I wasn't 100% sure if I have posted this in the correct location so moderators please feel free to move it - I won't be offended!

This question probably gets the "newbie award" but I plan to make another website which would be continuously developing. In other words it could have a few hundred pages with a navigation bar down the left hand side with links such as "Home", "About Us" etc. However those navigation links would change often as I add new features and functions, and adding a few more links to all 200 pages would be a nightware.

I know HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript and MYSQL so is there a way round this issue? How do the big sites cope? I don't want to use frames because they are not very user friendly. Perhaps there is a way of saving the links in one file and then linking to that file in the navigation area meaning that one change in that one file would change every other page on the website for me. How would I go about doing this?

Any help would be fully appreciated. Thank you in advance.

James

Just use a PHP include on each file to dynamically insert a snippet of menu code found in another file.

http://us2.php.net/include/

One option is to use a Content Management System (CMS) for a large site like that.

PHP Includes are one option, using a CMS is another...
If you have Dreamweaver, you can use templates & assets to organise common aspects of a page, then dreamweaver does the donkeywork for you when you change something. The disadvantage to this thoug is that the content is actually duplicated in the files (unlike server side includes which are dynamically merged at the time the page is requested.)
Or you could switch to ASP.NET and take advantage of things like Server Controls & Master Pages. Simular to Dreamweavers Assets & Templates, with the added bonuses that they're dynamic, and native to ASP.NET so you can create and control them directly from the code.

Thank you everyone for your replies.

I have thought about this, and found that "funkdaddu"'s method works a treat. However in the future I will definetely bear in mind your other suggestions.

Once again, thanks everyone!

James

Server-side includes are the way to go. I have an intranet site with over 5,000 pages and by using includes I can change the menu site-wide in minutes.