ASP Includes and Rollover Links???

Hi, I have built a site which uses ASP include statements to link to my navigation links. I have CSS "block" rollovers which I am very happy with. However, I need a way to denote which page the user is on in the navigation bar. Preferably, I would like to make the text bold for that link or something similar.

The purpose of the include is to make editing the links easier for me (ie: I don't have to edit 50 individual documents), but in doing this, I have made it difficult to single out any of these links.

I am thinking that because each page has a unique filename, which is displayed in the toolbar, perhaps I could write a script which pulls that info, compares it to the list of links and highlights the one it matches. However, from there, I am lost.

A) is that the best way to complete this task?
B) how would you do that/tutorials/example sites?
C) if there is a better way, how would it be done?

-jiggawattjoseph.

 

There are a number of ways to approach this....

You could get your menu script to parse the folder path and or file name to determine the location and set the css style to bold accordingly.

You could manually pass a variable to the include file to 'tell it' what are you are in.

e.g.

strSection = "FORUMS"
<!--#include virtual="/includes/header.aspx" -->

your include would then use strSection.

alternatively and the way I often work on larger sites is to use a database. as the structure is hierarchical and the content stored in a database it is easy to pinpoint where you are in the site based on the database data.

 

Hmmm... I like the part about passing a variable to the include file. How exactly would this work? Keep in mind I am not a programmer.

This code would be unique to each page
strSection = "FORUMS"
<!--#include virtual="/includes/header.aspx" -->

Then in my include file, I would have a line for each link like
if strSection = "FORUMS"
then <a href="forums.asp">[makeBold(FORUMS)]</a>;
else
<a href="forums.asp">FORUMS</a>

Sorry, about the notation, I know its wrong. Just trying to get an idea of how this should work.

 

Yes you're on the right lines.

I'd have an include file like this assuming we are using CSS styles....

<%
Sub WriteMenuStyle(Section)
    If Ucase(Section) = Ucase(strSection)
         response.write "MenuItemSelected"
    else
         response.write = "MenuItem"
    end if
End Function
%>
<a href="forum.asp" Class="<% WriteMenuStyle("FORUMS") %>">
Formums</a>
<a href="faq.asp" Class="<% WriteMenuStyle("FAQ") %>">
FAQ</a>
<a href="Articles.asp" Class="<% WriteMenuStyle("ARTICLES") %>">
Articles</a>

Code (markup):

So what this is doing is using your strSection that you passed in and comparing it to the current section you are requesting the style for. If it is the selected item then it writes out the selected style name otherwise it uses the default menu item style.

Hope that makes sense!

 

Dan, this looks like a sensible approach. Nice work. Just leaves the user with the task of coming up with a way to grab and allocate the "strSection" variable... which can either be passed and grabbed via a querystring or done away with entirely by using the request.servervariables("url") variable:

Sub WriteMenuStyle(Section)
    If Ucase(Section) = Ucase(Request.ServerVariables("url"))
         response.write "MenuItemSelected"
    else
         response.write = "MenuItem"
    end if
End Function
%>
<a href="forum.asp" Class="<% WriteMenuStyle("/FORUMS/") %>">
Formums</a>
<a href="faq.asp" Class="<% WriteMenuStyle("/FAQ.asp") %>">
FAQ</a>
<a href="Articles.asp" Class="<% WriteMenuStyle("/ARTICLES.asp") %>">
Articles</a>

Code (markup):

just food for thought

 

strSection would be passed in by the page including the file

strSection = "FORUMS"
<!--#include virtual="/includes/header.aspx" -->

but it could be derived a number of ways.

 

Okay, so this is probably a newbie question. However...

When I try to implement this, I get a HTTP 500 error. Perhaps I'm not entering in all the info I need.

Any ideas...

I know this is a broad one.

 

can you get the full error message.
You may need to turn off friendly error messages in internet explorer options in order to get it.

 

The error is "obvious" for a programmer.

First, You create a Sub ... but never close it as "a sub". Instead, the statement looks like: End Function. Change it to - End Sub ... then You get rid of hte 500-message

Sub WriteMenuStyle(Section)
If Ucase(Section) = Ucase(Request.ServerVariables("url"))
response.write "MenuItemSelected"
else
response.write = "MenuItem"
end if
End Sub

cya,
/PatrikB

 

oh yeah sorry my mistake.

I was gonna write it as a function call to return the string but then decided just to have the sub write out the content.

It's still a good idea to turn off friendly error messages so you can debug your code more easily. Other wise you just get the meaningless 500 server error which doesn't tell you much.

 

Okay, so if you use 'End Sub' instead of end function here's what you get:

If the WriteMenuStyle procedure is in the INC file, you get a http 500 error.

However, if I put the WriteMenuStyle procedure into the ASP document, I get this:

TYPE MISMATCH:'WriteMenuStyle'

/BOTTOM.INC Line 17

Line 17 of bottom.inc is this:
<li><a href="ppr_beltlines.asp" Class="<% WriteMenuStyle("BELT-LINES") %>"><span id="small">Belt Lines</span></a></li>

I am thinking that WriteMenuStyle isn't outputting as a string.

 

If you are making writemenustyle a function to return a string do it like this :

<%
Function WriteMenuStyle(Section)
    If Ucase(Section) = Ucase(strSection)
         WriteMenuStyle = "MenuItemSelected"
    else
         WriteMenuStyle = "MenuItem"
    end if
End Function
%>
<a href="forum.asp" Class="<% = WriteMenuStyle("FORUMS") %>">
Formums</a>
<a href="faq.asp" Class="<% = WriteMenuStyle("FAQ") %>">
FAQ</a>
<a href="Articles.asp" Class="<% = WriteMenuStyle("ARTICLES") %>">
Articles</a>

Code (markup):

A function returns a value so we have made the style funtion return the style name. therefore we need to write it to the browser.

you can use either
= WriteMenuStyle("FAQ")
or
response.write(WriteMenuStyle("FAQ"))


If you want a sub to do the write for you do this :

<%
Sub WriteMenuStyle(Section)
    If Ucase(Section) = Ucase(strSection)
         response.write "MenuItemSelected"
    else
         response.write = "MenuItem"
    end if
End sub
%>
<a href="forum.asp" Class="<% WriteMenuStyle("FORUMS") %>">
Formums</a>
<a href="faq.asp" Class="<% WriteMenuStyle("FAQ") %>">
FAQ</a>
<a href="Articles.asp" Class="<% WriteMenuStyle("ARTICLES") %>">
Articles</a>

Code (markup):

in this example you only call the method and the sub does the write.