Style sheet question

[Kevin_M_Schafer]

Hello,

Does using a style sheet to control font style, size, and color, slow down the display of a webpage -- compared to having all the code in the same place?

I've used style sheets, and this is always something I wanted to ask someone.

Thanks for your time.

[Frankie]

Yes, it does, but only slightly. So, if you would have only one page for whatever reason, you should keep the on-page style block. But if you have several pages that are identical apart from the contents, it would be foolish not to use an external style sheet, wouldn't it?

[Kevin_M_Schafer]

Thank you, Frank. I agree, but I would never know unless I asked. I'm working on a project for myself that may have 80,000 pages when we're completed. A dictionary.

[teedoff]

Originally Posted by Kevin_M_Schafer

Thank you, Frank. I agree, but I would never know unless I asked. I'm working on a project for myself that may have 80,000 pages when we're completed. A dictionary.

80,000 pages? Wow! Why do you need that many pages?

[Kevin_M_Schafer]

I'm trying to figure out the best way to produce results on a single word search, most likely using SSI -- a page for each word. The shtml content would show through a box in the master page, and a single style sheet would control the type style, size, and color of the shtml pages.

I'm trying to get this done by using patterns in a direct search rather than indexing 80,000 urls.

If there's a better way, I wouldn't mind an opinion.

[teedoff]

I would think a database and a few pages would handle all this for you. The user searches a word using your form. The form user input is compared to the database using a sql query, then server side scripting language displays the results.

[Kevin_M_Schafer]

Well, all the words of the English language still have to be available to a search engine, most likely by using each word as a title to a page, otherwise a search would find the word "computer," for example, in every other usage in the entire database.

I don't necessarily know how to keep a word search from finding more than one result unless I make one page for each word in the English language.

If you have perhaps a better way, I am open to all ideas.

[tracknut]

The point though is that those 80,000 pages shouldn't be static pages that you somehow edit up and store as 80,000 separate html files. They should be dynamically generated at the time that someone looks up a word in the dictionary. If that's your plan all along, I think you're fine and this is just a semantic discussion about whether one typically calls those dynamically generated pages "pages of the web site", or "dynamic information presented to the user". I don't think they are normally called "pages of the web site" - that's probably what set off alarm bells

Dave

[Kevin_M_Schafer]

tracknut or teed,

A question, though. Should my word pages -- numbering in the thousands -- have shtml suffixes -- such as "computer.shtml"? Do the pages need suffixes?

I want them to be called by a search and displayed inside an iframe or results box using SSI on the master page.

Thanks,

[tracknut]

I guess we can't convince you not to make 80,000 files

Included files can have any name, so ".inc" or ".html" or anything else you like. Iframe'd files should be standard naming, .html, .php, .shtml - whatever the correct name would be (ie, if they're standard html, then I'd name them .html).

Dave

[Kevin_M_Schafer]

But if I don't create the pages for my dictionary, where will I get my dictionary content? There are over 80,000 words in the English language, and I don't have a database containing them. I have to build it.

I don't quite understand how I will code a word and its definition, and not have it placed separately than all the other words so that it will appear all by itself in a search result.

If it's possible to have all the words with their definitions on a continuous listing, how does the search differentiate from where one word and its definition leaves off and the next word starts?

For example:

marigold
Pronunciation: mar-i-gohld. Three syllables: mar-i-gold
1. The asteraceous plant Calendula officinalis. Any asteraceous plant of the genus Tagetes, esp. T. erecta. Garden herb with strong-scented leaves and yellow, red, or variegated heads of flowers. See Pot Marigold.
2. A puff-paste cake with almonds arranged to look like petals.

Is there a symbol or something that can be placed between the individual words and their definitions, something that will tell the search query to "stop here" and show the result and not go any farther than this one block of content?

I would gladly take a different route than having to build 80,000 pages -- because that will literally take 5 years and we're already getting prepared.

Do you think a continuous listing could be built with all the words in it?

Thanks for your help.

[tracknut]

Is there anyone on your team that knows databases? I'm not trying to insult, but this is extremely simple stuff and I'd think that with the prospect of 5 years of development coming up, you'd have someone on board to help design this thing.

A database has columns, and you might have a column for "word" and another column for "definition". When you do a search, you'd search within the "word" column for "marigold" without fear of finding another word who's definition happens to include the word "marigold".

Dave

[teedoff]

How do you think a HUGE site like amazon.com, that I think it would be safe to say, sells 10's, maybe 100's of thousands of items, how do you think they do it? Do you think they build a page for every single item? Each of those items have descriptions, sizes, colors, prices, all generated from a database.

[Kevin_M_Schafer]

tracknut,

Thanks. Okay, I'm just curious how, when a word is called from the "word" column, how does the correct definition get chosen? How does the page code know what definition to pull out of the database after it pulls the word?

Even with a database, it's still going to take years to enter all the data, but it would sure beat having to worry about code and individual pages.

This is really interesting.

[Frankie]

Originally Posted by Kevin_M_Schafer

when a word is called from the "word" column, how does the correct definition get chosen? How does the page code know what definition to pull out of the database after it pulls the word?

See here: http://www.w3schools.com/sql/default.asp.