Again, on Opera 9.51, clicking the links on the left doesn't seem to do anything (except load some stuff that isn't displayed), but clicking the plus signs displays them fine.
You just need to make sure you display one of the elements when each page loads to begin with.
It does seem a little odd, though, in terms of how you're using a whole series of HTML pages each with a complete menu and the like. It means that if you ever want to change what is on that menu, you'll have to go through every page and update them all to maintain the illusion of staying on the same page.
Better ways might be:
- Server side includes or an equivalent on a text file that contains the menu for every page. This requires a host that supports sever side includes, of course, and is a decidedly low-tech solution. NB that since a server side include looks transparent to a user, you could already be doing this.
- Frames. Ugh. No-one likes frames. They suck. They would, however, do the trick if you were careful. Stick the menu in a frame and the gallery in another one and hope resolution differences don't result in an ugly scrollbar appearing.
- Using an Javascript and an external .js file to generate the menu everytime the website loads. This doesn't require server side includes, and probably approaches elegance far more than the others. It's not hard to find out how to use stick javascripts in external files, and generating some html using it is fairly straightforward, really.
- Some more complicated database approach, probably using a combination of PHP and SQL. Since I know neither language, I can't say whether this would be ideal, but I imagine that in the long run, it'd probably be bed. It would basically mean you'd have two sections - the code to generate the menu, and the database in which the entries are stored. Want to change an entry? Just edit it in the database, and it'll be generated nicely next time the site loads. The benefit of this route is that you could also have each menu item associated with a set of images by database, too. That, of course, means that you might be able to have everything in one page, which is by far the most elegant solution under most circumstances, I would think.
You might also be able to get everything in one page using Javascript alone (this is certainly what I would try and do, but then again, I'm not exactly a great web designer); it might be a little easier to do, but it would probably not be as simple to maintain in the future. Better than having to edit a jumble of entirely unconnected pages, though!
