different webpage "panes"?

[PoetStorm]

Hi, I hope this was not addressed elsewhere, I searched through the posts
but my newsreader will only keep them to a certain date and I'm not sure how
to change it. Anyway I am designing a page and I would like to have a menu
pane on the left and then a content pane on the right that changes depending
on what menu item you click on. I do not know if panes is the right word
here but I hope you can get the idea.
Is there any way to keep the left "pane" open and change the webpage content
displayed in the right one, or do I have to reload the entire page everytime
someone clicks and just have a menu on every page? I know I can do it with
frames but from what every one says here frames are "bad". I am using
dreamweaver and I know a little about CSS but definitely not a whiz yet. Any
suggestions greatly appreciated, I'm not even sure how I would find this on
the web, not knowing what exactly to call it. Thanks!!

--

Laura
ICQ 174756639
AIM poetstrm425
www.lioddities.com

 

[Blinky the Shark]

Hi, I hope this was not addressed elsewhere, I searched through the posts
but my newsreader will only keep them to a certain date and I'm not sure how
to change it. Anyway I am designing a page and I would like to have a menu

Your server's retention (that actually may be what you're talking about) will
limit them, depending on its retention.

Google Groups will have them for what...the last 15 years or something
like that. It's an archive; that's what it's for. That should be adequate.

http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?hl=en

 

[PoetStorm]

Your server's retention (that actually may be what you're talking about) will
limit them, depending on its retention.

Google Groups will have them for what...the last 15 years or something
like that. It's an archive; that's what it's for. That should be adequate.

http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?hl=en

Thanks, I will probably find that helpful, however from searching through
the newsgroups all I can find is a way to do it with frames. Anyone know a
non frames way? I am concerned because I know frames affect Google caching
and my site needs all the hits it can get. I hope I am not looking for the
impossible, it seems that it should be somewhat straightforward. Appreciate
it! Thanks!

Laura

 

[Blinky the Shark]

PoetStorm wrote:

Your server's retention (that actually may be what you're talking about) will
limit them, depending on its retention.

I'm sorry. The Department of Redundancy Department tinkered with that
sentence, after I submitted it to Shipping & Receiving. The bastards!

 

[lostinspace]

----- Original Message -----
From: "PoetStorm" <>
Newsgroups: alt.html
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2004 10:28 PM
Subject: Re: different webpage "panes"?

Thanks, I will probably find that helpful, however from searching through
the newsgroups all I can find is a way to do it with frames. Anyone know a
non frames way? I am concerned because I know frames affect Google caching
and my site needs all the hits it can get. I hope I am not looking for the
impossible, it seems that it should be somewhat straightforward. Appreciate
it! Thanks!

Laura

This link been passed around a few times here

http://bluerobot.com/web/layouts/default.asp

 

[lostinspace]

see if this helps as well
http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Tableless_layouts

 

[Nik Coughin]

Hi, I hope this was not addressed elsewhere, I searched through the
posts but my newsreader will only keep them to a certain date and I'm
not sure how to change it. Anyway I am designing a page and I would
like to have a menu pane on the left and then a content pane on the
right that changes depending on what menu item you click on. I do not
know if panes is the right word here but I hope you can get the idea.
Is there any way to keep the left "pane" open and change the webpage
content displayed in the right one, or do I have to reload the entire
page everytime someone clicks and just have a menu on every page? I
know I can do it with frames but from what every one says here frames
are "bad". I am using dreamweaver and I know a little about CSS but
definitely not a whiz yet. Any suggestions greatly appreciated, I'm
not even sure how I would find this on the web, not knowing what
exactly to call it. Thanks!!

This *will* reload the menu every time, but it will reload the menu from one
place, so if you change that one menu the changes appear in all of your
pages.

If your server supports php it can be really easy (practically all paid
hosts do and even some free ones like Lycos, IIRC).

I'm going to try and do this in the simplest way possible, not the best way.

Create a file called index.php.

Put this in it:
<?
include( 'header.html');
include( 'content.html');
include( 'footer.html');
?>

Then cut your html page into three parts, everything above the content, the
content, everything below the content. Save them as header.html,
content.html and footer.html respectively. Then you can build pages that
are the same but have different content. For example, you could have a page
called page2.php which looks like this:
<?
include( 'header.html' );
include( 'content2.html' );
include( 'footer.html' );
?>

You can see this working here:
http://www.nrkn.com/include/

And the component pieces:
http://www.nrkn.com/include/header.html
http://www.nrkn.com/include/content.html
http://www.nrkn.com/include/footer.html

 

[Nik Coughin]

<?
include( 'header.html' );
include( 'content.html' );
include( 'footer.html' );
?>

If you are using Outlook Express it would have screwed the above code up.
The first thing in the file should be a <? and the last thing in the file
should be a ?> Hope this makes sense.

 

[rf]

lostinspace wrote

This link been passed around a few times here

http://bluerobot.com/web/layouts/default.asp

The examples there are *not* IMHO good ones. Use them with caution.

 

[PoetStorm]

If you are using Outlook Express it would have screwed the above code up.
The first thing in the file should be a <? and the last thing in the file
should be a ?> Hope this makes sense.

Wow thanks! That gives me a few ideas, Outlook actually did it right for
once! I do have questions though and hope I am not being a pest.

So there is no way without having the menu reload then?

