At the moment, I have a base HTML template file. When ever I want to make a new page, I copy the template and place some require_once statements in between specific tags. I was wondering if there's a better way that would make it unnecessary to copy the template each time. Here's a typical example:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/second.css" />
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"
src="js/validation_functions.js"></script>
<title>Order a Ticket for the ball</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="banner">St. Tom's Ambulance Ball</div>
<!-- START[container] -->
<!-- "body" -->
<div id="container">
<!-- START[header] -->
<div id="header">
<!-- header -->
<div id="header_text">introduction</div>
<div id="header_cell2">the process</div>
<div id="header_cell3">start</div>
</div>
<!-- END[header -->
<!-- START[content] -->
<!-- "other container" -->
<div id="content">
<!-- START[form] -->
<div id="form">
<?php
require_once(realpath($config["directories"]["views"]."/index.form.view.php"));
?>
</div>
<!-- END[form] -->
<!-- START[data] -->
<!-- "main content" -->
<div id="data">
<?php
require_once(realpath($config["directories"]["views"]."/index.data.view.php"));
?>
</div>
<!-- END[data] -->
<!-- START[side] -->
<div id="side">
<?php
require_once(realpath($config["directories"]["views"]."/index.side.view.php"));
?>
</div>
<!-- END[side] -->
</div>
<!-- END[content] -->
<!-- START[footer] -->
<div id="footer">
<!-- footer -->
<div id="footer_text">
<ul>
<li><a href="index.php">home</a></li>
<li><a href="">partners</a></li>
<li><a href="">projects</a></li>
<li><a href="">contact us</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div id="footer_cell2"> </div>
<div id="footer_cell3"> </div>
</div>
<!-- END[footer] -->
</div>
<!-- END[container] -->
</body>
</html>
EDIT: I have taken note of your suggestions to use GET. The new idea is to have each request url formed as index.php?page=page_name. This request would then be dealt with by a main controller which then sets the variables of the template based on the value of $_GET['page']. For this, the template will now be:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/second.css" />
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"
src="js/validation_functions.js"></script>
<title><?php h($title) ?></title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="banner">St. Tom's Ambulance Ball</div>
<!-- START[container] -->
<!-- "body" -->
<div id="container">
<!-- START[header] -->
<div id="header">
<!-- header -->
<div id="header_text"><?php h($header_1) ?></div>
<div id="header_cell2"><?php h($header_2) ?></div>
<div id="header_cell3"><?php h($header_3) ?></div>
</div>
<!-- END[header -->
<!-- START[content] -->
<!-- "other container" -->
<div id="content">
<!-- START[form] -->
<div id="form">
<?php
require_once(realpath($view_1));
?>
</div>
<!-- END[form] -->
<!-- START[data] -->
<!-- "main content" -->
<div id="data">
<?php
require_once(realpath($view_2));
?>
</div>
<!-- END[data] -->
<!-- START[side] -->
<div id="side">
<?php
require_once(realpath($view_3));
?>
</div>
<!-- END[side] -->
</div>
<!-- END[content] -->
<!-- START[footer] -->
<div id="footer">
<!-- footer -->
<div id="footer_text">
<ul>
<li><a href="index.php">home</a></li>
<li><a href="">partners</a></li>
<li><a href="">projects</a></li>
<li><a href="">contact us</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div id="footer_cell2"> </div>
<div id="footer_cell3"> </div>
</div>
<!-- END[footer] -->
</div>
<!-- END[container] -->
</body>
</html>
Note: h() is a function that first of all removes all undesired entity tags before echoing a string.
On a related note, at the top of each page I have some controller files which are included with require_once. I was wondering if it would be possible to impement a function that simply includes files based on a specific input string (name of the fuctionality/page) i.e "index" in this way:
function include_controller($page){
switch($page){
case "index":
require_once(realpath($config["directories"]["controllers"]."/index_.php"));
break;
case "checkout":
require_once(realpath($config["directories"]["controllers"]."/checkout_.php"));
break;
default:
break;
}
}