Page 1 of Website contents bar...

I`m designing a new website which will have a contents column on the left and a text column on the right (similar to DVD Reviewer and my other site http://www.seanuk.net).

My new site will contain many pages all with the same layout (content and text columns). I am planning for the future though - what would I do if I wanted to add a category to the contents bar on my website. I do not want to have to add the new category to the contents bar on every HTML page. Is there a program which can update the contents bar for every page?

I would recommend a HTML development tool that supports templates. For my site, I use GoLive 6. Dreamweaver also supports them as does NetObjects I believe. They make life much easier. Basically, all the pages in my site are generated from the same template. If I change the template, all derived pages are updated accordingly. Take a look at http://www.u-rate-it.com to see what I mean. The logo and the menu on the left are all part of the template.
Hope this helps,
James

I think you need to use frames. Have the contents frame on the left and then only the right hand side changes.

Frame are one solution as well. There used to be a time that they were considered search engine unfriendly, but I believe that`s no longer the case. I did have my site as frame based at one stage, but then noticed that they major sites didn`t seem to follow that trend.

Yeah - I`d go along with that - frames do seem passe at the moment. I don`t know whether they were ever search engine unfriendly, but they`re certainly user unfriendly (imo).

I went off frames a while ago, but a couple of sites I`ve done recently have had frames (client request) - gets really ugly to code as you really need to pass everything through the whole frameset, so that the "back" button works properly, order totals update, etc. Now they`re done, I quite like them, to be honest, but a lot more hassle to make work well (and there`s always a bit of a glitch). But it is nice to have all the navigation constantly available, and not scolling away up the page.

Another solution could be server side includes - have you menu in a completely seperate file and on every webpage have an include directive - avoids the dreamweaver problem of having to upload and change every page when the template changes.

But it does mean you need ASP/Pearl/PHP based hosting.

Craig,

Yup, that`s another solution. I`ve used a similar approach for some of the pages on my site. having said that, it was easy enough for me to add as most of the site is PHO driven anyway.

James

Thanks for help. Had an idea of using some `find and replace` software. Theres loads on http://www.download.com. I will copy and paste the old contents bar HTML code and replace it with the new code on all pages. Problem solved!