While "view shtml top" is a valid technical skill, you should rarely be writing new .shtml files in 2025. Here is why, and what to use instead.
| Feature | SHTML (SSI) | Modern PHP/Python | Static Site Generators (SSG) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Parsing | Every page request | Every request (or cached) | Build time only |
| Top Nav example | <!--#include --> | <?php include('top.php');?> | % include 'top.html' % (Jekyll/Hugo) |
| Performance | Slow (disk I/O per request) | Moderate (opcode caching) | Fastest (pure HTML) |
| Best for | Legacy intranets | Dynamic apps | Blogs, marketing sites | view shtml top
Recommendation: If you are debugging an old SHTML site, fine. If you are building a new site with a reusable "top" bar, use a templating engine or a static site generator. Do not use SSI. While "view shtml top" is a valid technical
If you use a browser's "View Page Source" (Ctrl+U), you will not see the <!--#include...--> directives. You will only see the final merged HTML. To confirm your includes are working, always view the raw file on the server. If you have shell access to your web
Notes: "virtual" is server-root-relative; "file" is filesystem-relative to current directory.
#!/bin/bash
f="$1"
if [ -z "$f" ]; then echo "usage: $0 file.shtml"; exit 1; fi
echo "Top 120 lines with SSI directives highlighted:"
sed -n '1,120p' "$f" | nl -ba | sed -n '1,120p' | sed -n '1,120p'
echo "SSI tags found:"
sed -n '1,120p' "$f" | grep -nE '<!--#' || echo "none"
If you have shell access to your web server, use standard Unix commands to view the top of the file.
# View the first 20 lines of the raw SHTML file
head -n 20 /var/www/html/includes/top.shtml
Because .shtml files rely on Server Side Includes (SSI), what you see depends on where you look.