website structure nightmare

the thin ice said: "I've built a website which is eventually intended to be the front for a small online business. I've made it with Dreamweaver MX 2004 and it LOOKS good. However as we all know looks can be very deceiving. The layout on my site is the usual, menu on the left side, title/logo across the top, content in the remaining space. So you'd think i have 3 sections/frames right? Wrong. Each page is one frame/section. So as you can imagine, i have umpteen pages and each time i change one tiny thing on say the title bar or left menu, EVERY single page has to have the same change applied. It's a nightmare and is simply not feasible to update as an active website as it is. Luckily it isn't online yet. So why not just change it to 3 frames you say? Simple. Then each frame has it's own scrollbar(s) and all move independently. It looks poor, and worse, unprofessional. So yes i need 3 frames, but i need to know how to ensure that all 3 are locked together, as though one page. Say for example how ebuyer.com scrolls. It must use different frames but moves up and down as one. Any suggestions and help would be much appreciated."

edwin said: "you should templatize your website. what kind of server is it on?"

the thin ice said: "RE: Edwin: I don't know what templatizing is. My site isn't on any kind of server yet. It's just a bunch of files in a folder on my desktop. It does however function quite nicely as a website as it is, and i won't be putting it online until it's well structured. Explain a bit about "templatizing". Also..Someone suggested to me to use a "frame lock tag" which "snaps frames together or something like that."

Darksat said: "Frames are a bad idea on a website."

<h1> said: "You have the classic design problem all web developers run into: updating. So you want to update the left menu...but you have to do it on every html page and this applies to every link image text etc etc. So the solutions would be to use: frames (not a good idea...not practical) iframe (which will solve your problem. Have one menu page that is displayed in the iframe tag in your pages. Change this page and all menus change on all pages with that iframe. Still not the best idea.) Use the same method as frames using a server side script icluding html files..but that get's complicated. Basically your design problem is not easily solvable many web designers end up doing the monotonous task of updating every page cos there is no easy way around. peace Rich"

Darksat said: "Get a PHP host and learn how to use Server Side Includes (SSI,s)"

Darren said: "I use templates exclusively now. The basic format is: - Your website content stored as MySQL data. This is your menu links and page content, stored as database records - You have a clean HTML template which encompasses your design. You validate the structure to make sure standards compliance - You write the PHP portion of your website, so that you have "presentation logic" for you design. The PHP program will retrieve your data, and ultimately display the pages. Most websites these days are set up in this manner. You combine business, programming, and presentation logic for a final product for the viewer."

the thin ice said: "Ok slow down guys you're gonna have to bear with me on this one as i'm fairly new to this game. I have Dreamweaver MX 2004 and i've made a site in there from a blank HTML base. That's all i know. The general consensus is that frames are a bad idea for some reason. So thats out. Having one frame per website page seems to be making me a crazy amount of work, so that's not feasible. So if MySQL, PHP and SSL's are a good idea, tell me some of the advantages they will give me and how i can go about applying this knowledge to my existing site using Dreamweaver MX 2004. I'm not lazy and wanting all the answers put on my lap, just clueless and in need of pointing in the right direction. Any links to guides of some sort would be of great help."

the thin ice said: "Dreamweaver MX 2004 has a "create template page" section, which includes the opton to create a PHP template. It also has a "Templates" section which seems to show some sort of server listing for the site. Unfortunately i'm not sure what to do with it."

silatpupil said: "[url]www.w3schools.com[/url] good place to start anything you need for webdesign. Has helped me out a lot in the past!"

<h1> said: "big-kahuna explains the process exactly. But as I said it's not as easy as that. [QUOTE]So if MySQL, PHP and SSL's are a good idea, tell me some of the advantages they will give me and how i can go about applying this knowledge to my existing site using Dreamweaver MX 2004.[/QUOTE] The advantages of using a server side script are endless! All the problems you might find with developing sites will be solved with server side scripts. For now there is no easy solution..you will have to start learning the languages and this takes a while. You have reached the point of in-between-ness. You are at a level where you realize how to make your sites better, but don't have the knowledge and I feel for you man. I don't know what else to say, other than we are here to help. peace rich"

Darksat said: "PHP is a server side language, in that it is executed by your webserver and generates an output in HTML this PHP code for example. [CODE][/CODE] will write the HTML code from header.htm directly into another page so by using one file for say a header menu you can modify the entire menu by changing one file. that is the most basic way of using PHP, it can also be used for forums, mail forms, etc this forum is written in PHP as is my forum."

the thin ice said: "So by using some PHP i can use all the pages i've already made in HTML? But they'll update all at once? Sort of like if i used 3 frames?"

the thin ice said: "Ok here's my progress currently. I've read a couple of tutorials on the Dreamweaver MX site and now i'm trying to transfer my HTML site across into a PHP type of thing. The tutorial required me to specify a "remote folder" so i created "wwwroot" on my C drive and created a folder named after my site inside that. Is this right?"

