Forums: Front End:

I'm looking at something that I have NO idea how to do properly. I'd like to have a series of buttons / image map / etc. at the top of the page which, when clicked, load different text into the bottom part of the page.

In the old, bad days I would have used frames, which would work great and do just what I want.

I've tried to follow Dreamweaver's help files, and some web tutorials I found, but I can't understand what the hell they're talking about or don't seem to work.

What's an approved method for doing this with minimal fuss?

Mark,

Check yer mail - we have already done this.

Edit -

2 options :

1. If the all the text to displayed via the buttons is static and unlikely to change, just have them in different divs which you show/hide on the relevant button click.

2. All your text is held in files that you read via an XMLHTTPRequest and load into the div on button click.

I assume you have no backend support and want this all to be XHTML/CSS markup? With just markup, I cant see how else it could be done. Although the idea of someone using frames does make me cringe a little...

Tehno, can you enlighten me to how this was acheieved too? Very interested in this one...

this sounds like an easy implementation of a tabbed type of interface.

check out jQuery or mootools or scriptaculous and look for tabs...i seem to remember that you might already be using one of these libraries on your site.

This was linked from one of the jquery navigation plugins. It's a pretty simple markup of either a list or series of divs that hold data and all except for 1 are hidden until you click on the link to show them.

//edit
another link
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex17/tabcontent.htm

Thanks, guys. Techno - that seems like it just might work. I hadn't even thought of that.

Why is the new, better way always so much harder and more time consuming than the old, bad way?

cos we get to charge more