If the site is in PHP, use PHP includes. If the site is just basic HTML with no back end language, use SSIs.

Thank you, that is what I needed to know.

Gah this site just won't give me a break.\

I can't seem to get the div on the right to stay to the right of the side bar. As soon as I start a new element below the side bar it pops over there underneath it. I don't want and of the page content to be below the side bar but I know it will be longer than it. kllrnohj has said tables are not the answer so does anyone else have any other ideas. I really wish there was a way to get this to work so I can be done.

Edit: Well, using margins on the content div and position:static on the side bar I was able to get it to work, but I would have rather used float:left and etc.

Are you putting the new content in a div as well? Try floating the sidebar to the left and seeing if taht fixes it.

That is what I was doing and it worked fine on the main page but as it has less content than the other pages so the issue did show but on pages with more content the content would go under the side bar (which was a floating div) once I started a new paragraph or table.

OK, so why not float the sidebar in a left div, then float a right sidebar and put all of the other content in that div? Nested divs are allowed, you know.

I think I have it figured out but thanks for the suggestion.

Do tell for the sake of posterity; how did you figure it out?

I still have some testing to do but switching which div floats seems to do the trick.

Ah, excellent, good to hear. And you're right, that is one caveat about floating divs: overreliance on them can lead to surprising results, especially across different resolutions and browsers.

Yeah I can't get that to work either so It looks like my only solution is to put the two div's in a table I dislike the method but it seems to be the only one that works reliably. The other option is use absolute positioning to cause the sidebar div to be behind the content one and then use margins so they don't overlap.

Edit: Well Margins work so I'm set I can now get on with converting all of the pages to the new setup.

Why do you keep epically failing at divs? Go learn CSS before you continue, as you clearly don't grasp the relatively simple concepts of floats and such. http://w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Also check out http://csszengarden.com/

I realize that using float was a bad Idea and have moved away for that angle of attack.

I have been using w3schools very heavily and I am grateful for its help.

As for csszengarden.com, the examples were very helpful and told me that I was using the correct method for what I was attempting. The home page even uses the same method I did. That is, having a absolute position set for the side bar and using margins to put the text between them.

Edit: Grammar

Well I finished the site and put it online as the main site rather than the sub domain I had setup before. Check it out at http://www.totalpoolcarewi.com/
Now that I have that finished it will be easier to make changes so if you have any suggestions let me know.

The text in the main area goes to the VERY right edge of the screen (firefox with 1280x1024). A little margin would make it look less stressed, imo.

Ok I'll some margin/padding to the content section. Thanks for the suggestion.

Ok, I have a question, I want to have the contents of a form sent to an email address on the server but I would rather it not use mailto:info at blah. blah since that only works when they have a mail client setup and I know many people do not. I believe this would require scripting of some sort but I don't know where to start or what would be the easiest method. I would also love to have some way to catch spammers but I would be happy enough if it even worked. If you need more info I'll gladly give it to you. Thanks for the help.

You need to have a server side language of some sort to do it, otherwise you have to do a mailto: (which isn't a bad thing - mine works with gmail, for example)

what he said, my eyes keep wanting to scroll sideways.


[edit]
also, a form mailer is an excellent way to get yourself spammed.

Yeah I know hence why it goes to a extra account and then someone can filter it later. I 'll leave it as a mailto: since that seems to be the easiest and most effective way to do it.