Using the Document Interface

This document is of use only to information providers at Mount Holyoke.

What is the Document Interface?

The Document Interface is a custom program that runs on the college's Web server. It is designed to make it easy for information providers at Mount Holyoke to achieve several very important objectives when designing pages for the site:

To provide readers with a consistent, "Mount Holyoke" look and feel to the pages, and to do it in such a way that the look of the entire system can be updated globally without having to manually change every file
To provide readers with a set of standard navigational controls that allow them to move around the site
To put the information on screen into context for the reader

The Document Interface gives information providers control over many aspects of the pages they design without requiring them to hardwire every single element of the user interface themselves. Instead, information providers specify the functions they want performed, and the Document Interface takes care of drawing the elements of the user interface.

How does it work?

The information provider uses a special filename extension. Instead of ending a file's name in .htm or .html, an extension of either .shm or .shtml is used. This causes the Web server to run the special Document Interface program which interprets the file and substitutes special sequences of HTML code in place of what is already present.

Steps for using the Document Interface

Begin by creating a standard HTML document. Be sure to use the filename extension .shm or .shtml.

You must construct your HTML document with the proper basic structure. That is, the tags below must appear and must be in the order shown (although other things will come between them):

<html> <head> </head> <body> </body> </html>

If you leave out one or more of these codes, the Document Interface will experience an error and your document's contents will not be visible. A Script Error message will appear instead.

If the document resides on the main server (not in your personal Web space), you must add the two required Document Interface commands somewhere in your document.
Finally, add any additional Document Interface commands to your document.

Much of the real work involved in creating a page template can be done using the Command Creation Wizard.

Basic pages

If you want to create a page which uses very little of the MHC look and feel, or if you are looking for a way to convert an existing page to the new format, the .SIMPLEPAGE command can help. If you aren't comfortable typing the commands in yourself, you should give the Command Creation Wizard a try.

Backward compatibility

The current version of the Document Interface supports the method used by the previous version, involving LINK and META tags in the HEAD section of the HTML document.

However, if the file's name ends in .shm or .shtml, you must not use the line  at the end. These elements are used only with the old version of the Document Interface (files ending in .html or .htm.)

If you have created documents using the old version of the Document Interface which have already been linked into the system for some time, you should not change them over to the new method, because the new method uses a different filename. Doing so would mean that anyone having a bookmark to the original page may not be able to find the new page.

Top | Next Page