[html] Multiple distinct pages in one HTML file

Is there any way to have multiple distinct HTML pages contained within a single HTML file? For example, suppose I have a website with two pages:

Page 1 : click here for page 2

and

Page 2 : click here for page 1

Can I create a single HTML file that embeds simple static HTML for both pages but only displays one at a time? My actual pages are of course more complicated with images, tables and javascript to expand table rows. I would prefer to avoid too much script code. Thanks!

Screen Rec

You could use Colker, which is built for this, but you'll have to remove the search box, and search feature code, because searching isn't compatible with the type of content you intend to use.

Page contents are stored in a java-script array, and the "page" (eg: ?page=pagename) URL parameter determines which page content to serve.

Solution 1

One solution for this, not requiring any JavaScript, is simply to create a single page in which the multiple pages are simply regular content that is separated by a lot of white space. They can be wrapped into div containers, and an inline style sheet can endow them with the margin:

<style>
.subpage { margin-bottom: 2048px; }
</style>
... main page ...

<div class="subpage">
<!-- first one is empty on purpose: just a place holder for margin;
     alternative is to use this for the main part of the page also! -->
</div>

<div class="subpage">
</div>

<div class="subpage">
</div>

You get the picture. Each "page" is just a section followed by a whopping amount of vertical space so that the next one doesn't show.

I'm using this trick to add "disambiguation navigation links" into a large document (more than 430 pages long in its letter-sized PDF form), which I would greatly prefer to keep as a single .html file. I emphasize that this is not a web site, but a document.

When the user clicks on a key word hyperlink in the document for which there are multiple possible topics associated with word, the user is taken a small navigation menu presenting several topic choices. This menu appears at top of what looks like a blank browser window, and so effectively looks like a page.

The only clue that the menu isn't a separate page is the state of the browser's vertical scroll bar, which is largely irrelevant in this navigation use case. If the user notices that, and starts scrolling around, the whole ruse is revealed, at which point the user will smile and appreciate not having been required to unpack a .zip file full of little pages and go hunting for the index.html.

Solution 2

It's actually possible to embed a HTML page within HTML. It can be done using the somewhat obscure data: URL in the href attribute. As a simple test, try sticking this somewhere in a HTML page:

<a href="data:text/html;charset=utf-8,<h3>FOO</h3>">blah</a>

In Firefox, I get a "blah" hyperlink, which navigates to a page showing the FOO heading. (Note that I don't have a fully formed HTML page here, just a HTML snippet; it's just a hello-world example).

The downside of this technique is that the entire target page is in the URL, which is stuffed into the browser's address input box.

If it is large, it could run into some issues, perhaps browser-specific; I don't have much experience with it.

Another disadvantage is that the entire HTML has to be properly escaped so that it can appear as the argument of the href attribute. Obviously, it cannot contain a plain double quote character anywhere.

A third disadvantage is that each such link has to replicates the data: material, since it isn't semantically a link at all, but a copy and paste embedding. It's not an attractive solution if the page-to-be-embeddded is large, and there are to be numerous links to it.

I used the following trick for the same problem. The good thing is it doesn't require any javascript.

CSS:

.body {
     margin: 0em;
}

.page {
    width: 100vw;
    height: 100vh;
    position: fixed;
    top: 0;
    left: -100vw;
    overflow-y: auto;
    z-index: 0;
    background-color: hsl(0,0%,100%);
}

  .page:target {
    left: 0vw;
    z-index: 1;
}

HTML:

<ul>
    <li>Click <a href="#one">here</a> for page 1</li>
    <li>Click <a href="#two">here</a> for page 2</li>
</ul>

<div class="page" id="one">
    Content of page 1 goes here.

    <ul>
        <li><a href="#">Back</a></li>
        <li><a href="#two">Page 2</a></li>
    </ul>
</div>

<div class="page" id="two">
    Content of page 2 goes here.

    <ul style="margin-bottom: 100vh;">
        <li><a href="#">Back</a></li>
        <li><a href="#one">Page 1</a></li>
    </ul>
</div>

See a JSFiddle.

Added advantage: as your url changes along, you can use it to link to specific pages. This is something the method won't let you do.

Hope this helps!

This is kind of overriding the thing of one page, but... You could use iframes in HTML.

<html>
<body>
<iframe src="page1.html" border="0"></iframe>
</body>
</html>

And page1.html would be your base page. Your still making multiple pages, but your browser just doesn't move. So lets say thats your index.html. You have tabs, you click page 2, your url wont change, but the page will. All in iframes. The only thing different, is that you can view the frame source as well.

have all the pages in distinct div areas

<div style="" id="page1">
First Page Contents
</div>

<div style="display:none" id="page2">
Second Page Contents
</div>

then use a js script to workout what you are viewing (like within an hashtag style) to navigate. Either that, or ajax to get the response from a specific file (like /pages/page1.html)

var $prehashval = "";
function loop()
{
    if (location.hash.slice(1)!=$prehashval)
        hashChanged();

    $prehashval = location.hash.slice(1);
    setTimeout("loop()", 100);
}
function hashChanged()
{
    var $output;
    switch (location.hash.slice(1))
    {
        case "page1":
            document.getElementById('page1').style.display = "";
            document.getElementById('page2').style.display = "none";
            break;
        case "page2":
            document.getElementById('page1').style.display = "none";
            document.getElementById('page2').style.display = "";
            break;
        default:
            $output = location.hash.slice(1);
    }
}
loop();

Have you considered iframes or segregating your content and using a simple show/hide?

Edit If you want to use an iframe, you can have the contents of page1 and page2 in one html file. Then you can decide what to show or hide by reading the location.search property of the iframe. So your code can be like this :

For Page 1 : iframe.src = "mypage.html?show=1"

For Page 2 : iframe.src = "mypage.html?show=2"

Now, when your iframe loads, you can use the location.search.split("=")[1], to get the value of the page number and show the contents accordingly. This is just to show that iframes can also be used but the usage is more complex than the normal show/hide using div structures.

Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories. It generates a single html with multiples pages. Maybe it is not the right tool for you but it could be useful for someone else looking for something similar.

It is, in theory, possible using data: scheme URIs and frames, but that is rather a long way from practical.

You can fake it by hiding some content with JS and then revealing it when something is clicked (in the style of tabtastic).

going along with @binz-nakama, here's an update on his jsfiddle with a very small amount of javascript. also incoporates this very good article on css navigation

update on the jsfiddle

Array.from(document.querySelectorAll("a"))
.map(x => x.addEventListener("click", 
  function(e){
    Array.from(document.querySelectorAll("a"))
    .map(x => x.classList.remove("active"));
    e.target.classList.add("active");    
  }
));

Let's say you have multiple pages, with id #page1 #page2 and #page3. #page1 is the ID of your start page. The first thing you want to do is to redirect to your start page each time the webpage is loading. You do this with javascript:

document.location.hash = "#page1";

Then the next thing you want to do is place some links in your document to the different pages, like for example:

<a href="#page2">Click here to get to page 2.</a>

Then, lastly, you'd want to make sure that only the active page, or target-page is visible, and all other pages stay hidden. You do this with the following declarations in the <style> element:

<style>
#page1 {display:none}
#page1:target {display:block}
#page2 {display:none}
#page2:target {display:block}
#page3 {display:none}
#page3:target {display:block}
</style>

JQuery Mobile has multipage feature. But I am not sure about Desktop Web Applications.