PHP and HTML includes - Combined with Dreamweaver templates

In the article “This is so simple, why don’t more websites do it?” I talked about the benefits of include files. Since then, I’ve had some people ask me how to do this with a Dreamweaver template, or with a PHP page. You’ll be surprised at how much time you can save, when you use Dreamweaver templates with include files.

If you don’t use Dreamweaver, don’t worry. This concept can still be used and I’ve included examples you can use.

Here is how you use include files with Dreamweaver.

In the article “This is so simple, why don’t more websites do it?” I talked about the benefits of include files. Since then, I’ve had some people ask me how to do this with a Dreamweaver template, or with a PHP page. You’ll be surprised at how much time you can save, when you use Dreamweaver templates with include files.

If you don’t use Dreamweaver, don’t worry. This concept can still be used and I’ve included examples you can use.

Here is how you use include files with Dreamweaver.

Dreamweaver Template:

The majority of my sites will have the following:

header
subheader
navigation bar - left, right or both sides
footer
content area

Since the header, subheader, navigation bar and footer are common for multiple pages I put that html in separate files.

One of the questions I was asked was, “Why not simply modify the Dreamweaver template and it will modify all your pages? Doing it this way, means you don’t have to use include files and possibly have a longer load time.”

My response was, “That’s fine for a site that’s under 25 pages. How long is it going to take me to add, a new link to my footer on the site that as 17,567 different pages?” First I have to wait for Dreamweaver to modify all the pages and then reupload. That’s terribly inefficient. I’ve not experienced any delay in page loading on any page that has includes on it.

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