When designing a website in PHP, you typically have a header.php file that you include in every page on the site. The header.php file would include the <head> tag (among other things). However, I often find that I need to put page-specific JavaScript within the <head> tag.
The way I've handled this in the past is by adding IF statements to my header to determine what pieces of JavaScript should be outputted (i.e. IF this is the home page, output the JavaScript needed for the home page, IF this is the about page, output the JavaScript needed for the about page, etc.).
This is probably a terrible way to do it. What is the standard practice?
Well, first of all, <script> tags do not need to be located in the header. It's perfectly valid to put them anywhere in the HTML document.
But if you're determined to include them in the header, a simple solution is to declare a variable that the header should echo which contains your script tags. For example:
<?php
$scripts = "<script src='script.js' type='text/javascript'></script>";
include("header.php");
?>
And then your header.php script would like as follows:
<html>
<head>
<!-- header stuff goes here -->
<?php /*echo out scripts */ echo $scripts; ?>
</head>
<body>
<!-- part of body goes here -->
Assuming you are actually including header.php in every file, just define an array before you include header.php and add the extra scripts to that. Then in header.php, have it check for that array and write out extra script tags if necessary:
mypage.php:
$extra_scripts = array('jquery.js','jquery-ui.js');
include('header.php');
// Rest of your code.
header.php:
if (is_array($extra_scripts)) {
foreach( $extra_scripts as $script ) {
// Render a script tag
}
}
If you use a templating engine like Twig, you can inherit a base template as opposed to including a header and a footer and modify the 'blocks' defined in that base.
For example purposes, your base template might include a content block and a header_javascript block like so
{% block header_javascript %}
<script src='/js/jquery.js' type='text/javascript'></script>
{% endblock %}
Then, in your child template, you can override this block, call {{ parent() }} and then add your additional, page-specific scripts.
I can see that your question has been answered very clearly. but I would like to add something.
Well, technically, it is valid to place you script tag anywhere in your document but it is better to place your script at the end of document, unless necessary. it will let visitor still see your html and javascript yet to be download, and BTW normally you don't need to run you script until DOM is ready.
This is how I do it:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Page Title</title>
<meta name="description" content="Page Description" />
<!-- Includes header stuff, css, js, google analytics, etc.. -->
<? include('header.php'); ?>
</head>
<body>
...
This allow me to avoid repetitive coding while adding flexibility to my pages.
Related
Is it possible to use PHP to include the contents of the <body> on one page, and add it to the <body> of the other page, while doing the same thing for the header? Or is it just easier / better to use two pages? This is kind of what I'm going for:
Some Page
<html>
<head>
- nav.php's header -
- stuff special to Some Page -
</head>
<body>
- nav.php's body -
- content special to Some Page -
</body>
</html>
I know the require statement can be used to take the whole contents of a file. Is there some sort of "merge" statement to kind of merge the pages together?
You are going to run into all sorts of security, re-use and maintenance issues if you rely on the inline behaviour of included files in PHP. But if you stick to some simple rules you can avoid these problems:
Any HTML tag opened by PHP must be closed in the same scope (i.e. function)
Included files must only contain namespace, constant, function and object definitions or further include/require statements (but using the autoloader is prefereable).
So applying these to your base page above, and observing the established good practice of putting includes/requires at the top of your page....
<?php
// always start your page with a PHP block - it makes interfering with the headers
// much less painful
require_once('nav.inc.php');
function local_head_content()
{
...
}
function local_body_content()
{
...
}
?>
<html>
<head>
<?php
nav_head_content();
local_head_content();
?>
</head>
<body>
<?php
nav_body_content();
local_body_content();
</body>
</html>
But it would probably be better to invoke local_head_content() / local_body_content() as callbacks from nav content.
(yes it is possible to do what you ask, even without function calls - but it would be a very bad idea which is why I've not explained how to do this).
A more conventional approach to solving the problem of shared content across different files is to use a front controller pattern - instead of the webserver selecting the page specific content, this is done in the PHP code with all URLs pointing to the same entry script.
Since you are including nav.php in the <body> of index.php, nav.php should not contain tags like <html>, etc. since that will result in a final page which does not conform to the HTML spec.
