.  Use this information
	to identify the team that built the page, and thus you can
	know where you are.  However, this required a technical
	approach to metadata capture/organization/use  which isn't
	part of the usual Web server.
	------------------
	This is an important issue, and you've found one of the many
	solutions.  We happen to use a lower tech one.  Some use
	frames for that purpose.  We just have a "boilerplate footer"
	which I give a copy of to all who are creating page content. 
	They change the name and mailto to theirs, and then drop in
	to the bottom of every page.  It includes snailmail address for
	library, phone number, name and mailto for the person
	responsible for the page, time and date last updated, and
	counters for each day and total since first creation.  Of
	course anyone who doesn't want all that can do a more
	minimalist solution.  I'm now working on redoing that
	boilerplate and tightening up the layout.  Someday I'll get
	someone working on web pages that is "more of a design
	professional", which I'd never claim to be.  I'm also hoping our
	folks will finally agree on a more consistent look and feel. 
	Since I can't force anyone to do anything, implementation
	isn't totally consistent.  In fact, I need to add it to some of
my
	older pages as well.

	You can find examples of our method at
	http://library.idbsu.edu/ and many pages thereunder.  

	dan