The most noob of all noob question...calling up images using php.

soulflycrx

Ok. I have been doing graphics and HTML development for almost 10 years...what I dont know very well is PHP.

I was wondering if I can control banner ads on my website with a php file.

This is what I want. I want to be able to put a php tag on my HTML page that will call up an image (which will be a banner ad). Which will be displayed on each page on my website.

If I want to globaly change that banner ad, I would like to have an external php file do so.

So is there a way to have a php file where I can put the location of my banner (ie, http://blablalba.com/images/image.gif) and then have a tag on my html page that will call up an image from that php file? That way I can change what the URL of the image is in the PHP file and not do it on every single page.

Thanks! I hope somebody out there knows what I am saying.

laserlight

Well, you could set some sort of configuration variable that contains your image's filename, and path.
Then each script can use this variable.

soulflycrx

ummmmmmm ok! 😃

So how do I do that? I imagine the script should be pretty simple.

gufmn

You could do something like this on all your pages:

<?php
include('banner.php');
echo get_banner();
?>

---Then, inside banner.php---

<?php
function get_banner(){
return '<img src="image.gif">';
}
?>

It's kinda a stupid and static way of doing it, but all you would have to do is change "image.gif" in banner.php. Sounded like thats what you were looking for.

soulflycrx

You know what? I think thats exactly what I need! I will try it out now!

Thanks!

gufmn

Don't know what I was smoking before but I gave you a syntax error.

Should be:
include('banner.php');

not:
include['banner.php'];

TheBB

I think you also forgot function in "banner.php". 🙂

gufmn

/me hides in shame

I must have smoked something fierce this morning.

soulflycrx

How should it be coded then?

gufmn

I edited my original post with the fixes.

soulflycrx

EDIT: Im stupid. I got it working, and I was having trouble because my webpage file was a .html, not a .php. Thats why it would not call up my php document. Duhhhh...

laserlight

It's kinda a stupid and static way of doing it, but all you would have to do is change "image.gif" in banner.php. Sounded like thats what you were looking for.

It isnt that simple.
The problem comes when you're trying to place the same image at different levels of a directory hierarchy.
That's when you need to pass some sort of configuration information.

gufmn

Originally posted by laserlight
It isnt that simple.
The problem comes when you're trying to place the same image at different levels of a directory hierarchy.
That's when you need to pass some sort of configuration information.

The guy's been building sites for 10 years. I'm sure he can see the potential problems that may or may not come up. He wanted to do something specific, so I showed him a specific way to do that. If his site changes in the future and this no longer works for him, I'm sure we'll see another post. But for the time being, and considering he admittedly knows nothing about php, this is a simple solution to the problem at hand without him having to completely learn a new language.

Davy

For a banner ad, shouldn't you want to be able to randomise the actual banner's code:

<a href="here.html"><img src="foo.png"></a>

You must know what that is surely after 10 years of HTML!

Well you can use an include (like these guys have said) using regular SSI includes on the page to a *.php file that assigns all the arrays with the code above so that they can be randomised, then 'echo'ed to the page.

I could supply full code but I'd use [FONT=courier new]array_rand()[/FONT].

soulflycrx

No, this is really as simple as it gets for the way I want. I dont need randomization or anything. But I do appreciate everybody sort of pitching in ideas. That helps me out big time. I think I got things the way I need them for now. The simple way worked. 🙂