timjpriebe — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 15:01:36 +0000

And if you don't have PHP capabilities, you could always include an external JavaScript file. If there's any way to do PHP (or any other server side language) instead, though, jump on it. JavaScript is dependant on several things on the web surfer's computer, and therefor not recommended when you can avoid it.

demonhale — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 17:02:59 +0000

As explained on an include, you can use a different php file for your menus like for example menu.php ... then on your actual pages (which should be php or html read as php) you put the include command

<?php
 include "menu.php"; 
?>

So everytime you update your menu.php file, all php files that contain the include will have an updated menu system.

Megan — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 14:26:15 +0000

There are a couple of ways you can do this in Dreamweaver. You could look into using the Dreamweaver templates functionality to keep your constant elements in a template that you would only need to edit once when a change needs to be made. Check their help area for more on how to use that. I tried using templates years ago but I found myself getting frustrated with them quite quickly (although that was somewhere around version 3 or 4 so it might be better in the newer ones).

You can also use an "include" as Julia mentioned. There are two ways of doing this. Server Side Includes (SSI) is one way, but I found that Dreamweaver had trouble with that (also a few versions ago). I've had more success in Dreamweaver using PHP for includes. I'm sure someone can post the code for that - I don't have it handy here. That would mean that your pages would need to have a PHP extension and you would have to have php support on the server.

Welcome to TWF!

The Webmistress — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 11:25:32 +0000

You could use an 'include' so that you only need edit one page but then on all of the other pages into which you code the include it would automatically show the updates.

Renegade — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 07:04:49 +0000

Ideally, if you're dealing with a site that has 10+ page, you'd want a host that can provide you with a server side language - such as PHP. This way, you only need to edit one page and the rest of them will be updated.