phpBanners

Within a website, most pages will contain information that remains unchanged from page to page. In the process of authoring a page, headers and footers are copied from a template file and then the process of designing the page can begin.

This is not a problem when the site in question is small, but for larger sites, having the same code in every file on the site poses a serious problem... what happens when you want to alter the header or footer?

This problem was exactly what we faced when carrubbers.org had a complete redesign in 2001.

We brainstormed the requirements for a system that would allow us to store headers and footers (banners) in one place allowing the code to be centralised and easy to alter. The problem we faced was that we could not find a piece of software that matched our requirements, so in the summer of 2001 we set to work and phpBanners was born.

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phpBanners allows the insertion of blocks of code from a central banners.php file. Most files in the carrubbers.org domain has three banners which essentially define the look of the page - one in the head block and two in the body section of the document.

For the novice, phpBanners is easy to set up and very easy to start using. It's hidden funcitonality allows the more experienced user to define multiple banners for the site, add several banners to a single page, override banners or include file specific information within the banners.

A comprehensive explaination of how the system works, can be found in the readme file