HELP! site navigation issues

how do you make sure all pages have the same navigation outline

[adproducts]

I am new to web design and have learned enough to be dangerous. Although I am able to make changes in Dreamweaver, I have not figured out how to create a way to have all of the navigation links update across my site. Therefore, as I add new pages requiring new navigational links to get to them, I have to go back and add this link by hand to all of the pages on the site. Someone mentioned that I could use an "include" file to make this easier. I guess it involves some sort of script that would reside in a separate file so that I can update that one file and it would spread over all the site pages... does this make sense, if so, how would we do this?

thanks in advance!

[andye]

There's a couple of different ways. If you want to do this within Dreamweaver, take a look at the 'template' features.

hth,
a.

[lecter]

yes, save "the page" as template in DW......

[adproducts]

what will that do? will it automatically update the all of the pages of my site with the new link that I create for a new page?

[coopster]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, adproducts.

Yes, what you describe is a common practice. Some folks have used JavaScript to push navigational pages into their site but that doesn't work too well for those folks that have JavaScript turned off in their browsers.

The common practice is to include a *chunk* of common code into each of your pages with server-side technology like Apache's Server Side Includes or perhaps a scripting language such as Perl, PHP, ASP, etc. This way, you create the navigational code segment once and modify it it one place. Then, in each of your pages that will require the navigational menu to be present you simple "include" that piece of code. Think of it as pulling all the pieces of the finished document together on the server before sending it back to the requester.

[andye]

what will that do?

adproducts, it's quite easy for you to find that out for yourself. In Dreamweaver:
- click 'help'
- click 'using dreamweaver'
- click 'search'
- type in 'template'
and it'll tell you all about it:

One of the most powerful uses of templates is the ability to update multiple pages at once. A document that is created from a template remains connected to that template (unless you detach the document later). You can modify a template and immediately update the design in all document based on it.

best, a.

[adproducts]

thanks Coopster, I appreciate the advice. is this something that can be done easily and can it be "retro-fitted" into existing pages? one last item is the effect it may or may not have on search engines.

[dashaver1948]

I had chosen to go the way PHP includes instead of Dreamweaver templates on my sites, but now I am wondering if this affected the search engine ranking for these sites. I would be interested in the experience of others.

[petermason]

dashaver - I don't see how having php includes for your navigation could affect your rankings. By the time the page reaches the client - be they browser or spider - it will have rendered as ordinary HTML.