templating advice please?

[Barb54]

Hi,
A volunteer developer did some coding for my project using SMARTY. I barely know anything about php, much less SMARTY. Well, he got quite a bit done, but disappeared on me and I need to decide what I will do next.

I have seen sites where they use their own templates and CSS combination and I kind of like that set up. One of my problems is I need not only hearder, footer, main data pages but I also need a right and left navigation menu. I need one for general public and a different one for members that comes up when they log in. I can't figure out how to get my forms and linked pages to show up in the center area of the page, lol. I don't want to use frames but am very tempted at this point because I know I can put the linked pages where I want them if I do. But I don't like the "look" of frames so any advice would be greatly appreciated

I honestly think SMARTY is out for me. This project will be free to other clubs to use so I need to keep that in mind and make it as easy as possible to change the theme of the site. Any advice, help on this subject will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[dalecosp]

Maybe I'm not catching on....what's wrong with

<?php

include 'header.php';

include 'leftbar.php';

include 'rightbar.php';

echo "<div id=\"main\">";

include 'page.php';

echo "</div>";

include 'footer.php';

?>

??

You just need to make <main>'s CSS something like "position: absolute; margin-top YYpx; margin-left ZZpx;"

Now, I'm not too good at layout either, but I think it'd work....

[Barb54]

Thanks Dale I'll give that a shot. I didn't even think of an echo there. But then, that's par for the course right now, lol.

[zudo]

What's div?