I would like HTML to support Apache-style server-side includes natively.

[WebWeWantBot]

---

title: I would like HTML to support Apache-style server-side includes natively.
date: 2025-03-26T14:42:12.652Z
submitter: PRIVATE
number: 67e412442b9c6a0088e66979
tags: [ ]
discussion: https://github.com/WebWeWant/webwewant.fyi/discussions/
status: [ discussing || in-progress || complete ]
related:

• title:
  url:
  type: [ article || explainer || draft || spec || note || discussion ]

---

The lack of native support in HTML for including partials like nav menus, headers, footers, etc. makes it necessary to use static site generators, server-side programming, or JavaScript for client-side includes that slow down page rendering. For personal website operators using free hosts like NeoCities and NekoWeb, JS is usually the only option for reusing snippets.

I wrote about this in greater detail back in 2023 at https://starbreaker.org/grimoire/entries/html5-needs-partial-element/index.html

As noted, I get around this by using sed, m4, and hxincl in the shell scripts I use to build my website, but this might not be an optimal solution.

---

If posted, this will appear at https://webwewant.fyi/wants/67e412442b9c6a0088e66979/