brady.k — Fri, 27 Aug 2004 03:29:37 +0000

I knew exactly what you were talkign about....

A header and footer is basically a breaking-up of your page layout. So you design the template, and then break it up, based upon where you want your content. So for example:

<?php
include('/header.txt');

echo \"this is the body text, inside of an open div\";

include('/footer.txt');
?>

That would be the extent of any given page. More or less.

Megan — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:59:59 +0000

We knew what you meant. The most common way of doing this is to design the site with CSS first, then change the stylesheet. See the CSS Zen Garden for reference.

Kyle's directions use a combination of php includes (headers/footers) and style sheets.

iblob — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:57:08 +0000

Um.. you all are thinking i meant "style" as far as font and size and stuff. What i want is for the whole look of the page to change (ie different images, layout, but same content).

Plus I don't know a thing about headers and footers... Never used them before. All I kno about them is in MS Word they go on top and bottom of the page

EDIT: I am using PHP for my different layouts so that it has the same content for each layout

brady.k — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:06:14 +0000

Ok, I have a better way...use PHP to start

#1- Create different headers and footers that are text files (header1.txt, header2.txt, or name appropriately)
#2- Create the different style sheets
#3- Don't include the stylesheet reference in your header, make that in the body as <?=$style?>
#4- And based upon whatever they choose, $style would equal the appropriate category, that would choose the headers/footers and the stylesheet

KarenArt — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 11:43:41 +0000

Really the only way to do this right is by changing style sheets.
I am using a cgi script right now to change html headers and footers (and select images) but it's a pain and sooooo not worth the trouble.
I can't wait to switch to a more intuitive way to do it.

You can use php or asp to switch between styles or (if you don't want to use php pages) you can go with a simple javascript switcher.
There's a simple (and very good) css switcher at http://www.alistapart.com/articles/n4switch/.

Best of luck!