header body footer script in php for website

i want to design a site that has a

common header
changable body
and common footer

the scriprt should be in PHP...

i shd be able to do some thing like this

for each page

{header}

body---specify path for body

{footer}

Are u aware of any such free script...

 

<?php

include("header.php");

?>
body content here
<?php

include("footer.php");

?>

PHP:

You can all the body content from a database if you want it to be database driven.

 

you can then use a system where pages are loaded based on variables in the URL (although not recommended for SEO) using a case.php file.

If you only have a small site then you might not need such a system, but if its quite large then you might find it easier in the long run.

 

<?php include("header.php"); ?>

body content here

<?php include("footer.php"); ?>

Yep that works for me.

T

 

so i was looking around the forum an this sort of relates to what i was wondering..

Besides adding the header.php footer.php files, what if i had a navigation bar in php that i wanted to add? what if i had two nav bars, one on the left an one on the right? an what if i wanted to have the header come in a little lower then standard? what would I do to change the placing and alignment, just regular html will work or would i need to code it in php? code would be nice if anyone has one, or a link pointing me in the right directoin would be sexy too.

thanks in advance

 

You can have as many included files as you need. If you had a page where you needed the menu to look slightly different you could set a variable before including the menu:

$menu="lower";
include('menu.php');

Code (markup):

And then in your menu.php file you could have

if($menu=="lower"){
// do something
}

Code (markup):

 

this is the code to position them anyway an order i want? or i do that with just basic html?

thankk you by the way, rep added

 

The php code would generate the html code. You still need to write the html code to position the menu.

 

Dude, you have know idea how much your helping. Just need to bother you with a couple more of uber-noobness. What if I had a custom text field that I made in photoshop, can I put data from MySQL in it? Also, say I got my header.php, footer.php, leftnav.php, rightnav.php, and contentfield.php (depending on if this is possible) all in a new php file the way i want the site to look. Can i save that as say, template.php and do this:
include("template.php") then use a command to send data from MySQL to contentfield.php? If thats possible I can just give save as a new name say: article.php, an have a link pointing to article.php an when the link is clicked itll be mysite.com/article.php. Am i understanding php correctly or am i just utterly hopeless.

p.s.
i love you, you've been the most helpful by far.

 

You can use mysql commands in your contentfield.php file and populate it from your database no problem.

The best thing is to just create article.php and then include all the pages to that.

 

thank you once again for all the help. here is a post i made in another thread, wouldnt this suit me better?

let me explain my project. I've been wanting to make a song lyrics page for quiet some time now. What would be the best way of going about this. On the main page, "mysite.com" i plan on having the layout an all that junks, but will update it daily with links pointing to the new lyrics added, or just telling which new lyrics were added(something along those lines but you get the idea) and have a mini nav bar on the top under the header with links from a-z. Clicking on a letter will send you to all artists with the letter A, letter B, ect ect, depdning on the letter you clicked. From there, clicking on an artist will send you to the artists page. Artist page will have brief description of artist/group then the links to all the artists song.

What would be the easiest way of doing this? Ive heard the php approach would, but wouldnt a dreamweaver template be the easiest? Then when i make a new page with the dreamweaver template, add php code to get the lyrics from the database or something?

Sorry if this is confusing, I confuse myself at times. If you need clarification or further info, just ask.

Also, anyone else that might have tips or imput, feel free to reply.
Thanks in advance

 

Theres only one way to achieve such a site without having to maintain it yourself 24 /7, and that's using a server side language like php or asp.

IT's quite a lot of work for someone that's just starting out, before you jump in that deep try some simpler stuff, things you will need eventually, like checking forms ( like users inputting lyrics ), find out how to read and write to databases / flatfiles, once you have done these two things you'll be armed with a lot of knowledge of how php works and it's role exactly in a website, at the moment you seem a little confused as to what php's function actually is, take my advice and come back post some forms you made, theres always someone to help with php so its an easy language to learn, and for the people that know it we love to tell others about it.....

 

Not really sure about dreamweaver templates, I don't use anything like that. Just a text editor.

 

Sort of a question to go on top of his...

I recently tried something like this, and added the includes on my php dreamweaver template...

The idea was that if I want to change the bottom, left, top areas, I would only have to upload one file change (or database field ... but anyhow). The problem I ran into was that when I included the file from the include/ directory, if the page that was calling the include was in the root directory, everything worked fine.

If the page calling it was in the root/Members/ directory, then all the links were messed up.

What is the best way to use these in a template and still have everything point to the correct path for links/images/ect.

** I was hoping that by calling the php include, it would take the html and use the links relative to the path of the include directory **

 

Always use absolute urls for images and links. That is rule 1 of web design.

 

krakjoe, might take a couple weeks to have everything up but after that adding new songs shouldnt be that difficult since it will be basically taking data from a database an display it on the content field (i hear its really simple to do that with php)

what im more interested in understanding is whats the best way to set up something where for every new artist or song i put, id just have to modify that certain page to show the content or artist link. layout and every other link already there(ads also there too if i decide to add ads), so i wouldnt need to do any unnesscary coding. and when i need to modify all links or the look of the site, just modifiy one page to effect all.

can i make a template.php?

mad4 sort of answered this question but im not sure if he understood what i was aiming at.

Thanks in advance

---------------------------------------------
Add this to your .htaccess file.

Quote:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .htm .html

if did that, then made the page using dreamweaver an html an just said screw the other stuff, would i still be able to call the data from the database to show the lyrics stored there? an if yes, would this be easier?

 

^^ haha ... duh, that would definately fix the problem.

Surprised I didnt know that rule... guess I should have taken some classes on it back when I started.

So is there SEO reasons for doing that, or is it just for the sake of making it easy to move files, or what? I mean, if it was all html pages, then what would the real benefit of doing that be? For PHP, it makes sense to me, dont get me wrong, but I would think that if it was really rule # 1 of "web design", something as popular as dreamweaver might make that the default for when you do the 'drag and point' in the link creation box in the properties tab.

Any thoughts? ... is there a setting I can change in dreamweaver that would make that easier? It seems that dreamweaver will keep those links as relative paths because for development purposes, you dont always have images, files, scripts, or whatever uploaded to the main website, so linking to them on a development server would be fruitless.

 

Having absolute urls makes developing offline on your PC hard. Since I never do that its not an issue for me.

If somebody scrapes your pages, or you need to use folders on your site, relative urls stop working. If you don't use them then its not a problem.

 

anyone????

 

ok how was this page made?
http://www.mylyricscentral.com/
all the url extensions or whatever those things are called end in .html
not a single one has a .php