Using your example, this is the contents of the index.php page which will be received by the browser:
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<title>Title</title>
<style>
- styles for index.php -
</style>
</head>
<body>
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
<style>
- Style for navigation menu -
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Title</h1>
<nav>
- Navigation -
</nav>
</body>
</html>
<content>
- content here -
</content>
</body>
</html>
As you can see, your final page contains multiple <!DOCTYPE> tags, multiple <html> tags, etc.
nav.php should contain only the tags which you want to be included in that part of the final page. So your nav.php should look more like this:
<nav>
- Navigation -
</nav>
As for your styles in index.php, you should have a <link> tag which pulls in an external style sheet, e.g. <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">. All the CSS for all pages would go in style.css.
I have an HTML "chunk" of code with HTML and JS in it so I could easily include it with PHP. I also want it to have CSS styling but according to standards you are not "allowed" to do that - while it works it makes the page invalid. CSS is only allowed in <head> and not in the middle of the page (not untill HTML5.2 at least). So I thought about appending similarly named but separate .css file in the head, but with PHP and not JS (for performance sake)
<head>
<!-- PHP needs to include button.css here AFTER $App->INC("button"); has been called -->
</head>
<body>
<?php
$App->INC("button");
//This basically does 'require_once("button")';
//What do I need to add to the INC method to include css file in the head?
//Similar to $("head").append() but with PHP
?>
</body>
css file with the same name should be added to a <head> section.
PS:
This may seem as a design flaw and may as well be but here is the thought behind this.
I have a piece of code that when included in the right place of the
body generates a "loading screen" (or other UI elements that
can't/shouldn't be nested anywhere else but in the <body> of
the website.
It's got styling in a separate file
I send it to other user
They include it with a method of an "App" class which only does two
things: includes the file itself and css file nearby
Then they only use 1 line of code to put it where they want it and
not in 2-3 other places so the code is more manageable
Example:
You may try this:
<?php
ob_start();
$App->INC("button");
$button = ob_get_clean();
?>
<head>
<!-- Do your inclue here -->
</head>
<body>
<?= $button ?>
</body>
You can put the ob_start() / ob_get_clean() stuff inside button.php and return the content via your INC() method. Then you can save the content directly into $button like this: $button = $App->INC("button");.
But your example looks like a design problem. However I hope this will do the trick.
This could be a possible redesign:
<?php
$App->loadModule('button'); // Loads the module, the module registers stylesheets and content.
$App->loadModule('another_module'); // Load more modules ...
<head>
<?php $App->renderModuleStylesheets(); ?>
</head>
<body>
<?php $App->renderModuleContent(); ?>
</body>
If you include the CSS directly in the component itself, or expect the component to dynamically load the relevant CSS, then it could be quite difficult to maintain or customize. I am not saying you shouldn't go this route but be careful about asking your components to do too much.
A hook system as pointed out in the comments is one way to handle this.
Another simple way is to provide default styling which users can override. This is probably the simplest way to allow different styling for each component.
<head>
<!-- Provide some defaults. Users should not customize this one. -->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="default.css">
<!-- User's can customize this file to override the default styling.-->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="custom.css">
</head>
<body>
<?php $App->INC("button"); ?>
</body>
button.php - is only responsible for rendering a button. The separate CSS files will actually style it.
<?php
echo <input type"submit" class="button" value="Submit">
default.css - applies default styling
.button {
color: blue;
}
custom.css - overrides the default styling
.button {
color: red;
}
Final note, you may also want to look into using a main template file which sub-views inherit. This helps to reduce the number of full HTML files which link to your CSS files. The idea is to have 1 (or a few) template files that views inject themselves into. Here's some pseudo code.
frontend.php
<html>
<head>
<!-- Links to CSS files here. -->
</head>
<body>
<?php $placeholder('body'); ?>
</body>
Login.php
<?php inherits('frontend.php')->body; ?>
<form id="login">
...
Register.php
<?php inherits('frontend.php')->body; ?>
<form id="register">
...
About-Us.php
<?php inherits('frontend.php')->body; ?>
<p>About Us</p>
...
I have my index.php call to insert a html section during the page load:
index.php:
<html>
<head>
<link href="css/style.css" rel="stylesheet">
</head>
<body>
<!-- navigation -->
<?php include 'navigation.html'; ?>
</body>
</html>
navigation.html:
<div>
<p class="paragraph-inline">Welcome to the amazing navigation system!</p>
</div>
Ok, it's an simple example, the jist of the matter is that at the moment the navigation.html is rendered entirely before being inserted into the page. This means the css is not being called and can only be called if I include the css within the html blob.
I would prefer not to include css into every blob (footer, header, etc...)
So how can I force the site to load the html and apply the styles afterwards? I only want one css link at the top of the main page.
