Member Avatar for mag00

Fairly new to this, and looked around on the net and didn't readily find my answers.

I am setting up picture pages, thousands, and want to be able to change header or footer information down the road as the site expands.

I am on godaddy non windows hosting.

I need my pages to stay with .html

So when I create my header, would I create that and then use the php extension on the file? Do I need php script within that file? Special code for the header file, and is that a php or html?

Pages are quite simple and I am going to use a page generator to make the pages later, using each picture.

Then as I advance through this process, I will want to make a thumbnail gallery with link to each picture page.

I have some wonderfull ideas on how I want my gallery to work, but totally lack the expertice in programming to make it happen at this time.

None of the photo galleries do what I need. I am hoping also to incorporate the opendb software down the line to help in searching for the content.

Considering I have thousands of photos and going after more, I need to automate as much as possible. I tried zenphoto but do not really like it. It is simple and fairly easy, but I cannot optimize each picture page like I want, and I really don't care about comments etc.

So how would I set up the php header include?

Thanks,
Dave

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This thread touches the core trade-off: maintainability versus how files must be served. is right that serving pages through PHP makes shared headers trivial; is also correct that hosts can be configured to parse other extensions. ’s “no way” is not accurate, and ’s iframe workaround will work but hurts SEO, bookmarking and accessibility. Below are three pragmatic approaches, with quick implementation notes and trade-offs.

  • Server-side includes / dynamic includes (best for live, single-point edits)

    • Let the webserver include a shared header/footer at request time (PHP include, or Apache SSI). Pros: change once, all pages update immediately. Cons: server does per-request parsing.
    • Example SSI syntax (if host supports it):
    <!--#include virtual="/includes/header.html" -->

  • Treat .html as dynamic or route .html to a front controller

    • If renaming thousands of files is undesirable, either configure the server to parse .html through PHP, or use a simple mod_rewrite rule so requests for foo.html are handled by a PHP renderer that injects header/footer. Example rewrite (put in .htaccess):
    RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.+)\.html$ /render.php?page=$1 [L,QSA]

    That preserves visible .html URLs while using PHP behind the scenes.

  • Static generation with a shared template (best for scale / simplest hosting)

    • Keep a single header/footer template and have the generator stitch those into each page when files are created. When the header needs to change, re-run a quick batch generate for the affected pages. Pros: fastest serving (pure static files), minimal hosting requirements. Cons: needs a regeneration step after global edits.

Quick tests and cautions

  • To detect whether .html is parsed by PHP, upload a simple test file named test.html containing <?php echo 'php-parsed'; ?> and load it. If it prints, the host parses .html.
  • Avoid iframes for primary content—search engines and many users handle them poorly.
  • If many pages will be parsed at request time, add caching (static-cache, varnish, or simple file cache) to avoid high CPU.

Recommendation: if the generator can be adjusted, use template-based static generation for performance and control. If live edits are required without regeneration, pick PHP/SSI and preserve .html via rewrite or host config.

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Member Avatar for JeniF

Fairly new to this, and looked around on the net and didn't readily find my answers.

I am setting up picture pages, thousands, and want to be able to change header or footer information down the road as the site expands.

I am on godaddy non windows hosting.

I need my pages to stay with .html

So when I create my header, would I create that and then use the php extension on the file? Do I need php script within that file? Special code for the header file, and is that a php or html?

Pages are quite simple and I am going to use a page generator to make the pages later, using each picture.

Then as I advance through this process, I will want to make a thumbnail gallery with link to each picture page.

I have some wonderfull ideas on how I want my gallery to work, but totally lack the expertice in programming to make it happen at this time.

None of the photo galleries do what I need. I am hoping also to incorporate the opendb software down the line to help in searching for the content.

Considering I have thousands of photos and going after more, I need to automate as much as possible. I tried zenphoto but do not really like it. It is simple and fairly easy, but I cannot optimize each picture page like I want, and I really don't care about comments etc.

So how would I set up the php header include?

Thanks,
Dave

Dave,
Is there some really good reason to have the pages end with a .html? PHP can read a plain old html file without any php coding in it. If you are on a GoDaddy server (which I have a few sites on thier servers) and it is a non windows server, most likely it is a linux or unix server. Simply change the name of index.html to index.php
To include a header in the file, design your site and break down the header and footer sections into their own page (i.e. header.php or footer.php) then use an include statement in your page

<? include('header.php'); ?>

The content of your site (body) would start just below that. After the content you would include footer.php

<? include('footer.php'); ?>

example of header.php

<!-- Begin the outer container table -->
<table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding=" 0">
<!-- begin graphical header -->
<tr>
<td colspan="13"><img src="bannerImage.jpg" width="750" height="100" alt="this is my banner "></td>
</tr>
<!-- end graphical header -->

footer.php example

//end container
<tr>
<td width="730" height="60" colspan="12" align="left" valign="middle" background="images/Footer.jpg"><p class="footerText">Today's Date:<?php echo date(' F j,Y');?><br>
More text here if you want.
</td>
</tr>
</table>

Make sure your container tags are started and ended correctly. Here I bolded the ending table row and starting table row
Your index.php page can now look like this:

<body>
<? include('header.php'); ?>
<table width="500" border="0">
<tr>
<tdHere is the content of you web page</td>
<td>Set up with a table in the middle of the header and footer</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</table>
<? include('footer.php'); ?>

That's a very basic run through, you can do so much more!!!
Hopefully this will at least steer you in the right direction.

Edited by mike_2000_17 because: Fixed formatting
Member Avatar for mag00

Yes I need html as that is what format the generator makes for the pages.

I am going to study up on your post for the future so thanks much. I want to work more with php in the future, and not real clear on the container thing, I noticed some of my forums use a container (at least in the css I see it)

Thanks

Member Avatar for Member #210412

there is no way to do this html coding.

Member Avatar for mag00

Do I understand correctly?

If the page is .html, the php include will not work?

That really sucks, so then I would have to use frames?

Member Avatar for Member #210412

in html, no! only with frames.

you cannot include any type pages to html without frames.

What is wrong with PHP, ASP etc? You wrote there already GoDaddy servers are Linux or Unix, so PHP can work on them.

Member Avatar for somedude3488

you can use php in html files as long as the server is configured for it. i have my own server and i can make any extension i want. this includes .html files

Member Avatar for mag00

I guess I'm going to have to do some experimenting.

OK a little bit off of php, but still trying alternatives to a dynamic header. What about and <object>, but I don't want to use flash buttons. Could I create a text object or have the object a php file?

Member Avatar for mag00

I found this little tidbit, but don't think I want to use this method, but is yet another option.
(seems like a bandwidthe burglar)

You can run PHP code in .html files. If you add:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .html

to your .htaccess file, all pages with a .html extension will also be parsed by PHP. So you can keep your current .html pages, and add PHP code to them.

I am not concerned about the footer or header being search engine friendly. So I guess frames. :(

Member Avatar for mag00

Well it sortof works now with <iframe> Now on to getting more categories etc.

Thanks

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