Hi everyone,

I'm designing a blog from scratch using PHP & MySQL. On the front page I have something like the following:

I was wondering everyone's input on how the best way to design the website. Right now I have a folder called include where I have stored the header files with variables for the title of the page, and a config file where all of the variables are stored, and a footer file where the bottom is placed. My index.php page is just div tags where I have mysql queries to pull the data.

But the only thing is, I find it very difficult to try and design the pages with html because once I place them in php I have to do an echo"" command and have \", which in turn doesn't allow dreamweaver to display any of the content.

So I guess what I'm asking is.. Is this a good design? Or should I stay away from includes, etc.

Now are you asking for advice on the design (the layout and the "pretty" aspects)

Or how to structure the filing system?

BTW the design isn't done with PHP & MySQL, the backend development is PHP & MySQL, the design will have to be done using HTML.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Now are you asking for advice on the design (the layout and the "pretty" aspects)

Sorry, bad word choice. I'm not looking for advice on the design (Or well, at least in this thread ), I'm looking for advice on the filing system, and backend stuff. From my experience (which isn't too too much) it gets really difficult when using includes in php, because I don't always remember when I started a tag in say, the header and try to start it again in the body of the content. I guess I'm just wondering if there's an easier way of doing it.

Every thing I build is done with includes or scripts.

What I do is make sure that open and close tags never span across two includes/modules that might be changed by end users (or me )

Once you get used to the management of it, it becomes second nature.

Thanks chrishirst, that helps out quite a bit. I'm just trying to teach myself all of this and didn't know if I was doing anything wrong or if there was a better way of doing things.