Using php to repeat and easily edit HTML/CSS layout on all pages at once.

[abi.the.unicorn]

I haven't maintained a website for a long time and I have recently started on a new website project and have a problem.

 

When I used to run a lot of websites, I used PHP to help me easily make changes to the layout and have the changes take effect on every single page, even though I only edited it on one 'master' page.

 

If i remember correctly, I had one page, usually called main.php which contained the code for my site's layout (in html/css). I then would make all my other pages, and they would simply be plain text with some php code in them which added the layout in main.php to the page I created.

 

So, I could easily add a new link to the navigation in main.php and it would appear on all of the pages. I'm trying to start with my new website project but I can't possibly just make all the pages .html and manually make changes to every single one.

 

I would appreciate it if anyone could give me the code I need to use and tell me how to use it. I know absolutely no php but I am experienced in HTML/CSS. If no one can do that, I would still appreciate just the name of what I am trying to do so I can google for some kind of tutorial. I have searched a lot of forums and google but can't find my answer because I don't really know what it is I'm looking for.

[asmith]

what code you are looking for ?

 

you can put  :

 

include('main.php'); 

 

in all of your pages, and you have it in all your pages.

[abi.the.unicorn]

Well, I'm looking for any code I need to try and do what I attempted to explain.

 

Is that all the code I need? When I used it before I listed all the pages the layout was used in in the code. Something like:

 

include('main.php'

contact.php

help.php

morepage.php

anotherpage.php

allthepages.php);

 

It wasn't exactly like that but it was something similar.

 

And the URLs to the pages changed. It was like /site.com/pages/contact.php?go=contact or something.

 

Take my examples of code with a pinch of salt, theyre just guesses and not exactly the code I used!  :-\

 

[JADASDesigner]

Using include is almost like cutting and pasting code.  Lets say you have a site that has 500 pages, and you want to change the footer on all of them.  Instead of having the footer on all of the pages, create a file called footer.php that has all of your html/php in it that is supposed to be in the footer.  Then, on the pages, instead of all of the footer code, you just need

<?php include ('path/to/footer.php'); ?>

and you will only need to edit that one document, instead of all 500.

 

to do it with CSS, all you need to do is:

<link href="path/to/Stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

 

Happy Trails.

 

[abi.the.unicorn]

Thankyou for your help!

 

I have just finished coding a new layout because I got annoyed with the first one I made. Haha.

 

Anyway, I will try and get around to trying these new codes in the next few hours. I'll post here if I encounter any problems!