a little more help with python server-side scripting

[Magnus Lycka]

John Salerno wrote:
> Maybe I'm misunderstanding what is meant when you say to use ASP. I'm 
> thinking that it involves having to learn another language (such as C# 
> with ASP.NET), instead of writing my code in Python. Is that not the case?

Nope. Just like CGI, ASP is language agnostic. It's a Microsoft
standard for embedding code in HTML pages. Look at the references
earlier in the thread and/or google for Python ASP.

Of course, the catch here is that your ISP might not have
enabled Python as a scripting language on the servers...

Finally, it's my impression that your ambition is to use some
kind of scripting to get a uniform look and navigation etc in
your web pages. This might not require any kind of dynamic
web site.

In that case I'd suggest that you simply make build some
Python tool on your own computer that builds a static version
of your entire web site in the safe and free environment of
your home. If you want to change something, you simply edit
a file at home, rebuild your site and upload the new files.

I've built a few sites like that, and if you don't really
need to serve anything but static pages, it's probably your
best bet.
  - It'll give you a snappy site. It just serves static pages.
  - You don't rely on any particular technology from your ISP,
    they just need FTP etc so that you can upload your files,
    and a plain web server.
  - You have the original content at home, so you always have
    a backup of your web site.
  - You can use whatever tools you like to create your data
    without involving your ISP.

Personally, I think HTML is a crappy language to write text
in. I prefer to use something like reST, see 
http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html

 From reST there are convenient tools to get both HTML and
PDF documents--good for CVs etc. The standard tool doesn't
make room for those custom headers or footers though. There
is some help there though. Look here:
http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/user/links.html