Dynamic site navigation

[James Bates]

Hope someone can help me out with something - I'm a HTML/CSS developer
who know's a little PHP, which I use to make smaller sites
semi-dynamic, I want to expand on what i'm currently doing but need
some help.

I currently use PHP to create a single included .php file that contains
the navigation, that knows via a variable hard-coded in the XHTML page,
what section that page is from and them marks the navigation <li> with
a class the highlights it.

Here's the code I currently use

XHTML page

<?php
//Section identifier - numbered or named'
$Section="secti on1"
?>

Included navigation.php file

<li<?php if ($Section=="sec tion1") echo " class=\"selecte d\""; ?>><a
href="#" title="">Home</a></li>

So (eventually) I get to my question... Rather than having a variable
written into the top of each page, could I create a globals.php file
that's included from everypage that knows what section that page is is
from it's parent folder.

So if I hard-coded the folders/variables in this page, then the page
recognises which folder it's from and applys that variable to the
navigation.php

Any help much appreciated

Jay

[NC]

Re: Dynamic site navigation

James Bates wrote:[color=blue]
>
> Hope someone can help me out with something - I'm a HTML/CSS
> developer who know's a little PHP, which I use to make smaller sites
> semi-dynamic, I want to expand on what i'm currently doing but need
> some help.[/color]

OK, but you may consider a change in the way you do things. Static Web
sites store content in files, with content embedded into presentation.
With a dynamic Web site, you have more options; you can (1) separate
contrent from presentation, and/or (2) choose to store content (whether
still attached to presentation or not) in files or in a database.
[color=blue]
> I currently use PHP to create a single included .php file that contains
> the navigation,[/color]

Note that the reverse is also possible. You can have an index.php
file, which contains navigation, include content drawn from files or a
database.
[color=blue]
> So (eventually) I get to my question... Rather than having a variable
> written into the top of each page, could I create a globals.php file
> that's included from everypage that knows what section that page is is
> from it's parent folder.[/color]

Yes. If your globals.php is included into another file, the
superglobal variable $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] will tell it into what file
it has been included.

Try this: create two files, a.php and b.php.

a.php:

<?php include 'b.php'; ?>

b.php:

<?php
echo '<p>PHP_SELF=' , $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'],
'</p><p>__FILE__=' , __FILE__, '</p>';
?>

Then point your browser to a.php; the output will be:

PHP_SELF=/A/a.php
__FILE__=/A/b.php

In other words, b.php "knows" that its name is b.php and that it's been
included into a.php.

Cheers,
NC