Making a dynamic menu that changes according to page, coldfusion maybe?

[downtroden]

I'm doing a site... and it has a left menu with main section links. I have a style for the current page and one for other links. What I would like is the current page style to get applied to whatever the main page is currently with appropriate 'sublinks'. The site is using ColdFusion as a dynamic page language, so anything using that would be appreciated, but other suggestions are welcome as well.

To further clarify (i can't provide any photos)
you see a list of links:
main page
page 1
page 2

you click on 'another page', it goes to a page and the menu looks like:

main page
page 1
-sublink 1
-sublink 2
-sublink 3
page 2

right now i'm using a cfinclude tag for the left menu and have 2-4 versions for appropriate pages. would like to cut this down and maybe have something like
if on this page
then this info shows
elseif on this page
then this info shows
etc...

i would appreciate any help.

[hatchet]

Much the same as php - you could set a variable to the pagename and then use the <cfif $variable == 'pagename'>
<cfinclude $variable></cfif>
I'm not too up on the cf nomenclature (been awhile) but you get the picture I hope.

[seonewbee]

You need to know server variables in PHP.

Need to know all the files you want in the menu - full urls I guess

Create a file containing the information for creating a link - one pair per line

Read file in that has information into an array

Subtract current page from array

Print results to page

I am sure that others can tell you in great detail how to do each step.

[downtroden]

Well... hatchet, I kinda wanted to only have 1 include file with the complete menu, but thanks. Seonewbee, vague... but thanks .

I found this script on another site and it does EXACTLY what I want only on the same page and immediately after click... which isn't what I want. Any of you Javascripters out there... could you explain what this is doing? I know it's hiding the elements outside of the div, but how?

---- top code ----

<script type="text/javascript">

/***********************************************
* Switch Menu script- by Martial B of http://getElementById.com/
* Modified by Dynamic Drive for format & NS4/IE4 compatibility
* Visit http://www.dynamicdrive.com/ for full source code
***********************************************/

if (document.getElementById){ //DynamicDrive.com change
document.write('<style type="text/css">\n')
document.write('.left_nav_subcurrent{display: none;}\n')
document.write('</style>\n')
}

function SwitchMenu(obj){
if(document.getElementById){
var el = document.getElementById(obj);
var ar = document.getElementById("masterdiv").getElementsBy TagName("span"); //DynamicDrive.com change
if(el.style.display != "block"){ //DynamicDrive.com change
for (var i=0; i<ar.length; i++){
if (ar[i].className=="left_nav_subcurrent") //DynamicDrive.com change
ar[i].style.display = "none";
}
el.style.display = "block";
}else{
el.style.display = "none";
}
}
}

</script>


---- body code ----


<!-- Keep all menus within masterdiv-->
<div class="left_nav_current" onclick="SwitchMenu('sub1')"><a href="#">Sunday</a></div>
<span class="left_nav_subcurrent" id="sub1">
<a href="#">morning show</a><br>
<a href="#">late morning show</a><br>
<a href="#">noon show</a><br>
<a href="#">afternoon show</a><br>
<a href="#">late night with...</a><br>
<br>
</span>

<div class="left_nav_current" onclick="SwitchMenu('sub2')"><a href="#">Monday</a></div>
<span class="left_nav_subcurrent" id="sub2">
<a href="#">Usage Terms</a><br>
<a href="#">DHTML FAQs</a><br>
<a href="#">Scripts FAQs</a><br>
<br>
</span>
</div>

[seonewbee]

Sorry, I was too vague, but I am just learning PHP. Nice script, but I would not trust it. What if the person doesnot have javascript turned on? Second question, how will search engines follow your links and index your site? Have a nice day!

[downtroden]

well.... hmmmm, search engines... oh YEEEAAAaaahhhhhh. Well... maybe this is because I don't know what's possible or don't understand how they work, but if the entire menu is in a include file with the links and only certain parts are getting shown and hid during navigation, do search engines really care whether the link is hard coded to the page?

I guess when I'm saying dynamic, I'm wanting it to show and hide 'sub' menus or divs when on pages no pertaining to those choices, and I don't want to have to fake it by either setting up include files for all options or setting up the menu on every page.

ps. you're right about js not being turned on... i don't want to use that.