[RESOLVED] Help with main page: want some content to stay the same

k12

Assalamalaikum (peace be unto you) to all the Muslims,
and a Hi to everyone else,

I'm currently doing a project for a course at my university, we are told to create a simple registration system using PHP and MySQL. I've already created the logon page and it works well. I'm currently working on the Main Page which the user is shown after a successful login attempt.

I'm a beginner at PHP and MySQL so any advice as to how to improve my code is appreciated as well 🙂

Now on to the question, on the Main Page, I have several buttons positioned in a certain way and a content area below them. What I want to do is to change the content area depending on the button pressed. But once a button is pressed, the old content from the content area is removed and the new content is displayed. I don't want to change the buttons position,etc... or the title, etc... just the content area every time a button is pressed.

Here is my source code:

<html><title>Main Page</title>

<style type="text/css">
div#main
{
        text-align: left;
        font-size: 200%;
}

div#user
{
        text-align: left;
        font-size: 100%;
}
</style>

</html>
<?php
$user= $_POST["user"];
$pwd = $_POST["pwd"];
$database="wp_project";
$connect = mysql_connect('localhost',$user,$pwd);
$thedatabase=mysql_select_db($database,$connect) or die( "Unable to select database");

$get_name = mysql_query("SELECT concat(p_first,' ',p_last) AS Name FROM people") or die(mysql_error());
while($info = mysql_fetch_array($get_name))
{
$user_name=$info['Name'];
}


if(!$connect)
{
        echo "MySQL connection failed!";
        mysql_error();
        exit;
}
else
{
?>      

        <html><div id="main"></html><?php
        Print "Main Page<br/>";?>
        <html></div>

    <html><div id="user"></html><?php
    Print "User: $user_name";?>
    <html></div><HR>

    <input type='button' name="allbooking" value="View Booking(s)"/>
    <input type='button' name="newbooking" value="New Booking"/>
    <input type='button' name="venuecheck" value="Venue Availability"/>
    <input type='button' name="history" value="User History"/>
    <input type ='button' name="logoutbutton" value="Logout"/><br/>
    <HR>

    </html></html>
    <?php
    mysql_close();
};
?>

Screenshot is attached. Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks a lot.

cretaceous

read up on what a well constructed page of html should look like
..there should only be one open <html> and a single matching close </html> at page end
..and where's your <body> tag?

it's hard to tell what you mean by 'content' - that's rather broad - javascript can probably do what you need

k12

cretaceous;10993119 wrote:
read up on what a well constructed page of html should look like
..there should only be one open <html> and a single matching close </html> at page end
..and where's your <body> tag?

it's hard to tell what you mean by 'content' - that's rather broad - javascript can probably do what you need

Actually, I finally found what it really was, it's called a dynamic page. I managed to do what I wanted initially but now I want to add a login page. The problem I'm facing is how to differentiate regular users from admin users when accessing this page?

If its an admin, some extra options should show up while the style of the page remains the same. The regular users would have lesser options but the same style page. A friend of mine recommended using sessions? Is this is a good way to do it?

And here is the updated main page code, in case someone wants to learn from it:

<html>
	<title>Main Page</title>

<style type="text/css">
div#main
{
	text-align: left;
	font-size: 200%;
}

div#user
{
	text-align: left;
	font-size: 100%;
}
div#menu
{
	padding-right: 2cm;
}
</style>


	<div id="main"></html>
		<?php
			Print "Main Page<br/>";
		?>
<html>
	</div>

	<div id="user">
		</html>
			<?php
				//Print "User: $user_name";
			?>
		<html>
	</div>
	<HR>

<div id="menu">
	<a href="main.php?p=viewbooking">View Booking(s)</a>&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
	<a href="main.php?p=newbooking">New Booking</a>&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
	<a href="main.php?p=venuecheck">Venue Availability</a>&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
	<a href="main.php?p=userhistory">User History</a>&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
	<a href="main.php?p=logout">Logout</a>
	<br/>
</div>

<HR>

<div id="content">
<?php
$pages_dir = 'pages';
if (!empty($_GET['p']))
{
	$pages = scandir($pages_dir,0);
	unset($pages[0],$pages[1]);

