Remotely include headers, footers and other site design elements

Managed by | Updated 3 years ago.

Background

The <@fb.IncludeUrl> function allows the user to replicate external web designs by including remote content from the user's website, effectively embedding another HTML page into the current design.

A common use case of `<@fb.IncludeUrl> is when a user need to dynamically fetch the client's header, footer or menu. It allows the web designer to change search result design (via CSS, JS) without making direct changes to the search templates.

The source page should include comment tags that clearly indicate where an intended include starts and finishes. e.g. wrap the header include in a <!--start_header--> and <!--end_header-->.

IncludeUrl macro parameters

• url: URL to request. This parameter is mandatory.
• expiry: cache time in seconds (default = 3600). Please note the value is to be specified without quotes: expiry=3600. If the remote content does not change frequently (e.g multiple times each day), it is recommended to set to 86400 (24 hours), to save server resources. The expiry should not be set to a small value as this will have an impact on search response times as Funnelback will need to make the request every time the cache expires`: and the time to request and cache the page is added to the response time for the query.
• start: regular expression pattern (Java) marking the beginning of the content to include. Double quotes must be escaped: start="start \"pattern\"".
• end: regular expression pattern (Java) marking the end of the content to include. Double quotes must be escaped too.
• username: username if the remote server requires authentication.
• password: password if the remote server requires authentication.
• useragent: User-Agent string to use.
• timeout: time to wait, in seconds, for the remote content to be returned.
• convertRelative: boolean, whether relative links in the included content should be converted to absolute ones.

Usage example

<@fb.IncludeUrl url="https://www.mysite.com/search-template" expiry=86400 start="<!--start_header-->" end="<!--end_header-->" convertrelative=true />

<@fb.IncludeUrl url="https://www.mysite.com/search-template" expiry=86400 start="<div id=\"header\"></div> end="<!--end_header-->" convertrelative=true />

Advantages

• Includes are dynamically updated which provides more control for the user over search designs.

Disadvantages

• Requires more effort to set up.
• May result in CSS and JavaScript libraries conflicts.
• Content is cached to avoid firing HTTP requests to fetch the includes each time search results are returned. It is good practice to set the expiry to a sensible value, such as 1 day (86400) to minimise the Funnelback response time. A dedicated search result template URL that is used solely for the purpose of styling search results is also recommended.