Creating A Dynamic Website

[Corndog]

I have recently been playing around with web design, but all I know is CSS and HTML. I do not know much about PHP, or any other dynamic web language, but I'm willing to learn—although I don't have a whole lot of time to do so. So, over the last two nights, I put together a simple design that I really like. The basics of it shouldn't change too much, but that doesn't really matter too much here. My problem is that unless this site is going to be one or two pages that never change, which it won't be, a static design won't work for me. I'd like to know how I can transform simple CSS and HTML into a "full blown" website.

Right now the site is composed of three (very standard) things [click here for a screenshot]:
- Navigation Menu
- Posts Section
- Sidebar

I would like these three things to be changed on every page I make when I change them. So I guess I'd have to utilize PHP and MySQL or SQLite, with tables for each of these things. Can anybody help me out. I can provide some more info on the code itself if it's needed.

[Paul]

try iframes

[[MPGH]Dave84311]

Build a template... for now a header.php with the page header. Include that in the page you would like to display it in. If you change the header.php file, everything that has included the php file will show that update. Now, that will handle basic updates of the header, for a fully interactive website you will need a database. The database will store essential information, and you will have to use PHP to query it. There is TONS of information about using php with mysql, so I will stop there.

[Hitman]

Build a template... for now a header.php with the page header. Include that in the page you would like to display it in. If you change the header.php file, everything that has included the php file will show that update. Now, that will handle basic updates of the header, for a fully interactive website you will need a database. The database will store essential information, and you will have to use PHP to query it. There is TONS of information about using php with mysql, so I will stop there.

Listen to Dave he knows best.

[Corndog]

I was hoping there was a much easier, lazier way. I guess the only lazy option is to use a CMS or some other software.

I guess I'll be learning PHP. It isn't that hard anyway...