Overview:

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Frequently people ask about Content Management Systems here and are looking for advice regarding which CMS would work best for them. Often, the user requesting the help doesn't realize that they can design their own CMS that will provide them with the results they are looking for without needing to install a bulky program. This usually stems from the relatively few features that users want from their CMS. Many users just want an easy way to manage their website and edit their content.

In this tutorial we'll discuss a very simple way to create a template driven CMS. While the system will require a new template for each page in the website. The method describe here will utillize the PHP include function. The include function has a very simple syntax to it and is shown as follows:
The file url can be a URL or file path depending on you needs.

Purpose:

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The purpose of this particular script is to aid the webmaster in maintaining the content and features of his website. The two most prominient benefits of this script is shown in advertising management and menu updates.

It seems that the one guarentee about being a webmaster is that your work is never done. As soon as you get the site working the way you want it, you find a new feature that you want to add and then every page needs to be edited to reflect the new feature. For example, lets say you just wanted to add a small glossary of technical terms used on your site. Then you need to add the link to the glossary on all of the pages. Just adding that one link to your menu could take several hours if your website has many pages. Another frequent problem is adding a new banner to your website for advertising income. The banner or banners would need to be added to every page. More than likely, you've decided to change from static banner advertising to dynamic banner advertising and you need to replace the old banner coded with new codes generated by your ad server. Again, the code is very small and can be copied and pasted into the files but if you have several files to edit the time needed could be better spent finding someone that wants to advertise on your site.

If your pages are template driven, not only will you be able to make your website uniform in appearence, but the different modules that every page shares can be edited quickly and effect the entire website. This way if you had a menufile that every page used, then editing the menu file would update the menu on every page in the website.

Technical:

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The first thing we'll need is a master template to use for the entire website. I tend to use table based templates because they are easy to use and I don't care about whether or not the code will validate as long as it appears correctly on the most popular web browsers. I like the banner at the top and menu on the left style for my webpages so that is what I'll use as an example here.

You'll name the template file the name that you will link to. For example, the first page to start with is the index.
index.php


header.php


menu.php - Here is the real time saver!


main.php


footer.php

Okay, that's it. You have a very basic CMS that you can use to build on and pull your website together into a coherent information resort. If you want to get into some more advanced programing based on the technique, continue to read but remember, you will not need any of the following information to get your template working.

Add Ons:

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Lets add a little automation to the creation of those web pages. Specifically, we'll make the menu.php file even easier to edit in the future.
For an overview of the process I use for PHP driven HTML creation, read this article: Rapid HTML Code Generation Using Simple PHP. I'll spell it all out here as well, but the above link will give a more simplified expaination of the process.

This menu creation process is more advanced than the one shown above but is still only one step further in complexity. What I mean to say is that eventually, the process shown here when added to a few more complex processes, will result in a fully database driven menu creation process. In this step, we will learn to write a function that will handle each menu item, including the menu header, and output a suitable link for the menu.

Here is what we want to create:

Now to figure out how to write the function, first you'll need to identify what is the same in all of the items which will be controlled by the function and what is different which is controlled by the function call.Now the thing that is different in each menu item is the name and link information so those will be the arguments pass to the function in the function call. Like this:


So now that we have the call, we can start on the function:


Okay, there is our function that takes simple information and creates the menu link.
But wait a minute, the function was supposed to handle the menu header as well. We could write a new function just for the menu headers but instead we'll modify our existing function to handle the headers. First lets look at the function call:

We have the name and url but the header won't have a url so that will be our trigger for the function. So if we want to call for a menu header, here is what we do:


That will tell the function that we want a menu header entitled "Search Engines" to be generated.

Our original function will need to check if the output should be a link or menu header with an IF statement:


Now we have a function that will check and see if a header or link will be generated and output the required HTML. Now how do we use the call properlly? Any place you want to have a menu item or title shown, just drop in the function call with the correct arguments. As shown in our new menu.php file:


And there we go, all done. While it seems to be more work than you would normally do, it will eventually save a lot of time in editing and reading. Imagine that your menu is rather large like this version of menu.php:


Now that is much easier to manage than an HTML encoded menu that would take more lines to write and if you want to change the bullet used before the link, then with this system, you only need to change the one bullet in the function instead of every menu item. Major time saver especially if the new bullet doesn't look good and you need to try several others before get the right one.

Now looking at the newest version of the menu.php file, you can start to see the beginnings of a simplified database. I'll post more information about converting this function to use an array then a flat file database. In the end, I hope to show how to build the menu from an SQL database table.

Additionally, I'll try to add information that will add more options to your starter template set and more management tools. Also, I'll show how use a single template for the entire website instead of the same template for each page. This will really get your website working for you instead of you working for your website.

Hope everyone gets some use from this.

Happy Programming
vujsa



This post has been edited by vujsa: Mar 5 2006, 11:06 PM

Simply awesome Where the heck are the rep. points ????

