I have this website, and I want to be able to template the whole thing via CSS if possible. I figured out how to do the header, so if I want to change it all I have to do is use a different picture for it and it changes on all pages. My biggest gripe is about nav menus. I have some buttons I would like to remove, and some new ones I would like to add, but I would have to go to each and every page to do so. Can that be templated somehow, so when you make a change it is global?

Thanks, Todd

You can't really template it in the way you're thinking. What you need is Server Side Includes.

Oh thanks. I don't know anything about that, so I will have to do a bit of research.

Do you know of any good site resources for such info?

Thanks

I'll just drop a self-promo link in here

http://www.candsdesign.co.uk/articles/coding/includes/

That is exactly what I need to do. More code to figure out, great!
Thanks

I am not sure if I am looking at this right, so forgive my ignorance here. It looks like you refer a piece of code on your page to a single .htm document. That .htm document being the "template"? Am I in the ball park here?

Todd

not necessarily a template but maybe only a part of a template that is a section of the whole document.

so header.htm might only be

<div id="header"><img src="/images/logo.png" alt="logo" title=""></div>

The server takes all the included files and delivers them to the user agent (browser, bot etc) as one single entity.

The pages on my site are built from over 40 included files, there are 3 files plus 6 function libraries that are used for the navigation alone.

I have one file that has only the DTD in it so should I decide to change the whole site to a XHTML doctype I can with one edit.
The clever bit here of course it is scripted so changing that will also change all the end tags to /> where needed.

Even the stylesheet definitions are in an scripted include so I can remove, add in or use a different sheet for other sections of the site.

Let me try this: on my pages right now, I have a
<div id="navbar">
<ul id="navlist">
(Navbar list info)
</ul>
</div>

Are you saying that I could take this out (<ul id="navlist"> (Navbar list info)</ul>)
Put it in a separate file, and then replace it with an include tag that references that file, and it will look just like it does now?
I am using the <div id="navbar"> for placement on the page.

???????

Yep.

provided of course that your server and file extensions you are using support SSI or scripted includes.