Thanks to both of you so far

utter-incomputance — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:14:03 +0000

I've just heard with Coffeecup, and none of their software does the trick.
I've never done any PHP, and only know a little about how it works. I'll look it over some more and see what I will do.
The problem is probably that the whole set up is Web 1.0-
It's old school html. Keeping up with all the developments takes too much time for me. Hence the dread of learning to use Adobe to design a mash-up as well.

Using php or server side

Megan — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:00:54 +0000

Using php or server side includes is the normal way of doing this for most websites. You don't really have to know a lot of php - just use the code cmoyer posted above and convert your pages from .html to .php. If you're concerned about losing bookmarks and search engine rankings you can look up how to do a redirect in your .htaccess file (ask someone here how to do that - I'm sure someone can post instructions for you).

The other option is Server Side Includes (SSI) which is similar to php includes but doesn't require a conversion to php. You'll have to check with your host to see if this is implemented and how it is implemented. In some implementations you may need to change your file extensions to .shtml instead of .html.

You can find out how to do SSI includes here:

http://bignosebird.com/sdocs/include.shtml

I would say the php approach is more common now though, and it sets you up to include other scripts on your site in the future.

If you know php it is easy

cmoyer — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:31:27 +0000

If you know php it is easy to do the menu type thing that you want using

<?
include ("your_file.html");
?>

what you would do would be convert all of the pages to php and put that line on the top however if you have a large site I would not bother with it.

What this would allow you to do is have one menu.html file with the code for the menu and the code

<?
include ("menu.html");
?>

would include this file on every page including it. Just make sure you put it at the beginning, before the content of the page.
If you want to learn php basics click Here.

If you are still intent upon using flash it might be easier to use coffeecup software found Here. I haven't used it but it has very specific programs for non-tech-savvy peoples.
Also could you give us the url so we can see the problem?

Hope this helps, but if not just holler