Novice Help With CSS Style Switcher

[martcol]

I am very new to this.

 

I have been using A List Apart for the code for a style swithcher on this page.

 

It doesn't work and I have been through it again and again and can't seem to spot any errors.  There isn't much code.  In the Head I have this:

 

<link href="stylemain.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all"/>
	<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" title="User Defined Style" href="<?php echo (!$sitestyle)?'stylemain':$sitestyle ?>.css" />	
<link rel="alternate stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" title="Fire Engine Red" href="./style1.css" />
<link rel="alternate stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen"  title="Grape" href="./style2.css" />
<link rel="alternate stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen"  title="Scary" href="./style3.css" />		

 

Then a switcher.php file with this in it:

 

<?php
setcookie ('sitestyle', $set, time()+31536000,
'/', 'www.imagesandwords.org.uk', '0');
header("Location: $HTTP_REFERER");
?>

 

And in the body there's this:

 

<ul>
	<li id="red"><a href="switcher.php?set=style1">1</a></li>
	<li id="green"><a href="switcher.php?set=style2">2</a></li>
	<li id="blue"><a href="switcher.php?set=style3">3</a></li>
</ul>

 

I would like to learn PHP and this is my first exercise in it. I know a bit of HTML & CSS but programming to me means planning what to watch on the telly!

 

Even a pointer as to how to find out why it doesn't work for me would be great.

 

Thanks

 

Martin

[MatthewJ]

make sure the page is set as .php or that you have your server set to parse .html pages as php etc. When I view source on your page, I can see the php code. That means it is not being processed.

 

That should be the problem

[revraz]

There really isn't much PHP in there to learn.

 

You should start with something more geared towards actual PHP code.

[martcol]

Thank you for your help.  I've tried changing the file extension to .php but it still doesn't work.  I have raked through the code symbol by symbol but, still no luck.

 

I take your point revras and realise that this isn't really about learning to code but I figured that it might be a way of learning to implement code.  I am reading two books on PHP but they are both way over my head.  I keep reading them though and have a nother one on order.  My trouble is I don't even understand basic programming.  I don't understand all that stuff about integers, arrays, strings etc.  I also hope that not knowing how to code won't prevent me from using some PHP.  My next step for instance, is a captcha.

 

Thanks

 

Martin

[AndyB]

I think that ALA has more recent versions of styleswitchers on their site.

 

The code you used assumes that register_globals is ON (which it was, several years back as the default in php).  The code you're using is hopefully running on a server with a less ancient version of php.  The solution to your problem should be to modify switcher.php to this:

 

<?php
$set = $_GET['set'];
setcookie ('sitestyle', $set, time()+31536000, '/', 'www.imagesandwords.org.uk', '0');
header("Location: $HTTP_REFERER");
?>

[martcol]

Sorry about this.  I tried your suggestion AndyB and it's the same.  I can select the different styles using firefox >view>page style but the links (style switcher switches) don't do anything.

 

I'll Put my code here again but I wonder if there is some other set up thing that I should be doing.  What about the file permision in C Panel? At the moment I think the switcher.php is 644.

 

switcher.php: (and I've tried it with AndyB's suggestion).

 

<?php
setcookie ('sitestyle', $set, time()+31536000, 
'/', 'imagesandwords.org.uk', '0');
header("Location: $HTTP_REFERER");
?>

 

in my < head> (with two other style sheets listed but omitted here to save space):

 

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" title="User Defined Style" href="<?php echo (!$sitestyle)?'stylemain':$sitestyle ?>.css" />

<link rel="alternate stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" title="Red" href="red.css" />

 

In the < body>

 

<ul>
	<li id="Red"><a href="switcher.php?set=red">1</a></li>
	<li id="Green"><a href="switcher.php?set=green">2</a></li>
	<li id="Blue"><a href="switcher.php?set=blue">3</a></li>
</ul>

 

Regards

 

Martin

[martcol]

I thought that I should mention that I put this little bit of php into my < body> <p><? print(Date("m/j/y")); ?></p>

to see if it works - and it does because it prints the date to the page.

 

Not sure if it makes a difference, but it made me feel better!

 

Martin

[martcol]

I got it working but I am not sure why.

 

I changed my code to this - adding a return in front of the < ?php tag

 

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" title="User Defined Style" href="
<?php echo (!$sitestyle)?'stylemain':$sitestyle ?>
.css" />

 

And then taking out the return in the switcher.php file which I think, was before the '/'

 

<?php
setcookie ('sitestyle', $set, time()+31536000, '/', 'imagesandwords.org.uk', '0');
header("Location: $HTTP_REFERER");
?>

 

Thanks for your help

 

Martin