Hey guys, here's an easy newbie question.

I believe I understand what pagination is, highlighted in green.

But is there a name for the links highlighted in orange?
And if so, any topics here on TP related to the best way to code it?

The common term would be "breadcrumbs" (after the trail left in the fairytale, Hansel and Gretel).

Thanks you are quick!

I found a topic so I will go ahead and read....

Breadcrumb Navigation?

There are lots of free breadcrumbs scripts around (in php).

Try this one, it's one of the better ones:
http://www.baskettcase.com/classes/breadcrumb/

Thanks, I guess I will have a lot of reading to do!

I noticed that this website doesn't have any examples using XML.

I guess most people don't use XML to create the breadcrumbs?

I want to stay away from using databases because I don't want to query the DB on every single page click, I can see how that can get out of hand if there's a lot of traffic.

The link has a ton of ideas almost everything but XML..

So that leads me to believe that XML probably isn't the best method??

Well the issue is how would you use xml? The member goes to his control panel, and within his control panel he goes to the password reset and within password reset he presses next to do so and goes the email validation page?

@allworknoplay -- that class doesn't call from the db at all. If he has an example there, it's another option not a requirement.

The class actually reads the folder/file structure from the server itself.

Years ago when I first wrote my directory script, I used that class and it worked fine. I was new to php back then and have learned tons more since.

I no longer use any classes for navigation, I get all the data I need from one pass to the db and it's called from another external file based on location of the master page. It's all done using a templated system with mod_rewrite -- which I wrote myself.

Anyway, it was just an example to provide you with a little more information regarding the usage of breadcrumbs. One size does not fit all.

Oh no I understand, I guess I failed to mentioned I was reading another article that used DB's, so that's why I mentioned the database...I like the file/directory structure the best, at least so far from what I read, it seems efficient.


I'll have to put this into practice so I get a full understanding...

LOL @OK. You were speaking of the TalkPhp thread regarding navigation using a db. (I have a headache so I'm not following along too well right now. )

Yeah, his class is written pretty well and it's easy to understand. There's a readme file that explains pretty much everything too.

I'm sure it'll be super easy for you to get it up and running.

Hope you feel better! You need to step away from the PC! I know when I have headaches, I just can't stand to be in front of the PC or TV...makes things worse....

I need to understand this and pagination. I've always sorta just hacked my way in implementing my own methods and they were not good methods so I have to just start coding better...

Preferably in OO which I am a super newbie right now....

meh ... my headache is from Internet Explorer 6 not doing what I want it to. <growl>

I have a new design I'm working on and it uses one fixed element (the footer). I've added all the required CSS hacks for it, but it still wants to drop itself into the middle of the page and it's ticking me off.

I'll figure it out, I'm sure -- but it sure is a pain. I loathe IE6!

If you want an easy pagination routine, I have one and can post it here for you if you'd like. I use it on my site too.

OK ... here's an example of it in use (note that I haven't done ANY work on my site since last year due to an accident)

In that time my host updated to PHP5 and I have a few files that need to be updated as a result.

Here's my site, and no laughing please : http://www.websavvy.cc/

Cool! I will check it out! Sorry about your accident...

As for IE, it's not just IE6, it's IE and it's history of not playing nice!

I am sure everyone here was happy in their design via FF then...oops, forgot to check in IE and bam! It looks horrible!!

Do you design for Safari and Opera too? I don't even know anything about those browsers. Supporting FF and IE is more than enough pain...


EDIT: Ok, I can't seem to find your article on pagination, could you link me?
Thanks..

If you visit my site, click on the top link that says Preferences. It'll take you to the script I wrote where you can select from one of three themes. The default theme is the Chess theme.

I design a bit differently because I use PHP to create dynamic CSS so it can accept variables from POST data from my preferences script. Right now it's just shoved into the header because I did a quick fix to deal with the PHP5 update.

In my development area, it's coded differently and that'll be rolled out pretty soon. I use one CSS file for structure and then the styles are each in their own css file.

I can generally get all browsers to display the design pretty much the same way without having to add any special tweaks.

If you want to see what your site looks like in other browsers you can use totalvalidator.com and select from lots of different browsers and it'll do a screen cap and display it to you so you can see what browsers are having issues.

Most of my traffic uses FF, Opera, and IE. I have some traffic using safari, and linux though not nearly as many as the other browsers I've mentioned.

@LOL. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to confuse you. I don't have an article on pagination. I meant you can visit my site and see how my pagination is done by going to a category with more than 10 listings in it.

I'd give you the codes I use on my site so you'd be able to implement them on your own site.

Thanks I will take a look. Perhaps I asked you this before and I apologize if I did, but do you use any GUI application to develop your sites? I use Dreamweaver and Ultraedit...


EDIT: ohhh, I like the butterfly theme.....


Ahhh ok...yeah, I thought there was an article...well if it's not too much trouble, feel free to send me your code, but it's no big deal, just whenever you have time...

I am learning so much from various members here on this site, I'm so glad I found it, I hope I can return the favor to everyone here one day....

My knowledge of PHP is "patchy", meaning that I am all over the place because I am responsible for so many things other than PHP. Such as Apache, redhat, server configuration, Cisco...so my head is all scrambled....

But I am trying my hardest to solidify my fundamentals of PHP and Redhat Linux. I believe those two go well together...

Hey Web:

If you go to AOL.com

http://www.aol.com/

On the top right hand corner, they have a bunch of little boxes. If you click on them, it changes the theme on the fly.

Do you think they are using just CSS for that? Or CSS/Ajax?

they use AJAX to load a new stylesheet most likely

AOL is also my ISP @LOL.

I think they're probably using some kind of backend programming ... though I can't really say. I don't know anything about Ajax except that it isn't web accessible ... meaning, it's invisible to screen readers.

FYI ... screen readers don't see anything that's inside JS at all.

Thanks for the compliments on the butterfly theme. I actually did that one for my son. It's his favorite one.

Yeah, I can post the codes for the pagination for you tomorrow some time. Is this for the MyISAM db? If so, it'll work just fine because it's what I'm using the codes in as well.

[EDIT]= sorry, I didn't answer this question ...
No, I don't use anything like that at all. I write all of my code myself by hand one line at a time. I use editPad. It's the only thing I've ever used.

Thanks, Yeah that's what I figured, something that occurs on the backend. If you notice, when you hover over it, it changes what's in the URL, so perhaps it's simpler, maybe it just calls different CSS stylesheets based on what is on the URL...who knows....

Well I like the color blue, that's probably why I liked the butterfly theme, but the butterfly looks nice too...

Feel free to provide the pagination OR breadcrumbs code whenever you have time. For me, I would probably use a pagination script that works with my mySQL DB, and for the breadcrumbs, I'm still trying to figure out how it all works, still reading that link you sent me.

I'm really amazed at how many people handcode their web designs. Makes me feel like I am cheating with Dreamweaver.

Don't get me wrong, I do a ton of hand coding, but I use DW to create the quick and dirty layout so I can visually see how I am going to lay out my site, then I go in with the PHP and start hacking away the HTML and mixing it in with PHP. It's always worked well for me, but you know what, I am finding that the more advanced PHP programmers just simply don't use any fancy tool at all...

I haven't heard of editPad, but I have heard of Notepad++, I hear that's pretty popular too....

Funny, back in 2000 when I started coding, UltraEdit was "the" tool to use, and for whatever reason, it seems to have dropped off the map, but I love using it...


EDIT: BTW, I've had the same AOL account for 15 years!!!