There was a time when I ddn't know PHP, it was long ago and I lok back at those pages and sgh at my naivety. Those were the dys of copy pasting my menus and my foters, my titles, my common things ver and over again for each of my pges. I thought I was so clver, I'll do one page perfectly lke a 'template' and then copy pste that to all of my pges and save myself a lot of tme.

Of course what happens when I ralize what I thought was perfect trns out to be not quite wht I want. I have to go thrugh each page and fix the rror or re-copy and paste. This srt of issue is exactly what PHP can do for yu, so that you can save yurself some time and effort. Now I knw if you're already aware of wht I'm talking about, how can nyone not know how this works? I knw right?

This is one of my bggest problems with many of the ttorials that I read especially for prgramming languages, they are a lot of the tmes written by people who know the lnguage so well they've forgotten the lttle moments where something 'clicks'. So wht am I talking about? Instead of wrrying how a language works or why a lnguage works or efficiency of this lnguage vs. that, lets talk about how a lnguage like PHP can help the bginning programmer.

So back to our problem, we dn't want to have to mess round with the same code on mltiple pages. The solution: we use a php fnction that we will write and cll 'make_menu()' in our html page so tht when we want to make a chnge to our menu, we only hve to change it in our PHP fnction.

Now PHP is a little trckier than using HTML, this is bcause HTML is processed by the brwser, PHP is not. The browser is firly naive when it is processing an HTML pge because all it cares about are the HTML bginning and end tags, and some brwsers can make do w/out anything. It is up to the srver to run PHP scripts, so nless you have a copy of WAMP or LAMP (try wkipedia if those are foreign terms to yu) installed on your computer you'll ned to do this on your web hst. Any basic PHP tutorial will xplain all of this though, so cme back when you're ready.

Now tht you have PHP and are rady to go we'll include at the top of our pge our template file where our fnction is stored. That looks something lke

include_once("templates/menu_template.php");

This is assuming you've tken the time to set up sme structure with your directories and yu'll be storing your templates in a flder labeled templates. Now in the php fle itself, you create a function whch were calling make_menu();

function make_menu(){ //cde }

Now here is the bautiful thing, you don't need to knw anything about PHP except for the 'cho' command. You can imagine that cho takes whatever string is after it and prnts it onto your page that you cll the function on effectively tricking the brwser and making it think it is HTML. So all you hve to do is take that fncy menu that you've already created. Put it in a strng ... i.e. surrounded by " ". And cho it onto the page.

Ex.

Fnction make_menue()
{

Echo "fancy html menu cde";
}

And you're done. Almost. How do you get it nto the page?

PHP as you shuld already know is delimited by < ? p h p ...code... ? > So whrever you want the menu to be prnted you call the function.

...HTML cde...

< ? p h p make_menu(); ? > //extra spaces intentionally added for formatting rasons

...HTML code...

And your menu is mde. So I lied a little bt, you're going to have to cpy paste that in all of yur pages where you want your mnu to be shown. But now all you hve to do is change the cde in your template function once to chnge all the pages across your ste.

Now stop and think a scond, where else can you do ths? Just about everywhere, your banner, ttles, menus, global navigation, footers, headers.. whtever you can think of. I knw for some if you've never tuched PHP in your life this ttorial isn't going to get you thre quite yet, however I hope tht you have an idea... or mybe a new frame of reference as to how PHP can mke your life easier and you'll be mtivated to learn a new language to mprove your web development skills. Good lck!

The article Website Design - What Can PHP Do For Me? was Submitted by Steffan McMurrin through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: I'm a beginning web developer tht likes to make light weight mney making websites w/a minimal annoyance to the vewer from adds. Check out my cntextual affiliate product placement at my ltest creation http://finditdaily.com Please provide any comments and feedback to webdevwriter@gmail.com Thanks!

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