Fantastic tutorial. I've added it to my bookmarks. I think maybe I'll try working with php-nuke first for the mean time before moving on the customizing my own php template. All that php is really mind-boggling because I've never seen or done php before.
I thought of buying some books but most of them are pretty useless because they explain about the history of php and other stupid stuff. What i need is more of a Glossary list of php, what php can do and is php "dynamic" as in, can it be freely changed by the user or is it limited like HTML?
Right now i can understand some parts where you placed the code but all the "$"s and the "&"s and "?"s I'm really blur with because i don't get what they stand for. Do you know of a good refer-to guide that i can find on the net with a Glossary with all these terms? I learned HTML and XHTML that way. It's way much easier than going step-by-step with a book. Or if you don't mind making a small list of these terms for me I'll REALLY REALLY appreciate it. Thanks for the tutorial again. It's worth it for some phpnewbies like me...

Here are some basics of PHP as requested by techocian.

The PHP opening tag:


The PHP closing tag:


This tells the server that all information between the opening and closing tags should be handled by the PHP engine.

The alternative PHP opening tag:

The server should automatically recognize that this is a PHP opening tag but the <?php tag is better and will always work correctly.

The & as seen in this tutorial is actually used only for the HTML portion of the script. The & tells the browser that an HTML special character will be used and will end with a semi-colon (;). So &nbsp; = Non-breaking Space. And &diams; = a diamond Shaped bullet.

The dollar sign ($) is used in PHP to denote a variable. So $var is a variable named "var". Basically, the $ tells the PHP engine that the dollar sign and letters and numbers after it are the variable name. There can not be any spaces in a variable name as a space tells PHP that the name has ended. Additionally, there are other characters that are not allowed but we'll get into that later.

PHP can be used to create pages dynamically but the page will not be dynamic. Basically, PHP is used to create a web page by writing the required HTML for a given situation. For example, you could create a dark web page for night and a light web page for the daytime by using the PHP date and time functions. So the page would be dynamically generated but the output would be static unless a client side script was also written to the page. Meaning that PHP can also output JavaScript with the HTML and the JavaScript can add a dynamic feature to the page.

Of course, PHP doesn't create or write anything that you don't program it to do. So what ever HTML, DHTML, XHTML, JavaScript, SHTML you want to output, you'll need to provide PHP the code to use.

For more information about PHP, you'll have to bookmark the source:
http://www.php.net/

This is the main support page for PHP and is about as good as it gets. I have yet to find a better site for information which is too bad because the PHP manual is less than user friendly. You'll have to know what you want before you can get information about it. ?????

I suggest finding a basic PHP script and trying to figure it out. When you can't figure something out, then search for that item on the site. The more familiar you get with PHP the more help that the manual will be.

One of the reasons I wrote this tutorial was to provide a very basic PHP web page for new PHP users to start from. The script should give enough of an overview of basic PHP that users can build from there.

Hope this clears things up a bit.

vujsa

Thanks alot Vujsa! Sorry i haven't replied earlier but I've been comparing your tutorial with random scripts from the original php-nuke module and block codes. There is the similarity but of course like you said, it is very basic. Now that you have told me about the few basic tags, i've come to notice the few HTML scripts embedded in many of the php scripts i've seen. It reminds me of Visual Basic at some points.

Your word is true when you said php.net is non-user-friendly at all. I can't find a single "tutorial" made for newbies. It looks more like a referring to guide that php users use when they forget something. Thanks again for the help.

I edited the first post due to a couple of errors in the scrips for the menu.php.

Here are the corrections:

The second menu.php:
Missing closing double quote on line 8.
Forgot the echo command in the function call:
Read -
    <?php make_menu("Alta Vista", "www.altavista.com"); ?>
Should read -
    <?php echo make_menu("Alta Vista", "www.altavista.com"); ?>

The last menu.php:
Missing closing double quote on line 8.
Forgot the echo command in the function call:
Read -
    <?php make_menu("Alta Vista", "www.altavista.com"); ?>
Should read -
    <?php echo make_menu("Alta Vista", "www.altavista.com"); ?>

In the menu.php link builder that read:

Should read:

Removed incorrect escape characters in the variable definition of $link.

If you want to avoid editing all of the missing echo commands in the function calls used, then you can replace the return command in the function with the echo command like this:

Change - return $link; to echo $link;

The echo command needs to be either in the function or the call.

Sorry about the errors.

vujsa

No problem, glad that you are learning from this. Like you said, there is a lot of HTML embedded in the PHP scripts. This is because web browser can only display text, HTML, and visual media. The visual media can be simple images or complex flash media. When using PHP for internet use, the PHP manipulates the required HTML for the desired effect. If the HTML is not used, then the output will be displayed as simple text.



Keep in mind that the reference was written by the developers so they already knew the information. The guide in no way should be considered a user guide but instead as you suggested, a reference for PHP programmers. Kind of like a PHP dictionary. Even the user posted examples and discussions are hard to follow.

I'm getting ready to write a follow up tutorial and was wondering in you would be more inteested in more advanced menu building or should I cover something like a banner rotation script for the header.php file?

