best way to send includes to div containers from links on the same page?

[visd]

i have a page consisting of div's that call includes. the page loads fine. the div at the top of the page holds images of 5 books. the div in the middle of the page holds an img of a full book cover with isbn info, etc. the div at the bottom is a list of chapters.

i'd like to have the page function such that when a book cover in the first div is clicked, the includes in the second and third divs are replaced with includes corresponding to the clicked book cover.

then i'd like for the chapter list to function such that clicking on any chapter title replaces the include containing the chapter list with an include containing the text of that chapter.

i used to do this with frames and layers and it worked fine but seemed clumsy from a programatic standpoint.

can someone point me in a good direction to investigate for achieving what i've layed out?

thanks!

[wilku]

The most reasonable, I suppose, would be to write your main file like:

<div class="header"><?php include('header.php'); ?></div>
<div class="main"><?php include('main.php'); ?></div>
<div class="footer"><?php include('footer.php'); ?></div>

Then in each file (header.php, main.php,footer.php) code what you want them to display (basing on the $_GET varibles from URL).

Example:

//in header.php
<?php $b_id = getBookIdFromDatabase(); ?>
<a href="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>?book_id=<?php   echo $b_id; ?>"><img src="<?php getBookCover($b_id) ?>"></a>


//in main.php
<?php
$book_id = isset($_GET['book_id'])?$_GET['book_id']:'defaultbook';
//display data for $book_id
?>

So each time you click a link, the whole page reloads - with php creating dynamicaly a new page, including each time all the three parts.

[visd]

that sounds like exactly what i want to do. i'm just getting my feet wet with PHP though, so i haven't worked with get calls and databases yet.

is there a good tutorial page around that would introduce me to that?

thanks!

[wilku]

Ask Google for php tutorial. The one I found: http://students.nebrwesleyan.edu/tutorial/php/index.php

[visd]

so, i'm learning to integrate php and sql. but in the meantime, i came across a page discussing changing content with innerhtml.

they use:

<script type="text/javascript">
/*************************************************************************
  This code is from Dynamic Web Coding at [url]http://www.dyn-web.com/[/url]
  See Terms of Use at [url]http://www.dyn-web.com/bus/terms.html[/url]
  Permission granted to use this code 
  as long as this entire notice is included.
*************************************************************************/

function changeContent(id,shtml) {
   if (document.getElementById || document.all) {
      var el = document.getElementById? document.getElementById(id): document.all[id];
      if (el && typeof el.innerHTML != "undefined") el.innerHTML = shtml;
   }
}

var msg1 = 'New content for the layer. Content written to the element can be plain text or <span class="hot">rich html,</span> including images.';
var msg2 = "You can enclose your message string in single quotes so html tags in the string can use double quotes for attributes.";
var msg3 = 'There are lots of writing to layers examples at <a href="http://www.dyn-web.com">[url]www.dyn-web.com[/url]</a>.';
</script>

with a link call via:

<p><a href="javascript:;" onmouseover="changeContent('lyr1', msg1)" onmouseout="changeContent('lyr1','A layer you can write to.')">Hover here</a> to change the content of the layer above. <a href="javascript:;" onclick="changeContent('lyr1',msg2)">Click here</a>.</p>

to a div:

<div id="lyr1">Layer you can write to onmouseover or onclick.</div>

i tried to make the msg1 variable:

var msg1 = "<?php include ('includes/day.inc');?>"

to replace this content:

<div id="lyr1">
		<?php include('includes/lengths-menu.inc');?>
		</div>

but it won't work. is there something special i have to do to make it recognize the include?

thank you!

[wilku]

And what do you mean "it doesn't work"?
Check in HTML source how this fragmet looks like in a browser and post it here.

[visd]

that's the way it doesn't work. even though the rendered page shows a change to the referenced DIV (it collapses the div, but does not send the called include page to that div), when i view the source, it's still showing the HTML of the original page.

is the syntax i use for defining the include in the msg1 variable correct?

i can post the HTML later today. thanks again.