Dumping frames - what should I use? SSI? PHP? Shared borders?

[vardiss]

I've decided that frames are no good. So I'm redoing my website.

But I liked the ease of frames in adding pages to my web site while maintaining the logo border across the top, the navigation bar to the left, and the photo bar to the right.

What should I use to replace them that can give me the same appearance and ease of use? SSI? PHP? Shared borders in FrontPage?

Thanks,

Vardiss
www.eastwestcultural.org

[kiwibrit]

FWIW, I use php includes - but SSI should be just as good. Before, I used Dreamweaver templates. Many pages already had .htm extensions. I did not want to change the extensions for search engine reasons, or use redirects. So I had to allow for php to be parsed in an htm page using htaccess. Theoretically, this should make the pages slightly slower. In practice, I have noticed no difference.

[vardiss]

Thanks!

Do you know where I might find a good online tutorial to learn how to do this quickly?

Vardiss

[kiwibrit]

Thanks!

Do you know where I might find a good online tutorial to learn how to do this quickly?

Vardiss
Here's one (http://www.lissaexplains.com/html6.shtml). Dont forget to write an htaccess file if you wish to retain you existing file extensions for search engine purposes - like this (http://www.desilva.biz/php/phpinhtml.html) if you have gone the php route.

[vardiss]

Thanks!

My web god said use PHP includes so I'll study that web page.

Vardiss

[vardiss]

I've looked at the tutorials and I'm ready to move ahead with PHP Includes.

If I understand correctly, I create some tables:
Top banner table,
Left navigation table
Right graphic table
Center content table

Then to change each page, I just PHP Include different content into the Center Content Table.

Is this correct?

Also, just to confirm before I do all this work: this solution will solve these two problems right?

Unlike with frames:
1) Each page will now have its own URL
2) Pages will now be visible to search engines.

Thanks for all the help!

Vardiss

[the tree]

Well yes, but I can't imagine where you got the idea that tables would be a good plan.

[felgall]

Unless you have tabular data to display in the page you shouldn't be using tables. A simple <div> with the right CSS attached is way more flexible. and a lot cleaner code too.

[vardiss]

So I took a look at CSS and realized that there was a bit of a learning curve. I just do this for 'fun'. I'm more of a code monkey than a pro (well, retired pro from a long time ago) so I don't want to spend a lot of time if I can avoid it.

So I threw some PHP includes into tables since I already know tables. But there seems to be a problem.

My old pages open links in NEW windows. When I put those same pages into tables, they still open the pages in NEW windows when I'm offline.

But when I upload them, those links open in the SAME window.

It seems to be more of a table issue than PHP since I tried coding the same thing with tables but without the PHP and it still happens.

So two questions:
1) Is there some way to get around this using frames? (At least for now. I think I'll come back and play with CSS later.)

2) If not, will I have the same problem with CSS?

Thanks!

[crapol]

php includes sounds good to me

[vardiss]

OK, I got it all done. Thanks for the help!