I need my footer and nav bar to span across multiple pages without having to repeat Html code and was told SSI include is a solution to that? but I am not sure if Netlify has “server side includes”
Hi,
We serve static files, we don’t host php or rails apps where you could dynamically inject a footer in the bottom. However that’s not necessary to accomplish this since you can do this by using a framework or static site generator. It’s not a specific feature, but just a byproduct of using templates or components in your site. Examples of static site generators that can do this are Hugo, Nuxt, Next, Gatsby, etc.
Is their information on to connect Netlify to a Site generator? When I look that up it shows “Netlify CMS” is that different from “Netlify”. Where can I get more information?
Hey @bird,
Netlify CMS is indeed different from Netlify. Netlify is a platform, or a service that allows you to very easily deploy sites that don’t require a complete server backend (such as one written in JS, like express, or PHP, or rails) but instead is built using html & CSS and/or a static site generator (SSG) such as Hugo, Gatsby etc. You connect your GitHub repo to Netlify and you can automatically roll out your site when it is updated, along with many more features.
Now, let’s say you are trying to build a blog - maybe you are switching from Wordpress, for example. SSG’s are pretty flexible these days, and can parse any blog entries you might write from file formats such as markdown (.md) or even text (.txt). But if you are interested in having a editing interface that you can access from the web (like you do with the UI you log into from Wordpress) then you need to have some kind of content management system that allows you to write and edit and then save from a web-connected user interface. Netlify CMS is is one of those content management systems.
Here is some further reading:
Let me know if this answers your questions 
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