XHTML function similar to PHP includes? (Read this one instead!)

[Kareeser]

Seems like I ruined the other topic by using the tag "iframe". Can a mod please delete it please?

Hello all...

Been dabbling in XHTML 1.0 ever since I discovered it. Quite handy, and makes web development fun again. One thing I've noticed is that while my styles are all based on CSS (another fun development), if I change the content of, say, a menu bar, I still have to go and edit every single html page on my website to change the menu bar.

I know PHP has the "include" function to include bits of other scripts in the parent script...

and I know I could probably make something work out of XML and XSLT, but it does look rather complex...

Is there something I can do in XHTML that doesn't involve the use of "object" or "iframe"?

[mairving]

Thread deleted.

Build an external stylesheet and link it.
Example: <link href="URL.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

[Kareeser]

Hm... I was under the impression that using an external stylesheet was only good for separating form and content, which I've already done...

I also thought you couldn't (or rather, "shouldn't) put content in an external style sheet...

Some more detail about what I want to achieve:

menu.html

... some code for a menu

index.html

code for the menu     <-- dynamically added to the page

additional page content

I may be heading into dynamically generated content here...

[mairving]

Sorry I misunderstood your question.

Includes with php would be the way to go. A very simple way would be to build your menu then separate out that part of the menu into a separate file commonly called menu.inc (the extension doesn't mean anything, it just tells you that it is an included file), then include it:


<?php include("menu.inc"); ?>


That is a very simple approach. An overall better strategy is to design your site, then hook it up to a CMS like Joomla. That way you have dynamic menus, pages and a whole bunch of other stuff.

[Kareeser]

Ah, I can't believe how simple it is to use...

Reduced my index page from 30k to under 1k

Thanks!

Next problem... every time I change an included page, php spits out an error saying the file no longer exists... I think it has something to do with page caching, but I could be wrong... any help?