[AFireInside]

Hello, I havn't posted here for a while or created a site for about 2 years now...
I have some questions, which I hopefully will find someone genurous to post an answer for me

1) What is it called when I create a frame which retrieves information from another .html file and how can I create this?
2) Can I retrieve information from lets say an exl sheet and then get it to appear on to html format in the browser (doing a long list of alphebetical animal diseases + information etc)
3) The next one is quite hard to understand; I have an image as a background but is there any way I can do, to create a transparant image so I can insert text, which is viewable, but also see my background image?
4) How can I create a template, which will alter everything I do on my previous .html files without have to individualy change them?
- I mean tables and that but I want different images and information on each of them

Sorry if the questions don't make sense, i have mild dyslexia just message and I will try to rephrase,
many thanks

Edited by AFireInside, 08 April 2008 - 02:05 PM.

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Well, I'll take a crack at them since no one else has yet, and I've received enough help of my own from this place over the last couple years! Note that I'm more of a hobbyist developer though, not a pro - so my answers could range anywhere from possible-but-inefficient to downright wrong.

Hello, I havn't posted here for a while or created a site for about 2 years now...
I have some questions, which I hopefully will find someone genurous to post an answer for me

1) What is it called when I create a frame which retrieves information from another .html file and how can I create this?
Don't rightly know what it's "called"... I think it would depend on how you accomplish it. If you're using a WYSIWYG editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, most of them include an option for this. In Frontpage it's called "include page content" and in Dreamweaver you would use "library items". Also, you could use a dynamic page generation technology like ASP, PHP, or Coldfusion.

2) Can I retrieve information from lets say an exl sheet and then get it to appear on to html format in the browser (doing a long list of alphebetical animal diseases + information etc)
Does it need to automatically update from the Excel sheet, or do you mean you just want it displayed in a tabular format? An HTML table will work fine for that, but if you want it to automatically update from an external file, you'll probably need dynamic page generation stuff again (PHP etc.) tied to a database file.
3) The next one is quite hard to understand; I have an image as a background but is there any way I can do, to create a transparant image so I can insert text, which is viewable, but also see my background image?
That one is actually the easiest for me, at least if you have access to Photoshop. Just open the image you want to use, add a layer of white (or whatever color your page background is, or a transparent layer), and then mess with the "opacity" setting of the image layer.

4) How can I create a template, which will alter everything I do on my previous .html files without have to individualy change them?
- I mean tables and that but I want different images and information on each of them.
Not sure exactly what you mean here... if you're talking about making global formatting changes like colors, fonts etc, then I'd recommend using cascading style sheets (CSS). An external style sheet can be one file, tied to every page on your site, or any that you choose. When you change an option in your CSS file, it makes the changes effective on every page it's tied to. But this is just for formatting, not for actual content like text. It CAN be used to swap images, though that's a little more involved (not much).

Sorry if the questions don't make sense, i have mild dyslexia just message and I will try to rephrase,
many thanks

Hope some of that helped.

[stearmandriver]

Well, I'll take a crack at them since no one else has yet, and I've received enough help of my own from this place over the last couple years! Note that I'm more of a hobbyist developer though, not a pro - so my answers could range anywhere from possible-but-inefficient to downright wrong.

Hello, I havn't posted here for a while or created a site for about 2 years now...
I have some questions, which I hopefully will find someone genurous to post an answer for me

1) What is it called when I create a frame which retrieves information from another .html file and how can I create this?
Don't rightly know what it's "called"... I think it would depend on how you accomplish it. If you're using a WYSIWYG editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, most of them include an option for this. In Frontpage it's called "include page content" and in Dreamweaver you would use "library items". Also, you could use a dynamic page generation technology like ASP, PHP, or Coldfusion.

2) Can I retrieve information from lets say an exl sheet and then get it to appear on to html format in the browser (doing a long list of alphebetical animal diseases + information etc)
Does it need to automatically update from the Excel sheet, or do you mean you just want it displayed in a tabular format? An HTML table will work fine for that, but if you want it to automatically update from an external file, you'll probably need dynamic page generation stuff again (PHP etc.) tied to a database file.
3) The next one is quite hard to understand; I have an image as a background but is there any way I can do, to create a transparant image so I can insert text, which is viewable, but also see my background image?
That one is actually the easiest for me, at least if you have access to Photoshop. Just open the image you want to use, add a layer of white (or whatever color your page background is, or a transparent layer), and then mess with the "opacity" setting of the image layer.

