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Build a Basic PHP Website

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Using Variables for the Title Tag

3:24 with Alena Holligan

Variables allow you to customize the HTML that PHP produces and dynamically modify it for each page. In this video, we’ll use a variable to give each page a unique value for its title tag.

Update to html

index.php unordered list for our random items should have a class of "items".

<ul class="items">

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    As we covered in the php basics course, 0:00
    a variable is a piece of code that references some data. 0:02
    There are several types of variables. 0:06
    Throughout this course, we'll be using strings, integers, 0:09
    meaning whole numbers, arrays, and touch briefly on objects. 0:12
    The first one we'll be using is a string variable. 0:16
    To change the title tag from page to page. 0:19
    Let's go back into the suggest.php file. 0:23
    Let's start by specifying the page title for the suggest page. 0:26
    Right before this line where we include the header, let's add a variable or 0:30
    page title. 0:35
    As a refresher, variables in PHP are represented by a dollar sign 0:38
    followed by the name of the variable. 0:42
    Variable names are case sensitive. 0:44
    We can make up just about any name we want for our variable. 0:47
    A valid variable name starts with a letter or 0:50
    an underscore, followed by any number of letters, numbers, or underscores. 0:53
    There's no predefined list of variables we have to choose from. 0:58
    But it's good practice to make your names descriptive so 1:01
    that your code is easier to read. 1:03
    Let's assign our variable page title, a string value of suggest a media item. 1:05
    If we assign this value to the variable in our code before we include header.php, 1:16
    then we can reference this variable in that include file. 1:22
    Open header.php. 1:26
    Here we have the page title, 1:29
    where we've told it to simply echo out the actual title. 1:31
    This is not very useful. 1:36
    Let's replace the string Personal Media Library, with our variable, page title. 1:38
    Be sure to type the variable name exactly. 1:48
    Again, upper and lowercase characters do matter. 1:51
    Save both files, and let's take a look at suggest in our browser. 1:54
    When we refresh the page, notice how the title on the tab has changed. 2:00
    Let's take a closer look at what's happening in our code. 2:05
    When suggest.php first loads, our code creates a variable named $pageTitle and 2:08
    assigns it a value of "Suggest a Media Item". 2:13
    Then our code includes header.php. 2:16
    Which echos out the value in that page title variable. 2:18
    Let's add the same variable with different values to our other pages. 2:22
    Open catalog.php. 2:25
    And let's add this variable right before I include 2:29
    page title equals Full catalog. 2:35
    Now lets go into index.php and do the same thing. 2:43
    A new variable, page, title. 2:51
    And we'll assign this the value of Personal Media Library. 2:56
    Now let's go back to our browser. 3:03
    As we click through the menu, we can see our title changing as we go. 3:06
    By assigning a value to a variable before the header file gets included, 3:13
    we can use the same PHP code for all the pages but 3:17
    still give them unique values for their title tags. 3:20

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