What about borders, lets say you wanted a thin or thick line between the
left menu and the content column, can this be done? I supposed you would
have to draw the line on one of the html pages?

Also would you them put the code you gave me in an index.html page by itself
and then have your content on the corresponding 3 documents? would you still
put in the standard html stuff in, header, title etc..

I know html, CSS I am not so familiar with and I was kind of hoping
Dreamweaver would do it but it seems to be failing. Thanks!!!

 

[Nik Coughin]

What about borders, lets say you wanted a thin or thick line between
the left menu and the content column, can this be done? I supposed
you would have to draw the line on one of the html pages?

CSS.

In the header.html there is a block of css like this:
#menu
{
float: left;
}

Change it to:
#menu
{
float: left;
border-right: 1px solid black;
}

Your question indicates that you should probably learn some more CSS. I'm
sure the regulars here would be happy to give you an enormous list of
wonderful links to this effect if you ask nicely. Good luck

Also would you them put the code you gave me in an index.html page by
itself and then have your content on the corresponding 3 documents?
would you still put in the standard html stuff in, header, title etc..

Yes, I've shown an example below. The three documents are used to build one
big document, so the first one has to have all of the opening tags (html,
head body etc.).

The stuff between the <? and ?>, ie this block:

<?
include( 'header.html' );
include( 'content.html' );
include( 'footer.html' );
?>

goes in it's own file. You need to save it as a php file, ie index.php or
home.php or whatever.php. Your server needs to support php as well, or none
of this will work (although you can also use SSI, ask the regulars to
explain it if you like, I haven't used it before.).

Here is how I have split the content amongst the three pages:

<!--BEGIN HEADER.HTML -->
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>An Example</title>
<style type="text/css">
#menu
{
float: left;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>A Page</h1>
<div id="menu">
<h2>A Menu</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="page01.html">Page One</a></li>
<li><a href="page02.html">Page Two</a></li>
<li><a href="page03.html">Page Three</a></li>
<li><a href="page04.html">Page Four</a></li>
<li><a href="page05.html">Page Five</a></li>
<li><a href="page06.html">Page Six</a></li>
<li><a href="page07.html">Page Seven</a></li>
<li><a href="page08.html">Page Eight</a></li>
<li><a href="page09.html">Page Nine</a></li>
<li><a href="page10.html">Page Ten</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<!-- END HEADER.HTML -->

<!-- BEGIN CONTENT.HTML -->
<div>
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis et
ipsum a urna sagittis
facilisis. Cras fringilla arcu. Mauris fringilla mollis wisi.
</div>
<!-- END CONTENT.HTML -->

<!-- BEGIN FOOTER.HTML -->
</body>
</html>
<!-- END FOOTER.HTML -->

 

[Neal]

So there is no way without having the menu reload then?

What about borders, lets say you wanted a thin or thick line between the
left menu and the content column, can this be done? I supposed you would
have to draw the line on one of the html pages?

Over in a.h.c there's a thread just started on fixing frames. The example
link:

http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/glorious/frameset.php

Google archive at
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]#link1

But this is so involved, it's not worth the effort when includes do it far
more elegantly.

Also would you them put the code you gave me in an index.html page by
itself
and then have your content on the corresponding 3 documents? would you
still
put in the standard html stuff in, header, title etc..

Each component page is seen as a "frame" if you will. The page with the
include codes is the "frameset". Instead of lots of different pages,
though, the three documents added to the one main document in total make
the page. It's modular, so to speak.

I know html, CSS I am not so familiar with and I was kind of hoping
Dreamweaver would do it but it seems to be failing. Thanks!!!

I played golf a few weeks ago with a fantastic set of clubs. Did me no
good, as I don't know how to play golf. Any semi-pro could've beat me with
the cheapest clubs out there.

Dreamweaver is a tool which will do quite well IF you know HTML and CSS in
the first place. If you don't know it well enough to do it by hand, you
cannot expect equivalent results with an authoring tool.

Don't think of authoring software as a brain-saver or work-saver - think
of it as a time-saver and no more. It's garbage in, garbage out, no better
(and hopefully no worse) than what you put into it.

 

[Sid Ismail]

: Is there any way to keep the left "pane" open and change the webpage content
: displayed in the right one


That, my friend, is what FRAMES are all about.

Sid

 

[Sam Hughes]

Hi, I hope this was not addressed elsewhere, I searched through the posts
but my newsreader will only keep them to a certain date and I'm not sure
how
to change it. Anyway I am designing a page and I would like to have a
menu
pane on the left and then a content pane on the right that changes
depending
on what menu item you click on. I do not know if panes is the right word
here but I hope you can get the idea.
Is there any way to keep the left "pane" open and change the webpage
content
displayed in the right one, or do I have to reload the entire page
everytime
someone clicks and just have a menu on every page? I know I can do it
with
frames but from what every one says here frames are "bad".

But this is what frames are all about...

If you want it without frames, then each page will have to have its own
copy of the menu. That is not such a bad thing: menus don't exactly take
up much bandwidth. You could have one copy of the menu to update, if you
wish, using server-side inclusion. I look at loading a menu with every
page to be a good thing, because you can have each menu be different, in
that no page is self-linking. (i.e.: on the clam.html page, the menu's
link to clam.html can be made a non-link, and perhaps bolded to represent
the present location.)