Maintaining navigation

[nonsensitor]

I'm currently developing a medium-sized site (looks like there could be 50-60 pages) and have been going ok. However, the design is evolving a little as I go. As the number of pages grows, I'm beginning to find that making content changes to universal elements (like navigation) is becoming a real burden.

Is there any way to specify content once and include it in each page by reference, the way that styles & layout are?

[steven]

Are you using anything like PHP for the website code? If so, you can include files or even use a templating parser and include the files.

For example, I've created my own template parser and one of it's functionalities allows me to include files. So each page has say navigation.html, header.html and footer.html included, so that if I ever need to make any changes, I only need to edit one file.

[AricC]

Yeah what he ^ said make one file called menu.htm then just include it in all of your pages via php like so:

<?php include('menu.htm') ?>

or

<!--#include virtual="menu.htm" -->

[nonsensitor]

Are you using anything like PHP for the website code? If so, you can include files or even use a templating parser and include the files.

For example, I've created my own template parser and one of it's functionalities allows me to include files. So each page has say navigation.html, header.html and footer.html included, so that if I ever need to make any changes, I only need to edit one file.

I haven't used anything other than html and css to date, and am only learning those as I go with the help of online tutorials and people like you :-)

It does sound like exactly the sort of solution I'm looking for. Would you say that teaching myself enough PHP to do what you've suggested would be any harder than learning html & css?

[nonsensitor]

Yeah what he ^ said make one file called menu.htm then just include it in all of your pages via php like so:

<?php include('menu.htm') ?>

or

<!--#include virtual="menu.htm" -->

Do you generally find any cross-browser issues with this sort of code?

[AricC]

No you shouldn't run into cross browser issues, and yes it is relatively easy to learn. Make sure the place you hosting the site with supports PHP if you want to use the php include also there isn't much of a learning curve if you simply want to use it to include files.

[nonsensitor]

Great, thanks for that. I'll give it a try.

[ronverdonk]

If you are going to use PHP (very sensible), have a look at the following links for absolute PHP beginners:

http://www.allsyntax.com/tutorials/P...Tutorial/1.php
http://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/627

Ronald :cool: