I've added a button menu to my page. www.searcydigest.com if you want to look at it. But I couldn't remember how to have the menu where you can click on it and your pages opens beside the menu. What i want is to be able to have the menu shown through my site. So if i'm on my classified section or my events area I can click on my home button and be able to go back to my home page. Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

try using frames! Do you know how?

Frames are baaad!
Personally, I use Server Side Includes, or if in .NET, I use User Controls.

1) you may use an <iframe>
but i prefer
2) dynamic layout. Describe your layout using some scripting language (like PHP). Place your menu somewhere, and load content using dynamic links

I like sing iframes. I think they're a god send!

I don't touch frames with a 50 foot pole. They're not accessable, and not search engine friendly. There's always a better way than frames...

But they are so useful! Besides if you are only going to be linking to a small number of documents you can always add a link to take your visitor to the full size version of the frame conent, right?

Yes, but it's added hassle. If a user arrives on a page with no links or just the links page with no content, they are more likely to click the back button and try another site than to mess around looking for a link that will 'fix' the site they're on.

Also, there are browsers out there that don't support frames. Yes, I know that the majority of people use IE/Firefox/etc that DO, but some people with disabilities don't.

Search engines won't find much in a frames page, unless you repeat all your content in the <noframes> tags. Why repeat your content?

Users can't bookmark your site easily

Many people (me for one) find frames really irritating and won't bother to look at the rest of the site if one page is annoying.

"Copyright issues. You'll need to ensure that all links within your site that point to external sources open in a new window to avoid copyright wrangles. There have been legal precedents in relation to this issue. Many site owners object to their content appearing in someone else's frame, to the point that special "frame busting" code is used."

Printing becomes more of a hassle

People will have difficulty linking to specific internal content

You get issues with refreshing

So, as i said before, if you don't want to use a frames (I don't like them personally)? use the second way - dynamic loading.

PHP is your answer.

Surely everyone knows that.

You will have to have something like:

index.php
menu.php
main.php

The index is where you put your php coding to pull it together in
Menu.php appears where you have set it
Main.php appears where you have set it.

When you create the links, make sure that in the tag something like

<a href="yoursite" target="main.php">

or something like that (i don't think the above works).

You should really have different pages anyway, with the menu on them all.

Final thing, your menu dosn't go with the rest of the site and it is a bit 'strange'.

Ahhhhh!
You don't HAVE to use PHP! There are alternatives!

Originally Posted by mik

PHP is your answer.

Surely everyone knows that.

You will have to have something like:

index.php
menu.php
main.php

The index is where you put your php coding to pull it together in
Menu.php appears where you have set it
Main.php appears where you have set it.

When you create the links, make sure that in the tag something like

<a href="yoursite" target="main.php">

or something like that (i don't think the above works).

You should really have different pages anyway, with the menu on them all.

Final thing, your menu dosn't go with the rest of the site and it is a bit 'strange'.

Thanks. I know the pages looks strange but I want to find a way to make it look better. Thanks for all the advice everyone. If any one has time and wants to help me with my site that would be cool. If not that is ok too. When I get some extra cash to buy some more web programming books I can learn more for my page. I'm trying to understand cgi-bin too. but some reason it isn't clicking. Thanks again for the support.

I doubt that "target" will work If you use PHP - use "include" or "require" directive...