• JavaScript files contain file paths, just like HTML files. The paths can be broken when you use PHP to insert library files.

• You can fix the problem by creating a JavaScript variable in each file containing the path to the Web root. That variable is added to the JavaScript code in the library files.

• The JavaScript variable can have its value set by PHP.

In this lesson, you:

• Review a site with layout, images, and animated navigation.

• See how to create a complete PHP template system for this site.

• Understand the productivity wins this gives us.

• Inserting files with paths in them – to images, links to pages, whatever – can break your site.

• You can fix it with root relative paths, but this makes your site less portable.

• A better way it to create a variable on each page, giving the path from that page to the root of the site. Add that variable in the inserted files.

• This gives you a big productivity win. You can change an entire site just by changing one inserted file.

Learn:

• How to use PHP to insert a file into the HTML output, using the require statement.

• How to use a file path to insert the same file in pages that are spread out across a directory tree.