Darksat said: "Are you running a webhost on your computer? you will need to run the PHP code off a webserver to get it to execute."

the thin ice said: "What do you mean by webhost? I don't think i am. All i've done is create a basic site in "design mode" on Dreamweaver MX 2004 using HTML. I am currently transferring all these htm files into PHP as that is apparently the much more powerful and helpful method."

the thin ice said: "ok i just figured out that it would help if i actually got MySQL first.."

the thin ice said: "Have now downloaded and installed MySQL, now i need IIS. I have downloaded IIS Admin Control Panel Beta Version 0.3.4. I'm running Windows XP Pro SP2, is this a suitable IIS to use and am i on the right lines here?"

<h1> said: "ok ya sorta getting mixed up in a whole lotta stuff you don't need to do. So to get you straight: [QUOTE]I am currently transferring all these htm files into PHP as that is apparently the much more powerful and helpful method.[/QUOTE] PHP is language, as is HTML. So with using dreamweaver you are able to use an interface to generate HTML code. Such an interface cannot exist for an object-orientated programming language. So instead of using software to generate the code for you, you have to code the code yourself. PHP language is executed by the server on which your web site exists. It's output is HTML for the browser to display. Your browser cannot execute PHP. PHP is essentially a parallel universe between browser and HTML. It is a world where you have the freedom of a computer language. It is used to perform tasks that HTML cannot do. You are trying to display one common set of HTML code without using frames etc, and this is not possible with HTML. So PHP is used to order the chaos, to use logic to include one common set of HTML to display the menu. It is used to perform tasks and so it's usefulness is unlimited (as with every other language). In order to use and understand PHP, you must learn some basic properties on program design and how it used in conjunction with HTML (how it can be embedded in HTML). Right so lemme try conclude all this.. You want to include a common file into your html. It is decided a sever script needs to be used because of the restrictions of HTML. So essentially you now need to do some research and read up a bit on PHP and MySQL before you even start to use it. For example a database is not needed to include one .htm file. Alternatively if you really need find the code you are looking for, then be glad to know that PHP is an open source language, and many many pre-coded scrips are out there. So I hoped this help, remember everyone of us who know a lil PHP all started out very confused.. Peace Rich"

the thin ice said: "Ok thanks, that has cleared up a few things. I'm using Dreamweaver MX 2004 to create my intended site and as it gives you a choice of creating a new php or html i assumed it just generated the code when you created these pages. Anyway what i'm eventually trying to achieve is a store front online. But before this is feasible i need to organise myself and produce an efficient site to take online and use. Learning to walk before i can run if you will. So php sounds like it can help me by reproducing html code over and over for me on many different html pages. Eg. my classic style left side menu. So when i change one html page it'll be altered on them across the site. This is good and would make my updating nightmare disappear. I'm planning on using Zen Cart when starting out in e-commerce. Anyone got anything nice to say about it?"

the thin ice said: "Ok i'm trying to install an IIS called IIS Admin Control Panel Beta Version 0.3.4 and need some help understanding the instructions: Setup and Configuration details: 1) The files should be unzipped to a folder protected by NTFS so that only the Administrators Group and System are listed with Full Control. 2) Then open IIS and create a virtual directory that points to the folder where they were unzipped. It does not matter if the virtual directory is under the default site. 3) Edit the IIS properties of the virtual directory and make these changes: A) remove "allow anonymous access" B) Create an Applicatoin starting point. This package uses Application and Session variables. 4) Make sure NTFS permissions allow WRITE access to the \data directory. I'm not entirely sure how to do any of the above."

the thin ice said: "ok in IIS how do i make my own website the Default one, as at the moment i only seem to be able to put my site into the default site with some other stuff thats already in this folder."

edwin said: "thin ice, you shouldn't have to do all that. who is your web host?"

the thin ice said: "whats a webhost"

Darren said: "You shouldn't have to install the server software. Your website should already be hosted somewhere on the internet. I guess you're trying to setup the server on XP or something?"

the thin ice said: "I figured make the website on my pc first of all, connection to the internet not required (although it is) and then once the website is more or less built, i can then find a webhost and iron the last few faults out before accepting visitors. I have no idea what standard practice is, but this seemed a sensible approach to me..i mean why spend money on webhosting before you've even built the site, which could take me months. Meanwhile, i've started to teach myself how to use templates in Dreamweaver and it's certainly a step in the right direction, but for some reason the text shows up in Firefox and IE but not the pictures, even though they're there in both the template and document in Dreamweaver's design view. Any ideas what i'm doing wrong there?"

Darksat said: "Why are you using IIS, you can get a PHPNuke that will run on windows like Xamp or Yamp for testing scripts, and you can get free asp hosting at brinkster.com if you want to test out ASP."

the thin ice said: "Ok iis, php, mysql clearly i'm getting ahead of myself here as i've no idea what i'm doing. All i wanted to do was make a website using Dreamweaver MX 2004, and then after it was finished take it online with a webhost. So let's forget i said anything up to this point. Right here's my current problem. I've made a nice index/home page on Dreamweaver. All good, looks how i want it. So i've made a template from it. So from the template i made a page based on it (we'll call this "Page A"), just to see if it worked. And it did kinda, but none of the images that are present in the template are there in Page A when i view it in IE or Firefox to see what it'd look like. Why is this? And how do i fix it."

Darksat said: "go into your code view and post the HTML code here for us to have a look."