Jumbled up my website

[Spinethetic]

After analyzing criticism regarding my design practices (non-standards compliant; graceful degradation at best! pffh!) I have chosen to follow XHTML & CSS standards compliancy and progressive enhancement practices. I am webmaster and developer of http://integralbuddha.net and in leiu of my ignorance of anything other than javascript, had every single page load several javascript files, mostly containing document.write(" ") so that it would be convient for me to update the sidebars globally just be editing those particular javascript files. I am now converting everything to PHP using basically the same idea, using

<?php include("leftside.php"); ?>

instead of:

<script src="leftside.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

I chose to do this so that users with JS disbled can still see my left sidebar. I have only implemented php on www.integralbuddha.net/index.htm, every other page still is using massive and inefficient use of javascript. Now I know there were problems with the three-column layout displaying in Internet Explorer, but now on my sites frontpage, since I implemented a php version of the left sidebar, my main navigation menu is all messed up! Can somebody please help a struggling php newbie try to figure out what the problem is?

Best Regards
~Ross

[Medyman]

It's good that you've "seen the light" and are changing your practices. Your issues aren't really related to PHP. They're more HTML errors. Your navigation currently is coded like this:

 <ul 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/index.htm" class="current" target="_top" 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/topics.htm" target="_top" 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/research.htm" target="_top" 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/audiovideo.htm" target="_top"  & Video</span></a></li>
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/reading.htm" target="_top"  
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/links.htm" target="_top"  
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/creativeart.htm" target="_top"   Art</span></a></li>
      <li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://integralbuddha.net/forum.htm" target="_top"  
    </ul>

It should be like this:

 <ul> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/index.htm" class="current" target="_top"</li> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/topics.htm" target="_top"</li>  
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/research.htm" target="_top"</li> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/audiovideo.htm" target="_top"  & Video</span></a></li>
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/reading.htm" target="_top"</li> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/links.htm" target="_top"</li> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/creativeart.htm" target="_top"   Art</span></a></li>
      <li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://integralbuddha.net/forum.htm" target="_top"</li>
    </ul>

The highlighted parts are what you're missing. An invaluable tool is finding mistakes like this is to validate your markup.

[Spinethetic]

Odd, my markup wasnt like that before I put the php on there. It was the same on the about page as well where I briefly tested the php includes function. Thanks for noticing that!

[Master_script_maker]

It's good that you've "seen the light" and are changing your practices. Your issues aren't really related to PHP. They're more HTML errors. Your navigation currently is coded like this:

 <ul 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/index.htm" class="current" target="_top" 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/topics.htm" target="_top" 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/research.htm" target="_top" 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/audiovideo.htm" target="_top"  & Video</span></a></li>
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/reading.htm" target="_top"  
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/links.htm" target="_top"  
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/creativeart.htm" target="_top"   Art</span></a></li>
      <li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://integralbuddha.net/forum.htm" target="_top"  
    </ul>

It should be like this:

 <ul> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/index.htm" class="current" target="_top"</li> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/topics.htm" target="_top"</li>  
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/research.htm" target="_top"</li> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/audiovideo.htm" target="_top"  & Video</span></a></li>
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/reading.htm" target="_top"</li> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/links.htm" target="_top"</li> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/creativeart.htm" target="_top"   Art</span></a></li>
      <li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://integralbuddha.net/forum.htm" target="_top"</li>
    </ul>

The highlighted parts are what you're missing. An invaluable tool is finding mistakes like this is to validate your markup.

in your corrections you forgot to end the a tags, should be this:

<ul> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/index.htm" class="current" target="_top">Home</a></li> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/topics.htm" target="_top">Topics</a></li>  
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/research.htm" target="_top">Research</a></li> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/audiovideo.htm" target="_top">Audio & Video</a></li>
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/reading.htm" target="_top">Reading<a/></li> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/links.htm" target="_top">Links</a></li> 
      <li><a href="http://integralbuddha.net/creativeart.htm" target="_top">Creative Art</a></li>
      <li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://integralbuddha.net/forum.htm" target="_top">Forum</a></li>
    </ul>

[Spinethetic]

What I am doing so far to optomize my site is good so far I think, at least for starters, but are there any good techniques anybody could recommend when working with PHP and AJAX(other than turning it into an all-out wordpress site)?