index page is styled while rest of the pages are not.When i checked cascading style sheets(CSS) files in browser, I was surprised to see those CSS files are not accessible for all pages except of Index.ctp. All pages are in same folder and same links are given to access cascading style sheets then why those CSS files are not accessible for other pages.I tried enough to resolve this but could not. i tried to fin solution of this on Google but can't find any solution.
Include the stylesheets on default.ctp layout in View/layout not on index.ctp.
in your comment
controler name is FrontsController and folder iname is Fronts. css and js files are in css, js folders respectively. i using this way to add css file in about page. – user3623305 35 mins ago
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change path for css to be href="/css/reset.css"
Anyways it better to include your css files using html helper like this
echo $this->Html->css('css_name');
if your css file is at app/webroot/css, and it's name is main.css, use
echo $this->Html->css('main');
For more information look here http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/core-libraries/helpers/html.html#HtmlHelper::css
UPDATE 1: to have a clear view of what is happening, you can download a snippet of the script from here.
I am working in a new website that has the same header, footer in all PHP pages.
In the header I am referencing to other common files in website that like .css, .js, functions, classes, db connection, and etc.
for instance, the default.css is in /common/stylesheets/
and my header.php and footer.php are in /common/html/ folder
so my header.php file is something like this
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Header</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="common/stylesheets/default.css">
</head>
<body>
In my website index.php I included the header <?php include('common/html/header.php'); ?> and this is working fine... BUT the problems appear when I include the header in other php pages within other directories or sub directories e.g. /pages/admin/dashboard.php, everything messed up and that page no more linked to the default.css file.
So, what I am looking for is a method or logic where I reference to these common files and folders in every PHP page no matter its location; e.g. site root, a directory in the site root, or a sub-directory... etc...
here is an image of my website root
Your help is highly appreciated...
P.S. I've tried to use some superglobals variables such as $_SERVER[''] in config.inc.php file to define the paths, then I included that file in the header.php. BUT I couldn't figure out which one will dynamically keep referencing to those common folders and files no mater where the PHP page is.
UPDATE 1: to have a clear view of what is happening, you can download a snippet of the script from here.
It is usually a good idea to use fully qualified or absolute URLs to reference your assets:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.sitenamecom/some/path/to/common/stylesheets/default.css">
Since there are many places where you need the proper URL base to reach the different files, you could define a constant having the web root:
define('WEB_ROOT', 'http://www.sitename.com');
Then you could define other constants to have access to the different parts of the system:
define('WEB_ASSETS', WEB_ROOT . '/common');
So for the style sheet link in your header.php it would be:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php echo WEB_ASSETS; ?>/stylesheets/default.css">
To include files the principle is the same only that in this case you don't work with URLs but with file system's paths. There's not really a dynamic way of solving this, it all goes down to absolute paths.
The problem here is that the tree structure in your local development environment might (and surely won't) match that of your server. So in the configuration file, which is located in your application's root you could define:
define('APP_ROOT', dirname(__FILE__));
Then lets use the admin/index.php file as example:
include '../../../config.inc.php';
include APP_ROOT . '/sitename/common/html/header.php';
The tricky part here is including the configuration. Since, until you do that the APP_ROOT won't be available, relative paths are needed to reach it, and it isn't possible to escape this one; unless you can fully trust the preferred absolute form:
include '/some/path/to/config.inc.php';
Having that leading slash, as I said before, will be a problem if the application is tested in different environments because it is rarely the case that some/path/to is always the same.
This is the usual issue with structures that aren't using index.php for centralization. Maybe you can try adding another include that defines your directories as pseudo-constant and prepending them to your asset urls.
Or you can parse the request url on how deep it is and automatically prepend the needed ../ levels to your assets urls. I've done this for one of my past projects.
I got to warn you though, it's better to solve the root of the issue (lack of centralization) than adding workarounds. It will surely come back to haunt you sooner than you think.
$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] is likely what you are looking for.
<?php
require_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/sitename/common/html/header.php");
This should work from any directory. If you want it to be a little more dynamic than typing out "sitename", you can do this:
<?php
$sitename = explode("/", $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
require_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/" . $sitename[1] . "/common/html/header.php");
You need to Change your <link rel="stylesheet" href="common/stylesheets/default.css"> to <link rel="stylesheet" href="../../common/stylesheets/default.css">
here is a simple modification in php.ini to include footer.php and header.php for each script
auto_append_file=ABSOLUTE_PATH/footer.php
auto_prepend_file=ABSOLUTE_PATH/header.php
restart your Apache if you are running under easyPhp, xampp,....
Warning : This configuration will be applied in all projects that are executed with the modified PHP
Try <link rel="stylesheet" href="/common/stylesheets/default.css">
Note the leading slash... This directs server to the document root.