Your navigation should be .php as well. I'm not sure if there are options as far as syntax, but I write it like this <?php include("whatever-partial.php"); ?> This has never been an issue for me. I usually make a head.php with the boring stuff, and then include that in the header.php - and then an index.php - which pulls in header.php and footer.php for example. The server reads all that php - and spits out an html page that is served to your browser and applies the styles. It's not dynamic.
Make sure your include is a php file - then it will be inserted into the page before the browser gets ahold of the page and renders the css. Should be simple as that.
In my login system in my site I wanted the user's selected CSS to be loaded after validation was complete. The only problem is that my PHP is located in the body element and I ECHOed the user's CSS link there. I know this is "bad", but what else can I do?
if (isset($_SESSION['loggedin'])){
ECHO $_SESSION['style'];
}
else
{
ECHO 'green';
}
ECHO ".css' />";
The PHP script echos some text in the body after the user is logged in, this is why I cannot put the PHP script in the header.
I'm under the assumption that you're not at all familiar with the basics of PHP, so I'll break it down as simply as I can. If your document is able to execute PHP (which it sounds like it can because you have things happening in the body), all you need to do is wrap the PHP code with <?php and ?> for it to parse as PHP.
You shouldn't put stylesheets inside your body. Indeed, that is something that no one will recommend. What you can do, however, is execute PHP in the head of your document.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>title</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">
<?php
echo "<link rel='stylesheet' href='{$_SESSION['user_css']}'>";
?>
<script src="script.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<?php
echo 'body text';
?>
</body>
</html>
It doesn't matter where you decide to inject PHP code into your document, it will render as you wish. I'd suggest an MVC solution, but if this is just a small, one-off file, feel free to inject PHP wherever you want it, as often as you need it.
http://php.net/manual/en/language.basic-syntax.phptags.php
You can load the user css after the document is loaded using jQuery.
<script>
$(document).ready(function() {
$(head).append('<style>
<?php echo($user_css); ?>
</style>');
});
</script>
Though just adding a section to output the CSS in the head would be easier to maintain in the future and doesn't need the page to load. A dramatic enough change on a slow(ish) connection and the user will see the flicker as the CSS loads their style.
you could use some jQuery to append the style in the <head>:
$(head).append('<style><?php echo user_css ?></style>');
I've asked a similar question before, but I've got a more specific question about this "style" of creating a page.
I have 3 pages for a template, header.php, page.php and footer.php. I'm trying to allow myself to easily edit parts of the site within a single page, but also be able to have extra things in on per-page basis. My current structure is:
header.php
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Website Name<? if ($title) echo ' – ' . $title; ?></title>
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script src="//html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script>
<![endif]-->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="reset.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
page.php
<?
$title = 'Page Title';
require_once('includes/header.php');
?>
<!-- Any extra stuff for the header goes here -->
</head>
<body>
Page content goes here.
<? require_once('includes/footer.php'); ?>
footer.php
<footer>
I am a footer
</footer>
</body>
</html>
Although this works, I cannot make a publicly editable header (menus etc) that easily since my header.php page does not contain anything in the <body>. However, closing the <head> in header.php would not allow me to add extra files (such a page-specific javascript) on per-page basis. To my knowledge, CSS and javascript being included within the <body> tag is not a good idea.
I'm guessing a further file (say, menu.php) would be required and included at the top of each page, after the <head> tag? However, that doesn't seem that easy to read/natural, I feel there must be a better solution?
One easy solution is to have inside "header.php" a line to echo the content of $extraHeaders:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<?php echo $extraHeaders ?>
...
Then, any page you want to add specific headers to (stylesheet, javascript file, etc.), you just include it in the $extraHeaders variable:
$extraHeaders = '<script type="text/javascript" src="myscripts.js"></script>'
And it will be automatically be included in the headers for that page.
To solve the problem of syntax highlighting and avoiding to have to escape the quotation marks, you can use the output buffer syntax:
ob_start();
?>
<your html goes here> Alternatively, you can include an html file here.
<?php
$extraHeaders = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
...
This will allow you to use a variable, as previously suggested, but with syntax highlighting, and there is no need to escape anything.
Make an _autoload() script to pre-load all those php files.
This way when ever there is anything new to put, you can always go tho the script containing the _autoload() function and update it there.
Btw, putting javascript at the very end of the <body> tag is actually a good practice.
You can use ob_start + regex ( tags like {title} or {scripts} to have an access at the end of loading the "page".