menues without frames

[chrman]

I have a little dilemma i'm hoping to find a simple solution to.

I am working on a project with a menu across the top which i am doing in javascript.
The menu is quite large and so doing it in a frame is not deiserable as the frame would take up half the screen, and we do not want to have to scroll the frame to see the menu. So frames are out.
BUT, the problem i have now is that it looks like i have to include (and modify) the code for each page of the document. There are over 200 pages in multiple nested folders which means a TON of work and testing.
Is there a way to not use frames and not to have to code every page independantly?
Some sort of frame that contains the code, but can overlap the frame below so i can keep it small?

[theperlyking]

two options:

*If its javascript you can write one .js file including the code then use <script src="whatever.js> on each page.

*If you can you could use server side includes to include a file containing the menu on each page.

Both would mean you only have one menu to update no matter how many pages you have.

[chrman]

here is a novice question if i ever heard one
how do you create a .js file?
I've searched a half dozen sites for tutorials and stuff and came out blank.

[theperlyking]

If i'm guessing right there are a couple of solutions:

Use full paths to the links instead of relative (e.g "/foo/bar/page.html" instead of just "page.html")

Look into using the base href tag to give your page the base for its links.

Good luck :)

[chrman]

I am still having problems. Maybe i should bemore specific on my problem
I cannot use a absolute reference since this product is going to be distributed on a CD-Rom and not posted on the web (until later)
I cannot know what the user's driver letter will be which means i cannot use an absolute designation.
Is there a way to force it into thinking a specific folder is the absolute reference?
The root folder is called DSS, in that folder is the index page and the menu.js files. I need to reference all links to the DSS folder to get the correct path. Is this even possible?

[typophile]

I don't know the intricacies of script includes or the other things mentioned above but when I build sites in dreamweaver that include javscript navigation menus I make the whole menu a library item that dreamwever will allow you to modify and update site-wide. This may not solve your absolute vs. relative links problem but I find it reduces my coding time immensely.