[techy689]

I am trying to redo my site using PHP (a complete beginner).

I have created a template.php file, an index.php file, and a footer.php file. The index.php file will simply refer to the template and footer and consist of the main body only.

This is what I have set up for a typical page:

<?
include("./template.php");
head();
?>

content here....

<?
tail();
?>

how would i integrate a footer.php into this (where do i put it?)

[techy689]

Maybe I should just start over and someone can help me with this.

I want one template.php which is blank but contains the layout and size. It has a php include for the header, footer, left side, and right side.

Then I will have to do the php for the header, footer, left menu, right menu, and index.php will end up being where i place the content for that page in...

[MMJ]

I really don't understand the problem.

[MaidenFan]

This is what I find is the easiest way to skin a site with PHP - it may not be the best, but it's the way that makes most sense to me .

I start off by creating a static XHTML "skin" page - i.e. a page which has the basic design and no main content at all and includes all sidebars and navigation panes.

I then split this off into two include files (I use the extension .inc but you can use anything) and place them in a directory (I call it includes) - page-footer.inc and page-header.inc. You can just snip the code at the point where the content will start and finish.

You can then include them into your PHP code by doing this:

<php require('includes/page-header.inc'); ?>

<!-- Your main page content -->

<php require('includes/page-footer.inc'); ?>

Using the require function means that if you accidentally try to include the headers somewhere else, you'll only end up with one call.

[techy689]

I figured out what I wanted to do, thanks

This is what I have as an page using the include feature:

<?php
include 'http://www.example.com/includes/header.php';
?>

However, I have noticed that it only works when I do it like tbe above. If I make it local like below, it does not work:

<?php
include '/includes/header.php';
?>

anyone know why this is?

[MMJ]

If you use the first method than any PHP code in header.php will be executed before-hand.

Do you get any errors? What do you have in header.php?