Managing a Web SIte Tempalate

Hello Gang
Im new to this html game and i am looking for a soloution that will work much like the dreamwearver .dwt but without the dreamweaver . Is there a means through xml or css to have a Site Wide Template where we can modifiy only this file and have it reflect right across the entire site.

Currently we have a site with a 2 column layout roughly 25%-75% the 25% column is static and remains the same on all pages it contains a table with links and an image. i would like to be able to modify this page for example change a link and have it reflect site wide without manually going to each of the 600 pages and changing it. Likewise goes for the page header and footer.

Is it possible to have meta data stored in a specific place and just have the data that is different on a particular page added to that page ?

How is this managed in other buisnesses?

The Data that is being stored on this site is company memos and that have typically the same format with a few exceptions.

There are a couple of ways to get the effect of templates using various server-side languages, like PHP or SHTML (server-side includes). These, and others, allow you to create single files that you can then include in all other files; when you change the contents of the included file, the change is reflected throughout the site (or on any page that includes the file).

It gets more advanced from there. There is a template class in PHP called Smarty, which adds presentation logic functions (make a row in a table for however many fields are returned from a database).

Does FrontPage have templates? (kidding)

SSI (SHTML whatever) is probably the easiest. You might want to look into that.

my question is basically what my subject says would it be possible to do this through xlst and xml documents? I dont know if using serverside languages would work due to the enviroment im in.I would have to check into it more we run a IIS server but i believe that even ASP projects will not work o on them due to tight security policies.

We work with ie 6.0 currently but may be switching to a new browser due to ie security holes.

I am a programmer so i am not completely closed to other solutions that require some thought either.

Thanks
again Jerry

What does that have to do with your webserver?
If you mean developing with a specific browser in mind... why would the browser's security flaws concern you?

I believe you can do this with XML+XSLT, probably with apply-templates, but I've never done it on a site-wide scale. Keep in mind that not all browsers support the latest XSLT functions, elements, options, etc. www.w3schools.com is a good place to get some basics.

obi i was hoping that there might be a client side way to apply the templates through xlst thats why i mentioned the browsers and currently they (security people) are in the process of deciding whether or not we will continue to use ie 6.0 because of the latest flaws.
but i think jharnois answered my question thanks both of you


Jerry

Tell the security people to look into Mozilla's Firefox (or the older Mozilla browsers for a stable release version).