Is it php I should be using?

Violanthe

Hi everyone,

I run a webpage that's relatively low-tech, and I hope to keep it that way. However, using HTML alone has become something of a chore for updating the navigation links.

Each HTML document on my page uses the same basic format, navigational links and ads in a column on the left, content on the right. When I publish a new page, I simply open an old article, rename it, and cut/paste new content between the header and footer common to every page.

Well, when I want to change anything in that common header (including left side nav links) or footer I have to copy paste into every single HTML document. We publish new context twice a week, so the HTML documents are slowly adding up.

I have a message forum (installed by my hosting package) that runs on php. I've been successful in customizing its "overall header" and "overall footer" with the rest of my site.

I was wondering if something can be done with php for the main site? Something that would allow me to change the common header or footer in one coding file and have it reflected on every HTML page on the site. However, I don't want to effect such a huge change that I'll have to go in and change all my links to pages within site. I'd like to retain the ".html" extensions that I already have, if possible.

Is php the way to go? Again, I want to keep it as low-tech as possible. I don't want my site to look any different. I just want an easier way to update the headers and footers.

Thanks,
Vio

sneakyimp

php can do that quite handily. here's how i do it.

1) make a template file which has the layout for the entire site. where the content for the page is supposed to go, i type --PAGE_CONTENT_GOES_HERE--

2) then i split the template file in two other files:
header.php contains everything from the template file before --PAGE_CONTENT_GOES_HERE--
footer.php contains everyting AFTER --PAGE_CONTENT_GOES_HERE--

then i create all my pages like this:

<?
include('header.php');
?>
My <b>elaborate page html goes here</b>
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. 
<?
include('header.php');
?>

Violanthe

Thanks, sneakyimp. Great to hear it's wholly possible.

My next question, though, is how do I implement it. I have absolutely no experience in constructing php from scratch, only with digging around in the files of my message board to change stuff.

Right now, the directory where I have all the html files for my site is not a mysql database. The subdomain with my message board is, but not the main directory. Do I have to make it such a database or can I just go ahead and use your code as is?

Second, what are the nuts and bolts of creating the template files? Can I, quite literally, open my index.html file in Notepad, take out everything below the header, rename a copy "header.php" and expect it to work? Or is there coding that needs to surround the HTML code?

Finally, for all the HTML pages on my site where I will be putting the php code to insert the header and footer, can I just remove the header and footer info as is was in the template, insert the code in its place and be done? The .html file can literally open with that code? No traditional html prefacing required?

Violanthe

Okay, I got it to work, but only by renaming my file that was originally a .html file a .php file. Is this the only way to do it? Is there no way to retain the .html extensions?

Thanks,
Vio

tjohnson_nb

This could be in a file called header.html

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title></title>
<meta name="generator" content="Bluefish 1.0.5">
<meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>

and you would change the name of your index.html to index.php and put this at the beginning.

<?
include 'header.html';
?>

and have a footer.html and this at the bottom of index.php

<?
include 'footer.html';
?>

You may have to tell apache to use index.php by default or else you may have to put [url]http://your_domain/index.php[/url] in the url

Violanthe

Thanks for your help! I've got my entire page reworked now to run with php headers and footers.

cretaceous

check out mod_rewrite if you want to keep pages named '.html'
it does an invisble file rename (ie rewrite) to change .html to .php
(but dont leave any pages as plain html)