[t6hawk]

I am working on a new site and I was wondering how exactly I could have one template file and use PHP to place content in it instead of having dozens of large files. I want to be able to edit the template so the change is seen on all pages instead of editing many files.

TIA

[funkboy]

You could probably do this a few ways, but here's the method I would use:
1) Create some file (we'll call it viewArticle.php ) that contains your page's main look
2) Inside viewArticle.php , have the php include a text file that you pass as an argument to the url (say, if you want to display a contact page, you could make a link to the page like this:
< a href = "viewArticle.php?article=contact" >
3) Make sure you have a proper text file that can match up with the article argument you pass the php document.
That wasn't explained too good, but maybe you'll get the idea... someone could explain it more elegantly

[killboy]

hi ,

i would appreciate you trying to explain it more completely too.

i want to do the same thing .

i am using a whole content management system to achieve this right now when all i need is a single template page with updated content in one cell of the table.


the only other thing that i use from the content management system is the "chron" .

i can load up a months worth of articles and instruct each new article to post at 8 am every morning.

if i could do the "chron" to up date the content cell in the template
i would get rid of the whole content management system.


don't get me wrong this system saved my ass when i really needed it and it might be useful to you if your host will play balland you have php 4 and mysql loaded on your host server.. it's powerful and it's free open source. go see it at phpnuke.org the maker of it.

i would still love to hear a more complete explanation.

[cteselle]

kind of a simple example, but if I have read your post right, this would do it:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1"face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial">code:</font><HR><pre><font size=1 face=courier>
&lt;?

include (<font color = red>"header.inc.php"</font>);

$today = date (<font color = red>"mdY"</font>);
include (<font color = red>"dailys/$today.txt"</font>);

include (<font color = red>"footer.inc.php"</font>);

?&gt;
</font>[/code]

The header and footer would be for your site header and footer, then you would basically place you daily files in the 'dailys' directory and name your files like 08222001.txt. The script will get the date and display the file with that date.

Is this what you needed?

[killboy]

yes ,

that is what i'm talking about.

could it possibly be that simple?


the only addition to it now would be adding a time of day (8am) for it to call the new content.

i won't be able to test it until next week but if that works , that would be fantastic.


oh , and ...how about :


include ("body.inc.php");

or some such thing?

the template page that i am trying to call is a .htm consle that is built out of .gif slices.


tia

[Sam Venning]

Originally posted by t6hawk:
<STRONG>I am working on a new site and I was wondering how exactly I could have one template file and use PHP to place content in it instead of having dozens of large files. I want to be able to edit the template so the change is seen on all pages instead of editing many files.

TIA</STRONG>

FastTemplates library for PHP is designed to to exactly what you want. You can have your designers design HTML and put in {placeholders} where you want the dynamic (PHP) content to be replaced. You have one (or several) HTML templates. Several web pages may use the same HTML template. You can change the template and all pages using the template are updated. Fantastic! I'm learning about it now at uni. FastTemplates is open source (free). You'll find it at
http://www.thewebmasters.net/php/FastTemplate.phtml

There are a few tutorials for using FastTemplates suchs as one at www.phpbuilder.com

Now... if only I could compile and install PHP on my MacOS X. (can't get "pushd" to work in Terminal for the installation).

Sam
samv@netspace.net.au

[peterthorn]

Originally posted by Sam Venning:
<STRONG>
Now... if only I could compile and install PHP on my MacOS X. (can't get "pushd" to work in Terminal for the installation).
</STRONG>

In case you don't know the sites, you could check if Stepwise, Marc Liyanage or Webmonkey can help you out.

Peter

[ 08-28-2001: Message edited by: peterthorn ]