Now that we have an ugly but working model, we can add to it and get more advanced. So what do you want to learn about.

vujsa

I think you should go more into theme construction. I know in your mind you would be - "Hey! We haven't even covered the full basics and you want design already??" Well actually i was thinking more of structure. Where this and that goes and whether iframes are suitable for the content. Advanced Menu building? What does that refer to? As in more different "Modules & Blocks" as refered to in php-nuke or menu complexity as in doing something like spacewaste's website's menus? (Which is very user-friendly and much like MSN's user home utility) You'd definitely not be going into THAT yet...after discussing bone we go after organs and muscles not skin. I think i would be able to manage banner rotation with use of Javascript or am i restricted of the use of Javascript in php files?

All this astounds me to what I've already learnt because I've never seen so much to do in coding before since i took the class on Visual Basic awhile back. I'm scouting around the net for some user-friendly reference guides i can use for tag definitions. Might take awhile to learn but I'll go through it! My exams are not around yet anyway.

Alright sorry for wasting another post but now that I've really started to compare and identify the various functions and tags, I've come to realise many foreign symbols that gives no meaning to my brain. I'm going to use the codes you use as examples.

Firstly,

the code $link = "<a href=\"http:\/\/". What is the multiple \/\/ used for? Is it to indicate a variable being input later during the call? I'm pretty sure it is.
Secondly, style=\"font-size: 8pt;\". Notice that it is different from HTML coding by the way you start with a "\" before the " and end the "\" before the " again. What does it do?

Again another clip from your tutorial:

Alright maybe i did it too short but i just want to get straight to the point. What is the periods beside $url for? and how you ended with "\" again puzzles me.

Lastly the most simplest of all but i have no idea to

Look at if ($url == "header") { What is it with the "==" sign? What is the double equal sign used to indicate? Also, if you don't mind explaining, the part about: $link = "<span style=\"font-color: lime;\">" because i can't seem to find this variable ($link) in the call. Is it another representation of the $url?

Again, i would like to thank you for your efforts in helping me out. This must be the last straw for you already, looking at such a complete newbie. (Look at your title and compare it to me!) Because i cannot edit my posts I had to make a new one about these questions i had, and only a human can answer them (not google!).

Okay, last things first and first things when I get a chance.

PHP operators are mostly the same as operators used by other languages and most are mathamatical in nature.

I'll give a few here and provide a link to the rest.

Basic Math:
+ addition 1 + 1 = 2
- subtraction 3 - 2 = 1
* multiply 2 * 3 = 6
/ divide 6 / 3 = 2
% modulus (remander of division) 9 % 4 = 1 or 9 % 3 = 0 or 10 % 7 = 3

Assignment: This sets the value of the variable on the left side.
= equal $this = 1
+= Add To $this += 2 (this would add 2 to the value of $this) or ($this = $this + 2)
-+ Subtract From $this -= 3 (this would subtract 3 to the value of $this) or ($this = $this - 3)

Comparison: Compares the values or variables on either side of the operator.
== Equal To $x == 2 (Is $x Equal To 2)
!= Not Equal To $w != 5 (Is $w Not Equal To 5)
> Greater Than $r > $t (Is $r Greater Than $t)
< Less Than $c < 7 (Is $c Less Than 7)
>= Greater Than Or Equal To $e >= 100 (Is $e Greater Than Or Equal To 100)
<= Less Than Or Equal To $p <= 1 (Is $p Less Than Or Equal To 1)

Here is the link to all PHP operators as explained in the PHP manual. This part is fairly straight forward so you'll be able to understand I think.
http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.php

I suggest reading that entire chapter about Language Reference.

I wouldn't worry too much about understanding all of the information but this will give you some reference to draw from. A lot of the stuff in that chapter will make sense now that you are starting to learn. If you have questions about your reading assignment, then you can get help here.

One last thing about some of the symbols you have seen.
The escape key (\) - This tells PHP to treat the next character as a literal character and not an operator. This will be better explained in the PHP manual link above.

Additionally, in PHP (//) is used to comment a line of code. After you finish a line of code, you can comment as to what it is etc...

Like this:


Also, this can be used to escape an entire line of code:.

Php would overlook this line as a result. I use it to help identify errors in my code by "hiding" code line by line.

Now that I explained that, the \/\/ was the escaping of the slashes in the "http://". At the time I wasn't thinking clearly and escaped the slashes because I was worried about the comment code being the same characters but forgot that the comment code isn't recognized inside of double quotes. That was the reason for the change in the orriginal code.

For more information about commenting, Here is another tutorial of mine.
Good Comments Make Good Scripts.

java script:
There is no limitation on JavaScript in PHP but you have to be sure to escape some of your code so that PHP doesn't mistake the JavaScript as it's own. Php can build JavaScript just like it build HTML, XHTML, or even XML. Just remember, PHP acts as the brain that arranges the HTML or JavaScript tocreate a web page that is viewable with a browser.

Banner rotation is better with PHP because PHP can control which banneer to show when and where based on global values whereas JavaScript relies on local values. This will become more evident as you learn more PHP.

Okay, I'll go into template use and design on my next post. Right now it is getting a little late and I need to give some thought about my next post.

vujsa