CODEWITHSUNDEEP
php
Mike
Mike

Reputation: 307

Dynamic html menu using php

I'm trying to build a personal website, (fairly new to HTML and PHP) and am having trouble building a dynamic menu bar. By dynamic, I mean that I want the page that the use is on be highlighted.

Right now I have a horizontal menu on my page (Home, Contact, etc...), and have the CSS set up so that when one of the links has the attribute class="active", then the item remains highlighted (so the user knows which page he or she is on).

For example, in a static HTML page I would copy and paste the following code to each other static page and just change where the class="active" attribute is to align with the proper page:

<a href="?page=home" class="active">Home</a>
<a href="?page=pagetwo">Page Two</a>
<a href="?page=contact">Contact</a>

I obviously want to use PHP to be able to minimize the amount of duplicated code I have scattered around.

So far, I have followed the first answer on this page It has worked great. I am able to click on a menu item and the content comes up in the body of the page. However:

Notice: Undefined index: 'page' in C:\xampp\htdocs\index.php on line 43

Obviously, when I go the page directly, the ?page=home variable is not set in the line:

<a href="?page=home">Home</a>

So, the 'page' variable in GET has not been set. I've gotten around that with an if statement that checks if it is not set and sends the home page html. However, I don't think this is the best way to do it, and when I try to tackle part b), I'm thinking I need to change this completely. My entire PHP script is like this:

<?php

$current_page = 'home';
$pages = array('home', 'pagetwo', 'contact');

function setActiveHeader() {

  global $current_page;
  global $pages;
  $arr_length = count($pages);

  for($x=0;$x<$arr_length;$x++) {
    if($pages[$x] == $current_page) {
      echo "<a href=\"?page=$pages[$x]\" class=\"active\">$pages[$x]</a>";
    } else {
      echo "<a href=\"?page=$pages[$x]\">$pages[$x]</a>";
    }
  }


}

function putPage($page) {
    // put a list of allowed pages here
    global $pages;

    $page = trim($page);
    $page = (in_array($page, $pages)) ? $page : 'home';

    // set current page global variable
    $GLOBALS['current_page'] = $page;

    // output contents of page selected
    echo @file_get_contents('.\html\\' . $page . '.html');
}

?>

I just try to call setActiveHeader() from the HTML, but that doesn't work right. The menu is output correctly, but the the correct item doesn't get highlighted, it just stays stuck on the home option highlighted. Not sure why it is not being updated. Is there a better way to go about doing this?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3010

Answers (1)

Terry Harvey
Terry Harvey

Reputation: 840

Your code only goes up to 37 lines, and we can't much without the line that the error is referencing, but I'll try my best.

Basically, what Undefined Index means, is that you're trying to access an element in an array that isn't set. I'm guessing that you're trying to access $pages['page'].

There are two ways to fix this. Add page to the $pages array on the fourth line:

pages = array('home', 'pagetwo', 'contact', 'page');

Or wrap the 43rd line with an if statement:

<?php

$pages = array('home', 'about');

if (isset($pages['page'])) {
    echo $pages['page'];
}

?>

However, a far easier method would be to use CSS:

home.php

<html>
    <head>
        <title>Foo</title>
    </head>

    <body id="home">
        <ul class="menu">
            <li id="link-home"><a>Home</a></li>
        </ul>
    </body>
</html>

style.css

body#home {
    // active link styling here
}

Upvotes: 1

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