	$p=$_GET['p'];


	if(in_array($p.".inc.php",$pages))
	{
		include($pages_dir.'/'.$p.".inc.php");
	}
	else echo "Sorry page not found.";
}
else 
{
	include($pages_dir.'/viewbooking.inc.php');
}

?>
</div>

</html>

Thanks for the help 🙂

bradgrafelman

Might want to run some of your HTML pages through a validator and work on fixing the large number of errors it points out.

cretaceous

your html is still VERY wrong as bradg points out -
the only thing people should learn from it is that your university is missing out on teaching the essential basics
yes.. sessions are often used for log in tracking but read up on the security implications

k12

Okay, I checked it through the W3C validator and apparently it does suck. Read up on some of the stuff and edited my code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> 
<html>
	<head>
	<title>Main Page</title>

<style type="text/css">
div#main
{
	text-align: left;
	font-size: 200&#37;;
}

div#user
{
	text-align: left;
	font-size: 100%;
}
div#menu
{
	padding-right: 2cm;
}
</style>
</head>


	<div id="main">
		<?php
			Print "Main Page<br>";
		?>
	</div>

	<div id="user">
			<?php
				//Print "User: $user_name";
			?>
	</div>
	<HR>

<div id="menu">
	<a href="main.php?p=viewbooking">View Booking(s)</a>&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
	<a href="main.php?p=newbooking">New Booking</a>&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
	<a href="main.php?p=venuecheck">Venue Availability</a>&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
	<a href="main.php?p=userhistory">User History</a>&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
	<a href="main.php?p=logout">Logout</a>
	<br>
</div>

<HR>

<div id="content">
<?php
$pages_dir = 'pages';
if (!empty($_GET['p']))
{
	$pages = scandir($pages_dir,0);
	unset($pages[0],$pages[1]);

	$p=$_GET['p'];


	if(in_array($p.".inc.php",$pages))
	{
		include($pages_dir.'/'.$p.".inc.php");
	}
	else echo "Sorry page not found.";
}
else 
{
	include($pages_dir.'/viewbooking.inc.php');
}
?>
</div>

</html>

I still have some warnings regarding UTF-8 but otherwise it has passed. Any other way I can improve it?

Emma

Yes, don't use PHP when HTML is more appropriate.

You want "Main Page" to stand-out because it's a heading, so use the heading tag <h1> (only 1 per page please). Not only is that what HTML is for, giving structure to your page, but it's far better for screen-reader users. If you want to change the way the <h1> makes the text appear, override it with CSS (as you did with the PHP output).

k12

Thanks a lot for all the help guys, helped me solve errors I didn't know were there and with better formatting.

Here is the latest edit:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> 
<html>
	<head>
	<title>Main Page</title>
	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
	<style type="text/css">
	div#main
	{
		text-align: left;
		font-size: 100&#37;;
	}

div#user
{
	text-align: left;
	font-size: 100%;
}
div#menu
{
	padding-right: 2cm;
}
</style></head>

<div id="main">
	<h1>Main Page</h1>
</div>

<div id="user">
	<?php
		//Insert something here
	?>
</div>
<HR>

<div id="menu">
	<a href="main.php?p=viewbooking">View Booking(s)</a>&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
	<a href="main.php?p=newbooking">New Booking</a>&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
	<a href="main.php?p=venuecheck">Venue Availability</a>&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
	<a href="main.php?p=userhistory">User History</a>&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
	<a href="main.php?p=logout">Logout</a>
	<br>
</div>

<HR>

<div id="content">
<?php
$pages_dir = 'pages';
if (!empty($_GET['p']))
{
	$pages = scandir($pages_dir,0);
	unset($pages[0],$pages[1]);

	$p=$_GET['p'];


	if(in_array($p.".inc.php",$pages))
	{
		include($pages_dir.'/'.$p.".inc.php");
	}
	else echo "Sorry page not found.";
}
else 
{
	include($pages_dir.'/viewbooking.inc.php');
}
?>
</div>

</html>

Emma

Glad to help, it has improved but it still requires some work. As cretaceous pointed out the code is missing a body tag, and you can't have a head without a body (it doesn't work in nature or code). Try reading a few beginner articles about HTML to help you understand what basic structures you need for HTML.