This is a PHP tutorial to add advanced include templates to your site.

What you need to know

• Basic PHP functions: include(); and the “for” loop.

Background PHP Information

It is a very useful thing to use a template on your site. Once I have finished designing a site, and converted it into XHTML/CSS, I then make two (or more) includes out of it: “header.php” and “footer.php”. Those two includes have everything that is the same on every page of the site. This allows me to easily add or remove a button, change the layout, etc. All I have to do is change one file, and the entire site is updated!

What’s the Problem?

If you know includes, you know that they must be relative paths, not absolute. (So if your page is in the pages folder (/pages/) and your header.php is in the header folder (/header/), you will need to write your include like this:

include(../header/header.php);

The problem arises when you don’t want to hard code every new page, in every new folder.

PHP Solution

Here is a simple for loop that will figure out what folder you are in, and put the appropriate number of “../”s to make your includes work:

<?
$folder = split(“/”, $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);
$rootpath = “”;
for($count = count($folder); $count > 2; $count–){
$rootpath .= “../”;
}
include($rootpath . “include/header.php”);
?>

There you have it, some sweet, yet simple PHP.

-Enjoy,
-Ashton Sanders

It is true: “You can make a button a million different ways.” There are also as many ways to create a button that will change when you hover your mouse over it. You can use JavaScript, CSS (Cascading Style Sheet), plain HTML, etc. But each one has it’s own problems:

Javascript button: Search Engines have a tough time with JavaScript. I recently started working with a new client who’s menu bar was made entirely with JavaScript, and even though he had 10 or so pages, Google only new about his home page.

HTML/Javascript button: The “onmouseover= and then call in a new image” works pretty well, but you will notice a half second delay or so, because the image has to load. (Yes, you can have the button’s load with the site numerous different ways, but that’s adding lots of random annoyances that you don’t have to deal with.)

CSS button: You can also use CSS to load a new images when someone “a:hover”s over your button.

Here is the best way to make a button that changes when your mouse hovers over it (And yes it uses CSS! Which keeps your website code nice and clean, and Search Engines Love you.) This CSS button technique is also 100% valid CSS and HTML!

First you make one image that has two versions of your button: 1)”Up” and 2) “Hover” side by side. Like this:

(This button used courtesy of www.tophorseconnection.com)

The Reason you put the two images into one image is so that the “Hover” image is loaded at the same time that the “Up” image is.

Now we need to to create the HTML. All you do is add a button class to an anchor:

<a href=”#” class=”button”>&nbsp;</a>

The button’s CSS can become a little more complicated, and sometimes (you never know when it will strike) Internet Explorer won’t do what you want… So here is the CSS that I created for this css button class:

a.button {
display:block;
width: 157px;
height: 46px;
background: url(“../images/button-home.gif”) no-repeat;
}

a.button:hover {
background-position: -170px 0
}

As you can see from this sweet CSS button, all you do is give it the correct width and height for the button in the image, and include the button image as a background with a “no-repeat.” Then when someone hovers over the button, the background image moves 170px to the left! This saves you from having to load a new image!!!

Click Here to See this CSS Button Technique in Action!

More Information about this CSS Button Technique

Disabled CSS Buttons

Yes, there is so much that you can do with this technique. You can add a third image, that is grayed out (so that it looks disabled), and then apply that to a “disabled=disabled” input! (Yes you can use this same sweet CSS button technique on inputs!)

But Wait, There’s More!

There is a problem with this example: you have to create a new image for every new CSS button. Here is what you do:

Instead of using an image with words on it, make an blank button image (without words). And put text between the anchors! You may need to add some extra CSS code to place the text where you want it on the CSS button.

This Sweet CSS Button Technique in use:

Here is a perfect example of this CSS Button technique reusing the same background: Database in a Flash (Yes, there is only one button image, that is reused throughout the entire program!)

Adding Animation to your CSS buttons!

I was having some trouble with a site that I developed a while ago, because the main navigation bar was made with Flash, and Internet Explorer users had to click twice on the navigation bar to get it to work. (There’s a rant for another day =]) So I was stuck with how to make this sweet flash navigation bar into CSS and HTML…. This it struck me! Just a couple days ago I came up with this sweet idea using this very technique! I made a button just like above, except it was an animated gif, and the “Up” image was motionless and the “Over” image was animated! You can check it out at Fiditz.com!

-Thats all for today!
-Ashton Sanders

What is CSS Zen Garden?

It’s a great idea, thats what it is. It’s the ultimate Test of a CSS Designer. They have one basic HTML file, that is free to download, but you’re not allowed to change it. The only thing you are allowed to change is the css (which is all you need), and people create the coolest designs using only CSS!

Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets

HTML is very functional, and you can do a lot with it, but there are two large down sides to it. It’s purposes is solely for formatting, and it clogs up your HTML documents with a lot of code. Adding a Cascading Style Sheet to your website not only makes it way easier to format( and change at a later date). It also simplifies to the code like nothing else.

I recently did a Search Engine Optimization on a site called: Clear Lake Guide Service. The previous website used about 100 lines of code for the header… Using CSS, I cut that down to 20 lines of code. It keeps the Search Engines happy, and the website designers happy.

So needless to say, you can do almost anything with CSS!

Now back to CSS Zen Garden:

Zen Garden takes submission from website Designers from all over the world. And every design looks like a completely different website, even thought the XHTML is EXACTLT the same as all of the others! Right now they are getting close to 1000 submissions! If I have a free hour, I’ll throw one together as well.

“CSS makes the internet spin a little bit lighter.”
-Ashton Sanders

I just started working on the design process for four different websites. I’ve done so many website designs, I’ve started doing some thinking about how to imporove my website design skills.

My favorite website designers are from Rigney Graphics. These guys are truly amazing! They did the website for the Rose Bowl and for my old Boy Scout Council: San Gabriel Valley Council. Both of those sites are just amazing.

The Boy Scout Council’s website design is different on almost every page, and is very pleasing to the eye. It’s got so many pictures on every page, and is so many pages, I could spend forever clicking though the pages.

Another Website that Rigney Graphics designed is TXL Films. Taron Lexton told Rigney to just make something cool, and they created that! Another amazing piece of work.

I strive to create website layouts like them.
-Ashton Sanders

As most designers know, there is a difference between Internet browsers. Internet Explorer and Firefox displays websites differently. Some differences are hardly noticeable, and others are huge.

From my experience, Firefox follows HTML and CSS rules to the letter while IE only follows most of them. Here is an example I ran into today having to do with Centering Images using CSS:

Using CSS to Center Images:
I have the same image three times. Here is the image:

As you can see it is just a simple 2×26 pixel image. In the following link example, I have this same image centered three different ways.

CSS Image Centering

If you are viewing this in Firefox, those three images will create one perfectly centered, two-pixel wide, vertical line (as it should). But in Internet Explorer, the bottom two images move to the left one pixel…. I would ask Micro, “Why?” But I’m sure I wouldn’t get an answer.

Three Cheers for open source!

BTW, Here is the Code for the three above images, so you can tell the different centering techniques that I used:

This one works correctly in both browsers:

<div style=”background: url(http://www.websitesinaflash.com/samplepages/wkd/images/button-div.jpg) center no-repeat; height:20px;”> </div>

These two don’t work correctly in Internet Explorer:

<div align=”center”><img src=”http://www.websitesinaflash.com/samplepages/wkd/images/button-div.jpg” alt=”"></div>

<div style=”text-align:center; margin:0 auto”><img src=”http://www.websitesinaflash.com/samplepages/wkd/images/button-div.jpg” alt=”"></div>

Enjoy,
Ashton