drifblim

Thank you all for your help, I think I have an idea about what I'm doing now. The PHP code that I tried is working for me. I'll come back here if I hit any hurdles in the future. Thank you!

Thanks for the link. I tried the code that Masna gave me and it works the way I want it to. I'm still not sure how his code is allegedly unsecure, and if it is I'd like a short explanation and a solution if possible. Thank you very much for the help.

Oh really? I am going to try that code just out of curiosity to see if I can get it working, but if anyone can help by demonstrating a secure code I'd appreciate it.

Greetings. I've been doing web design (HTML, CSS) for about 7 years as a hobby, never professionally, and I've never learnt PHP (I've seldom had server access to use it). I hope to one day (perhaps starting now?) learn the basics of PHP and to employ useful/necessary PHP techniques into future web designs. At the moment I just need help creating a basic web layout using the Include function while still remaining secure. I've come here because I had trouble finding any good tutorials on the internet - I could find very few tutorials and those that I found were lacking vital information; I tried following the tutorials but ended up stuck or confused. I want to make a typical, simple PHP layout template -- Header and Footer (simple enough), Content (i.e. the area where the pages I want to be accessed appear) and a navigation bar (with links which Include PHP files to be displayed in the Content area, e.g. href="index.php?content=example"). I don't want all the content to be included in one single file like one tutorial suggested. I want each hyperlink to open content from separate PHP files. I think this is fairly obvious but I'm just making this clear. I hope I'm doing the right thing by posting this here and I hope all of this made sense. I'm not savvy with PHP or PHP jargon. I'll also mention that I did a search through the forums for any tutorials/guides but I wasn't able to find any, unfortunately. Thank you in advance for your help.