[columbus.pm] work stinks, more meetings, web stuff - formerly 'ping'

[Edson Freeman]

At 06:20 PM 11/8/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>What are people's thoughts on using perl to automate the building of a
>website.  I was working on XML documents for content and then having
>seperate files for layout and templates but I have not been working on
>it for a couple months.  Has anyone worked with web pages this way?
>Traditionally, I would edit in dreamweaver and FTP it up, but I was
>looking for a more organized way to use XML and perl as a tool.  I am
>extremely busy and slightly unorganized, so hopefully this will all get
>done soon.

This isn't exactly what you're talking about, but I built a site that generates
all of its pages via some shared functions. It works somewhat like templates
in Dreamweaver. There is one main area of the template that varies quite a bit,
but many parts of the pages are relatively static (navigation links and such).

The main body of each page is generated by a CGI script, along with any
appropriate variables being passed in, and then fed to the shared "build page"
function that adds on all the standard logo, nav links, etc. I also keep
all the fonts and colors in variables so I can change the look of the site
without having to search/replace on every page. I know that's what style sheets
are for, but I'm designing for lowest common denominator. I wanted the site to
work on old browsers, WebTV, etc. I'm trying to accommodate Lynx and palmtop
browsers down the line, but usability still needs some work in that area.

Nothing I've done is revolutionary. In fact I'm sure it's all been done
before. But it's been a really interesting challenge doing it all from
scratch. Feel free to poke around: http://www.razorlist.com/.

Now if I just had kooky dot-com ad, a cuddly mascot and a few million bucks,
I'd be set. In the meantime, I won't be quitting my day job any time soon.

- Edson

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