I tried it and it works.
My tree:
/var/www/html/
subdir/
body.php
layout/
header.php
footer.php
css/
style.css
header.php
<html>
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/style.css">
</head>
<body>
<p>Header.</p>
<hr>
body.php
<?php
include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/layout/header.php');
echo "Body.<br>";
include($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/layout/footer.php');
?>
footer.php
</body>
</html>
style.css
body {
color: red;
}
Viewing http://localhost/subdir/body.php in the browser, I get the expected result: "Header" and "Body" are colored red.
I would store the document root of your website in some define:
define('DOCROOT', $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']);
Do this in a PHP file that you include everywhere, preferably in some bootstrap PHP file.
Then you need to prepend your paths with this in your include lines:
<?php include(DOCROOT . "/common/html/header.php"); ?>
Have you also looked at include_once?
Have you tried PHP's set_include_path ?
You can add numerous paths in one set_include_path separating them with a ' :'.
set_include_path('/home/mysite/includes1:/home/mysite/includes2').
PHP.net -> set_include_path
Even without moving to a full front controller (and MVC) setup (which would be good), you are going to save yourself a lot of headaches if you introduce a simple bootstrap-like file.
It's not going to be perfect with your current setup, as your files are including different parts of your system (ie header.php) in various places and sub folders.
Having header load the first output things - i.e. doctype, head and head links etc - is fine in your basic structure, but you have now run into constraints which you cannot work around without making your header.php messy, or including numerous other files before header.php.
In a more solid framework design, the html and doctype outputs are after a lot of other things have been initiated and loaded, to allow control over said html and doctype.
But to help in your case, just load the bootstrap before anything else is loaded/included.
Bootstrap
The bootstrap will load shared resources, and common used data and paths (etc) throughout your application.
You can then add anything else in the bootstrap in the future, if you find a scenario.
A simple example of something in your bootstrap:
bootstrap.php (MUST reside in your root web folder for following constant to work)
// Define root folder
define ('FOLDER_ROOT', __DIR__);
Then throughout your app you can reference that constant (FOLDER_ROOT) to determine the root folder, and work through subfolders as required.
So, using your current setup:
index.php (I presume is in root folder)
include('bootstrap.php');
include(FOLDER_ROOT.'/common/html/header.php');
// Everything else
So then in your bootstrap you can set other things, such as define the default doctype or character encoding, setup error management.
Although you would usually set things like doctype after bootstrap, in a class, the router, some controller, or even a template.
But as you are using common file includes rather than using a more conventional framework design pattern, this way will at least save you some headaches now, and possibly further down the line.
So again in the bootstrap.php:
// Define root folder
define ('FOLDER_ROOT', __DIR__);
// Define CSS folder using root folder constant above
define ('FOLDER_CSS', FOLDER_ROOT.'/common/stylesheets/');
Then in header.php:
echo '<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="'.FOLDER_CSS.'default.css">';
Sub Folders (ie /admin)
Now in sub folders, such as /pages/admin/dashboard.php etc, you don't have access to these constants, because you are loading your header files and other template like things all separately "across your application".
So it becomes a battle to set your root folder, plus you are now managing it all twice!
You could try loading the root bootstrap file within your admin folder.
So in dashboard.php, something like:
include('/bootstrap.php');
// OR (more likely)
include('../../bootstrap.php');
But this is becoming messy, calling bootstrap in different places, having to call it differently too.
It's not ideal, but it is do-able, in that if you get the bootstrap loaded within your admin area, then you have the root path setup in admin area and so managing other files from your admin files should be easier.
You could try using a new admin specific bootstrap file, eg in /pages/admin/, have adminBootstrap.php.
But then you're setting two different constants for root, and likely more constants to get to your common and css files and folders. It's easy setting your web root path in a file that is in the web root path, and can be tricky (sometimes) setting web root path from another folder.
Stylesheets
You mentioned that using /common/stylesheets/defaults.css (with a preceding slash) doesn't work and causes the source code to show localhost/common/stylesheets/defaults.css.
This would possibly indicate you need to configure your DocumentRoot.
On Linux it's in /etc/apache2/sites-available/, then either the default file, or if you configured your own virtual sites then go into each one.
What is your DocumentRoot set as?
Although if you get the bootstrap working within the admin area this problem might go away, using the constant FOLDER_CSS.
Folder Structure
I also think you should tidy up your folders, as you seem to have separated things into illogical folder names (perhaps logical to you, but will it be when you learn more and come back to it in a year, or another dev tries to use it?).
E.G. I would not know what on earth the folder html is going to contain, as HTML is a protocol, and ultimately your application will serve HTML.
Have a little read into MVC. Don't go into depth as it's a lot of reading/learning, but if you grasp the basics, you can then tidy up your own structure to create your own logical separation of presentation from business a little more logically than it is now.
