Basic Question on Dynamic Pages

[joshspaulding]

I'm a pretty raw newbie with PHP, but I've been around html and code for about 8 years, so a little more knowledgeable than the average newbie. Just for a little background.

 

Right now I'm looking into dynamic php pages and I believe I have a high level understanding of how it works in regards to "splicing" up a page into a header, content and footer and then displaying the page. Seems pretty simple.

 

But I have a site that does this a little differently.

 

It uses [menu] [title] etc. tags within the html pages and the html pages do not include any php at all... they are in a /templates/ directory though.

 

Can someone give me a quick explanation of how that works? You don't have to get incredibility detailed unless you want to... really just looking for someone to point me in the right direction.

 

Thanks!!

[computermax2328]

If I am understanding you correctly, you want to know how to reproduce structures with tags such as menus, lists and titles. If I were you I would start with learning the basics of PHP and MYSQL. They kind of run hand in hand. You can learn on YouTube or if you want to do paid online lessons you can try Lynda.com or treehouse.com (I think that is right).

 

Then take the next big step and learn object oriented php aka OOP. I just started learning it recently and it makes object reproduction a lot easier.

 

Also consider learning a framework, Cake php, code igniter, Joomla, WordPress.

 

Feel free to ask around the forum as well.

[KevinM1]

@joshspaulding Can you show us some of your code?

 

Also @computermax2328:

 

Also consider learning a framework

 

I wouldn't recommend that just yet. Newbies often treat frameworks as a crutch that allows them to not learn the underlying language. I get that you mean it as something to do later on in the OP's journey' date=' but many newbies read it as, "I can get better results without wasting time on the boring crap? Awesome!"

 

WordPress

 

Ugh, bad idea. WordPress is an utter wreck under the hood, and is essentially a big anti-pattern. It is not the way any modern app should be structured or written. It works, and does the job if all you want to do is slap something together and call it a day, but as a learning tool? No.

[joshspaulding]

Thanks for the replies. Maybe "newbie" is the wrong word. I've already started learning basic PHP. I know HTML, I understand how everything works together (html, php, mysql etc.) Right now I'm looking for more specific guidance on the dynamic pages that contain the rags, but do not contain any php... I've been "around" code for about 8 years.

 

I can't provide the code because this particular web app shared with a partner and he wouldn't want any code in public. He's a coder ... a very busy one ... and I'm just trying to learn things here and there on the side.

 

So basically we have several pages in a /templates/ directory like the root (index.html) login.html learn-more.html etc. etc. Each of them use tags like [menu] (for the top nav menu) [title] in the heading etc. I can modify index.html from within the templates folder and when I upload the changes I can see the changes live at the root of the site, but when I modify learn-more.html (for example) it doesn't change the dynamic page ?action=learnmore ... is this simply an issue of finding the correct directory on the server?

 

I wouldn't recommend that just yet. Newbies often treat frameworks as a crutch that allows them to not learn the underlying language. I get that you mean it as something to do later on in the OP's journey, but many newbies read it as, "I can get better results without wasting time on the boring crap? Awesome!"

 

 

yeah, I'm not trying to get into that yet. Althogh I've been toying with WordPress here and there for about 8 years.

Edited February 20, 2013 by joshspaulding