4) How can I create a template, which will alter everything I do on my previous .html files without have to individualy change them?
- I mean tables and that but I want different images and information on each of them.
Not sure exactly what you mean here... if you're talking about making global formatting changes like colors, fonts etc, then I'd recommend using cascading style sheets (CSS). An external style sheet can be one file, tied to every page on your site, or any that you choose. When you change an option in your CSS file, it makes the changes effective on every page it's tied to. But this is just for formatting, not for actual content like text. It CAN be used to swap images, though that's a little more involved (not much).

Sorry if the questions don't make sense, i have mild dyslexia just message and I will try to rephrase,
many thanks

Hope some of that helped.

[AFireInside]

Well, I'll take a crack at them since no one else has yet, and I've received enough help of my own from this place over the last couple years! Note that I'm more of a hobbyist developer though, not a pro - so my answers could range anywhere from possible-but-inefficient to downright wrong.

Hello, I havn't posted here for a while or created a site for about 2 years now...
I have some questions, which I hopefully will find someone genurous to post an answer for me

1) What is it called when I create a frame which retrieves information from another .html file and how can I create this?
Don't rightly know what it's "called"... I think it would depend on how you accomplish it. If you're using a WYSIWYG editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, most of them include an option for this. In Frontpage it's called "include page content" and in Dreamweaver you would use "library items". Also, you could use a dynamic page generation technology like ASP, PHP, or Coldfusion.

2) Can I retrieve information from lets say an exl sheet and then get it to appear on to html format in the browser (doing a long list of alphebetical animal diseases + information etc)
Does it need to automatically update from the Excel sheet, or do you mean you just want it displayed in a tabular format? An HTML table will work fine for that, but if you want it to automatically update from an external file, you'll probably need dynamic page generation stuff again (PHP etc.) tied to a database file.
3) The next one is quite hard to understand; I have an image as a background but is there any way I can do, to create a transparant image so I can insert text, which is viewable, but also see my background image?
That one is actually the easiest for me, at least if you have access to Photoshop. Just open the image you want to use, add a layer of white (or whatever color your page background is, or a transparent layer), and then mess with the "opacity" setting of the image layer.

4) How can I create a template, which will alter everything I do on my previous .html files without have to individualy change them?
- I mean tables and that but I want different images and information on each of them.
Not sure exactly what you mean here... if you're talking about making global formatting changes like colors, fonts etc, then I'd recommend using cascading style sheets (CSS). An external style sheet can be one file, tied to every page on your site, or any that you choose. When you change an option in your CSS file, it makes the changes effective on every page it's tied to. But this is just for formatting, not for actual content like text. It CAN be used to swap images, though that's a little more involved (not much).

Sorry if the questions don't make sense, i have mild dyslexia just message and I will try to rephrase,
many thanks

Hope some of that helped.

wow thanks that helped loads! but how do I make the excel sheet update, because its regarding (animal) medicine it needs to be updated quickly so I thought if I create an .exl sheet this would be the easiest way round, and import parts of it when needed

[stearmandriver]

wow thanks that helped loads! but how do I make the excel sheet update, because its regarding (animal) medicine it needs to be updated quickly so I thought if I create an .exl sheet this would be the easiest way round, and import parts of it when needed

Well... I don't know. I don't even know if there IS any convenient way to embed Excel spreadsheets into a web page. You could always just create a link to the actual Excel file, and upload the file to your server. Then, when people clicked the link, they could download the Excel sheet and open it on their computer. That wouldn't be very efficient though, and you'd run the risk of people without Office not being able to read the file at all.

Easiest solution is probably to create an HTML page that contains nothing but a table with all your data in it. Update this table as necessary using whatever HTML editor you use. Then, embed the page with the table into any other pages on your site you want the table to appear. You can use Frontpage's "include page" component, or Dreamweaver's "library items" feature for this if you're using one of those. Otherwise, it's not too hard to do with straight HTML.

The best solution here, for someone who really knows what they're doing, would be to use a database file (using, for instance, MS Access vs. Excel) instead of a table or spreadsheet, and use a dynamic page technology like PHP to serve data from the database file on your webpages. That's something I'm just learning myself, so I won't be too much help on the best way to do that. It's not REAL hard, but is much more involved then just creating HTML pages. Steep learning curve. Probably saves time in the long run, just depends how much setup time you want to put into it.