Front Controller
If instead of using include files, you had a framework, which loads bootstrap and application wide configs, error management, other stuff, then when you come to load your HTML (your header, footer etc), they will have all this application (root folder constants etc) pre-loaded regardless of which sub folder you are trying to load web pages from.
However as you are doing it, you are instead including these things manually whenever you need them in different files, in sub folders.
While you are introducing a small presence of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) by having the doctype, head, etc in include files and re-using them, you are still having to repeat yourself with those include files as you re-use them wherever you need them.
Also, what if you wanted to re-style admin differently to the main site? You'd have to include a different header file or a different stylesheet, or just put all code in the same stylesheet.
I'm waffling, but hopefully I'm being clear, and you can see why using header includes is only a small step in the right direction and for small sites. I'm sure you progressed naturally to using those include files from typing out the head/doctype etc in every file.
However now you are trying to break out into other directions, as with your admin area, you can see the constraints and including those same files is becoming harder to manage as your entire application grows.
So if you had a front controller type setup, within your dashboard.php you would have been able to simply used the constants set in the root bootstrap file, and any other sub folder which would be accessed after the core application is loaded.
EG (if using front controller like pattern)
dashboard.php:
include(FOLDER_ROOT.'/common/html/header.php');
I know I've bashed on about front controller already, but a few years back I was at the stage you are now, and moved from having all my files including the header.php, then the page content, then including footer.php, etc, and I instead started using a front controller.
It's really sooo much better!
It is a fair learning curve (with learning curves in all sorts of directions and methods, requirements, etc) and as such will leave it up to you if you want to go further into that.
I now have my own basic MVC front controller system, which I just simply plonk a new file for a new website page into the view/pages folder, and the page can be used immediately in the browser (the system does everything else).
I have some modules in modules folder that have css and js folder and I am thinking of the way how to approach the automatic load of all this css and js files to my header of the template.
I was thinking of creating 2 modules called cssloader and jsloader that will be included in the header section of the template.
They would contain some php script that will put the urls of css (and js) in an array and this array will be outputed in the template like e.g.:
<?php echo Modules::run( 'cssloader/cssloader/_css_include_for_frontend' ); ?>
The urls will be grabed by some script that will be searching modules folder of the CI application and looking for css folder within and a file load_css.php with some defined constants or variables like
$css_loader_frontend['slider'] = array('slider.css',
'slider_ie6.css'
);
$css_loader_backend['slider'] = array('slider_admin.css');
This file will contain files that will be loaded e.g. slider.css (within slider module css folder)
And the similar scenario for javascript stuff.
Is my approach right or not and you would do it somehow different?
What do you think about it?
What would you do different and more effective?
Thanks
I Think this template class can help you, though, I was wondering why are you accessing assets files inside modules, I'm not well versed but as far as I know you should access files such as img, js, css and so on just on the level of system and application folders in a folder that could be named "public" or "assets" to avoid "Directory access is forbidden."
In a php project I have created a template for Website Header & included a javascript & css menu in it.
Paths for the js & css files for menu are referenced in Header Template so I do not need to include those in every page.
When I include the header template to content pages which are in different levels in folder hierachy, path to js & css file change & does not load. How to overcome this & reference js & css files in a dynamic way?
Use URIs relative to the server root.
i.e. which start with a / character.
You can easily change this by using absolute links in your header template. Just give them an absolute URI like so:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://example.com/path/to/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" />
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Absolute URIs will prevent that you need to deal with the resolving of relative URIs to the documents own base URI.
If you dislike to hard-encode the name of your site, you can make use of server variables (take a look into $_SERVER), resolve the base URI to the document of the request and adopt the path to the CSS/JS files on the fly.
I recommend to not hard-encode personally, however this is less trivial to implement and depends on server configuration, your site's layout and has security implications as well.
I design and develop websites using php. I use
`includes(layouts/header.php);`
in every php page across my website. My directory structure is:
library
layouts ( header, footer, sidebar )
css
js
index.php
about.php
but now if I create new dir to keep, say, admin files or staff files or user files in different folders like:
library
layouts ( header, footer, sidebar )
css
user
index.php
login.php
myaccount.php
js
index.php
about.php
Now if I do
include('../layouts/header.php');
in my file under user dir then I don't get css in the page. That is because the relative path to .css file changes.
I want to know how to manage all this. Is there any way or I have to write new, say, user_header.php in layouts folder?
Use a global variable for site path and combine that with the path of your css file relative to your application root path.
for example in your header.php file define:
$SITE_PATH = "THE_PATH_TO_YOUR_WEB_APPLICATION/";
and then when you want to echo the link tag for css use:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<? echo $SITE_PATH;?>css/yourCssFile.css" type="text/css">