changing colors when link is clicked - php

Question

If I have a menu set up in the header which I use for most of my pages as "include/header.php" how do I setup so when I click on a link, it goes to that page, and that link changes colors (and shows as active)? Would jquery be good? or PHP?
Thanks!

Answer 1

You could use PHP to add a class to the current button by comparing it's URL, and the current page URL from $_GET. Without knowing what your URL structure is like, I can't say much more than that.
For example, using an array with button text and URLs:
$links = array('Home' => 'home', 'About' => 'about');
foreach($links as $text => $page)
{
if($_GET['page'] == $page)
{
echo '' . $text . '';
}
else
{
echo '<a href="/index.php?page=' . $page . '>' . $text . '</a>';
}
}
This code will add a class of current to the button who's page matches the value in $_GET. This might not exactly fit your needs due to you probably having a different URL structure, among other things, but it gives a basic explanation and example of how to do this.

Answer 2

Use php, you could write a function before your include like so,
function activeLink ($page) {
if ($page = 'home') echo ' class="active"';
elseif ($page = 'about') echo ' class="active"';
elseif ($page = 'posts') echo ' class="active"';
}
And in your header file,
echo '<a href="#"' . activeLink($page) . '>Home</a>
<a href="#"' . activeLink($page) . '>About</a>
<a href="#"' . activeLink($page) . '>Posts</a>';
And on your actual page;
$page = 'home';
include('header');
This will do the trick.