Navigation

[mikeguil]

I'm designing a site in Adobe GoLive (CS2) which I'm just learning. I'm trying to determine which is the best method for creating the navigation so that it shows up on each subsequent page. I don't want to use frames but would rather stick with CSS (which I'm also just learning - so please be patient with me).
I'm considering using a 'component' to create the navbar. Is this the best method or should I consider something else?

 

[StephanieCordray]

What type of component are you considering? I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to achieve with a component if your desire is to use css to create the navigation.

 

[mikeguil]

Well, in GoLive, there's an html document called a component that you create that can be added to many pages... kind of a mini-template. My thought was to create a navigation component that would be added to each page in the site to keep the navigation consistent throughout. It seems I can do this through css in GL.

What I don't want, is to have the navigation appear to reload every time a new page loads. Not sure if this is possible with anything but frames - but I really don't know enough about frames to use them effectively. I just don't know what my other options are.

 

[zkiller]

Well, in GoLive, there's an html document called a component that you create that can be added to many pages... kind of a mini-template. My thought was to create a navigation component that would be added to each page in the site to keep the navigation consistent throughout. It seems I can do this through css in GL.

the correct term would be SSI (server side include). it gives you the ability to include content from a separate document into your page. depending on how big your site is, i can only recommend making use of this technology as it will save you lots of time down the road, as you will only need to update one file rather than each individual page.

this is not a part of css however. css is merely a cascading style sheet that allows you to apply attributes to the various elements throughout your html document.

also, i wouldn't worry about load times with includes. your browser caches the various files you access on the web (they are stored in your temporary internet files folder on a windows based system), so once the page was accessed once it will load very quickly when accessed again. especially within one session.

 

[mikeguil]

so with SSI, there would be a separate html page that gets 'inserted' into another html page whenever it loads - right? And css could be used on this separate document just like any other page.
Just trying to get my head wrapped around all this new (to me) stuff.
Thanks.

 

[zkiller]

correct.