Help with a Intelligent Navbar, if posible.

forde52

Hi i am having a problem with an Intelligent Navigational Bar for a website i am helping design.

The idea of the navbar is that it is just one .php file stored on the server, and will display different links dependent on what page a user is on and wether they are logged in.

Now i have the logged in part sorted (basically changes Login to Logout) But i can't figure out a way to get different links to show dependent on the page. 🙁

Heres the current code of the navbar :

<div id="topnavbar">
	<dl>
		<dt id="home"><a href="index.php">Home</a></dt>
        <dt id="account"><a href="myaccount.php">Account</a></dt>
 			<?php if ($_SESSION['logged_in']) { 
			$_SESSION['logged_in'] == TRUE; ?>
   		<dt id="logout"><a href="logout.php">Logout</a></dt>
			<? } else { ?>
		<dt id="login"><a href="login.php">Login</a></dt>
        <?  } ?>
        </dl>
    <dl id="rightnavbar">
    	<dt id="ISN"><a href="../index.php">ISN</a></dt>
<!-- start login form -->
        <?php if ($_SESSION['logged_in']) { 
			$_SESSION['logged_in'] == TRUE; ?>
   		<dt></dt>
			<? } else { ?>
		<dt id="loginform">
        <form action="<?php echo htmlentities($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']); ?>" method="POST">

Username:  <input type="text" class="<?php if ($validationresults==FALSE) echo "invalid"; ?>" id="user" name="user">
Password: <input name="pass" type="password" class="<?php if ($validationresults==FALSE) echo "invalid"; ?>" id="pass" >
<input type="submit" value="Login" />
<br /><br />
<?php if (($loginattempts_username > 2) || ($registered==FALSE) || ($loginattempts_total>2)) { ?>
Type the captcha below:
<br /> <br />
<?php
require_once('recaptchalib.php');
echo recaptcha_get_html($publickey);
?>
<br />
<?php } ?>
<?php if ($validationresults==FALSE) echo '<font color="red" background color="#FFFFFF">Please enter valid username, password or captcha (if required).</font>'; ?><br />
        </form>
<-- end login form -->
</dt>
        <?  } ?>
    </dl>
</div>

If anyone has any ideas as to how it could be done or if it is possible to be done that would be great! 🙂

johanafm

First off, I'd recommend not jumping in and out of php mode. Rather echo the html code instead. Reading your code will be a lot easier that way.

Secondly, you should not use dl and dt tags like you do. They are for use with definition lists, which means that you present one or more terms (dt) to be defined, and also provide their definition in a dd tag.

<dl>
	<dt>Strange Word</dt><dd>I'm the meaning of the strange word</dd>
</dl>

HTML is supposed to be semantic markup. That is, each tag carries meaning about what's inside it. If you want to use a list, go with ul or ol.

I'm assuming you have different groups of links, which means I'd put each such group in one file each. Most of the stuff will always be the same, but the login/logout will obviously need to change (and is most likely found in all such link groups).
link_group1.php

<?php
echo <<<links
<a href="/index.php">Home</a>
<a href="/index.php?page=stuff">Stuff</a>
links;

echo isset($logged_in) && $logged_in ? 
	'<a href="/logout.php">Log out</a>' :
	'<a href="/login.php">Log in</a>';
?>

And in your main file

echo '<div id="topnavbar">';
switch ($page)
{
	case 'some_page':
		require 'link_group1.php';
		break;
	case 'other_page':
		require 'link_group2.php';
		break;
}
echo '</div>';

You may also want to have a look at template engines which helps you separate code and layout.

forde52

Secondly, you should not use dl and dt tags like you do. They are for use with definition lists,

Ahh Right, Well that is what someone else used to create the navbar in the first place, i have just been amending it to there needs, so i shall change to <ul> and <ol>. But it is a rollover image bar so...

Also with the code

echo '<div id="topnavbar">'; 
switch ($page) 
{ 
    case 'some_page': 
        require 'link_group1.php'; 
        break; 
    case 'other_page': 
        require 'link_group2.php'; 
        break; 
} 
echo '</div>';

how will it decide what page you are on though?

johanafm

forde52;10987071 wrote:
how will it decide what page you are on though?

Well, it seems I mistnerpreted what you wrote before

The idea of the navbar is that it is just one .php file stored on the server, and will display different links dependent on what page a user is on and wether they are logged in.

as having one single entry point, index.php, for your entire site, in which case you'd most likely have something like $_GET['page'] = 'whatever';

But when looking at your code I realize you do have several different entry points, so in each of them I'd define $topnav = 'filename' instead, and then from each separate file starting a different page

# decides which file to use for the navbar
$topnav = 'filename';

# code logic for the current page here
# ...

# outputs html, head and start of body elements, down to and including navbar.
require 'page_top.php';

# display content part for this page
# ...

# if necessary, inserts a page footer with might contain "contact us", nav links again,
# another ad
# closes body and html tags opened in page_top.php
require 'page_bottom.php';

Another way to do it is to handle page content similar to how you handle the navbar

# decides which file to use for the navbar
$topnav = 'filename';

# code logic for the current page here which assigns all output to $content
# ...
$content .= 'more stuff';

# outputs everything
# makes use of $navbar to display the proper navbar. uses $content to show the
# content part of the page.
require page.php;

Or even better, create functions for the various parts and call them

function display_head($enctype, $title, $navbar) { ... }
function display_content($content);
function display_foot();

But either way, the basic principle remains the same.

forde52

Hmm i still can't seam to get it to work... Is there a bit of php i should put on the main pages to trigger the navbar to change...

I think i'm missing something.

If you need a more information about the site structure and what i am tying to accomplish then just lettus know.