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| Using PHP for Website Navigation,
Explained. |
| Posted: 4-05-2006 |
| Author:Craig Freshwater |
PHP can be very
useful in your webiste design, I use PHP for my websites
difficult functions such as forums, blogs, chat, user
forms, and shopping cart interface. But did you know you
can use simple PHP for your website navigation systems?
The use of PHP for your websites header, left side navigation,
and bottom of page information can be a great asset. Now
I know what you are thinking, PHP can be complicated and
intimidating to many of you, but first let me explain.
Using simple PHP include commands is a method any webmaster
at any expertise level from novice to expert can implement
with ease.
Most find editing PHP a frightening endeavor, but never
fear, I will show you how.
A lot of us still use tables when designing our web pages
instead of CCS, below is a veiw of the basic setup I will
be discussing in this article:
Go here to see Image http://www.newcybertech.com/images/Artica1.jpg
As you can see from the image above, all the content surrounding
the main content of each page will be shown in PHP and
this is what this article is all about. The benefit of
this technique will be when you update any of the surrounding
PHP files, the results will be reflected on every page
on your website that you have setup in this fashion. This
sounds great right, but hold on, there is one more benefit.
You may say the same thing can be accomplished with robot
include commands, but there is a catch to that.
The problem with the robot include command is that this
content can not be seen by search engine robots. We all
know that content is king to achieving high search engine
rankings, so why hide the content you have? That’s why
what I am about to teach you and using PHP for your website
navigation is so important.
“All the information
and links included in your navigation PHP can be seen
and indexed by all the search engine robots for higher
rankings.”
Now on to how it all Works:
Please read below if you need this information, if not
browse down to the steps to generate PHP navigation on
your website.
PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, better known as PHP, is a
highly popular, server-side scripting language that can
be embedded directly into HTML coding.PHP can do anything
that CGI can do, such as process form data and auto generate
dynamic content, but PHP can do much more.It can be used
on all major operating systems and supports most web servers.PHP
is used by inserting PHP code inside your web page’s HTML
code. When the page is called, your server automatically
executes the code. What’s more, your visitors don’t need
any special plug-ins for the code to run, as it will be
displayed just like your HTML coding.As PHP is a server-side
scripting language, although your visitors will not need
to install any new software, PHP must be set up on your
server.
Following is a very simple script that will test your
server to ensure PHP is installed. It is a standard PHP
function called phpinfo, which instructs the browser to
print out information in regard to the set up of your
server.
To use the script, simply copy the following three lines
of code and paste them into a plain text editor, such
as Note Pad.
< ?
phpinfo();
?>
Save the file as phpinfo.php and upload it to your server
where you store your HTML files.
To run the script, simply point your browser to the script
address. It should look something like this:
http://www.yourdomain.com/phpinfo.php
If PHP is installed on your server, you will be presented
with a page of information about the PHP installed on
your server.
If PHP isn’t installed, you will be prompted to download
the file. In this case, you’ll need to contact your web
host and ask them to install it, as it is free to download
and install.
You can learn more about PHP and download it at
http://www.php.net/
Steps to generate PHP navigation on your website.
First of all you need to enable create a php file with
html includes using the php include function. This is
easily done by adding one line to your .htaccess file
for your apache driven site and have php parsed in html
files. To do this logon to your websites FTP account,
go into the .htdocs file, find the .htaccess file, edit
it to add this one line of code to the file:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .html
With that, you can have php blocks parsed in your html
files so long as you put the php code in php tags. Example
below:
php Code:
<--- ?phpinclude("somefile.php");? --->
We will get into how to use the above command a little
later in this article .
Now on to the steps:
Step 1.
Build the the following pages in your favorite HTML editor:
A. header.html
B. left.html
C. bottom.html
D. right.html (optional)
Or you can name these files what ever you like, but I
will be referencing them as the above for this article.
Once you have these pages built to your liking, we now
start implementing with PHP. First build a new Index.html
page, you can name it TEST or something until you get
it the way you want it. Set it up with tables to look
like the page below:
Go here to see Image http://www.newcybertech.com/images/Artica2.jpg
Step 2. Now here is the trick, rename each HTML page you
just built, “header.html, left.html, bottom.html, and
right.html (optional)” to the .php file extension. You
can do this by opening each .html file in a text file
editor such as Notepad and save as .php to the same directory
as the .html files on your server. You will now have a
copy of each file in HTML and PHP format.
Step 3. We are now ready to use the new PHP files, in
each table around your main content we will insert the
<--- ?phpinclude("somefile.php");? ---> Command
functions.
See example below:
Go here to see Image http://www.newcybertech.com/images/php.jpg
Step 4. Open your new index page in your favorite browser
and you will now see all the HTML pages you built come
together as one page by using PHP.
Go here to see Image http://www.newcybertech.com/newcybertech.jpg
Step 5. Editing the new PHP navigation pages is easy,
all you need to do is edit the HTML file you built in
you favorite HTML editor. When your are done just copy
the pages HTML and then paste it into the corresponding
PHP file. To do this open the PHP file with a text editor
and replace the HTML with in it with the edited version
of HTML and save it as .php again. Now your PHP file is
updated to match your edited HTML file.
In conclusion:
Now when ever you update your website header and navigation
pages the results will be reflected on every page on your
website that you have setup in this fashion. And as a
added bonus all the information and links included in
your navigation PHP can be seen and indexed by all the
search engine robots for higher rankings.
You have permission to publish this article electronically,
in print, in your ebook or on your web site, free of charge,
as long as the author bylines are included.
About the Author:Craig Freshwater is the Webmaster/CEO
for http://www.newcybertech.com/ covering Webmaster Resources,
Web Site Promotion, Search Engine Optimization, Web Design
and Profit.Visit The Newcybertech Weblog http://www.newcybertech.com/Blog
And Newcybertech http://www.newcybertech.com/Phorum/index.php
for more great resources and articles. |
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