Using links to change php includes?

[kaitan]

I have a page... and am wondering ...

Is there a way to make it so when I click a menu button that it changes the include on the page to contain something else?

Maybe I can explain it better

I have a menu navigation

I have a table to the right of that with an include

When I click on menu buttons is it possible to change what include is displayed in the table to the right?

[drew010]

a common practice with building php pages is to make links like
index.php?page=main
index.php?page=about
index.php?page=contact
etc.

to achieve this you can build a page with the common header and footer html, and have your include be based on what the page is set to.

<?php

$include_path = '/home/yoursite/www/includes/';

include $include_path . 'header.php';

if (!isset($_GET['page'] || empty($_GET['page'])) {
  include $include_path . 'main.php';
} else {
  if (file_exists($include_path . $_GET['page'] . '.php')) {
    include $include_path . $_GET['page'] . '.php';
  } else {
    include $include_path . 'main.php';
  }
}

include $include_path . 'footer.php';

?>

with that code, header.php contains your html and head tags, the style information, and all the top html of your page just before the table where the main content shows up.
footer.php contains all the closing tags to the table and any additional stuff you add at the bottom. based on what page is specified in the url, it includes the appropriate page.