Hi!
I'm obviously building a website & running into some issues and I was wondering if someone more experienced than me could help me out. I'll try and explain.
There is one file that contains the layout for my website & some other important things as well (divs, spans, whatever). It's currently linked to a SMF forum, which is going fairly well provided that I want to code pages that pull data from the forum & print it somewhere else.
However, now I've reached the point where I'd like to make a custom SSI page with independent data (in this case, character reference sheets for a comic) that I'd like to be printed on-demand, preferably by clicking a link (my current solution is a bit... what shall we say? Heavy. You can see how it looks here: http://wolflux.net/ae/chars.php'>http://wolflux.net/ae/chars.php ).
For instance, let's say I have the following code in my SSI:
<?php function characterOne(){
code here
}
function characterTwo(){
code here
}
This is all good and well, but it does not make it any easier on me, other than ensuring that the information is not printed unless called.
I want to associate each function of the SSI to something clickable (like the headshots in my current workaround here: http://wolflux.net/ae/chars.php - sorry for any layout position errors, btw. I'm working on it.) that will update the content zone (or whereever on that page I'd like it to display) so that it shows ONLY the information from the function that was called.
If that makes sense.
I've been looking into making proper dynamic PHP pages, but quite frankly I am a complete newbie at MySQL (ESPECIALLY queries) and every tutorial I've found on it were either incomplete or didn't break it down enough for me to understand.
I'm therefore looking for alternatives.
Now, there's a problem with the SSI too. Obviously, the SSI data is still being loaded into the browser, even though it isn't shown, which I also don't want it to do. If possible, I want the data in the functions to be ignored unless they're called. This is also why I don't think using #-values with SPANs would be the solution I'd want either, as the data is still loaded - just not visible.
There's probably a simple solution for it, but after a few months of trial and error plus a few days of Googling I've given up trying to find one.
(Note: I'd also prefer to use as few javascripts as I possibly can; there's already a JS tooltip & an overlay script running & though those are fairly lightweight I normally consider JS a bad thing - especially for a website aiming for a simple & efficient, yet pretty style & low loading times.)
Now, a monkey could probably explain it better than me because I suck in the communication department, but I hope I managed to at least give you an idea of what I'd like to do. Hopefully.
If there's a need for some of the site's code, state what you want & you'll have it.
Thanks in advance!