Navigaton with css

How to use one page for navigation

[wilbye999]

NEWBE question.
I have considered changing the website for our parish to css. I have played with a simple two page site and see the advantages of using css, but as a beginner I do not understand how I can easily manage the navigation.

At the moment I use FrontPage. When I add a page I use a template, and construct the page. I then update the navigation frame with the reference to the new page, and all I have to do is upload the new page and the navigation frame. From my understanding of css, every time I add a new page I would have to update every page and upload the whole site. Is this the case or have I missed something?

If you want to look at the current site search Google for Stoke Gifford Parish Council.

Thanks, Wilbye

[coopersita]

If you stop using frames, yes, you would have to change the menu in every page if you add a new page. Unless you used an include...

An include lets you have a page with your menu and it would insert it in every page you put the include code.

You can do includes with server side technology like PHP or ASP, or with client side technology like JavaScript.

Another option (not my favorite) is to use an iframe.

Of all those options, I would use PHP, but that's me.

If you google those options, you'll find tons of articles about each technique.

[DrDoc]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld! [WebmasterWorld.com]

There are actually other things you can do as well, aside from using PHP/ASP/Perl if that seems too much for you at the moment. With fairly simple measures you can utilize Server Side Includes. Imagine taking the navigation, placing that (and only that -- no other surrounding HTML or anything) in a file, uploading it on the server. Then, on every page, where you want the navigation to show up, you add a one-line string similar to <!--#include file=navigation.html-->. Now, from that point on -- all you need to do is update navigation.html whenever the navigation changes, and it will automatically become visible across all pages.

Server Side Includes are very powerful, easy to use, and sadly enough often forgotten as a tool. But it sounds to me like that is what you would be looking at (if abandoning a frame based layout).

[coopersita]

DrDoc is correct.

Server side includes are another option.

What you can do is check with your host, and see which server side technologies they support. Depends largely in the type of server your pages are hosted in (Windows NT vs Unix). Also, which kind of plan you have (some plans may not include any kind of server side technology).

Javascript would be independent of all of the above, but would depend on the users browser settings.

[wilbye999]

Hi Guys,

Thanks very much for your help, I will start some reading on the topics you mentioned.

Regards

Wilbye