What you will learn:
A simple string of code you copy and paste to display comics with a drop down navigational menu as well as navigational buttons.

What you need:
- How to FTP into your site.
- How to use the "copy" and "paste" feature.
- Ability to produce .jpg and .gif images.
- A PHP enabled web-host

Credits:
Code written by Jen Irwin and posted with permission.

Getting started:
Before you can copy and paste anything you need to know some important information on the basic functions of how this works.

Your comic folder will have all the layout images, .php pages, and anything else you want.

Make 5 buttons, each much be exact spelling and file extension to display properly.
first.gif
next.gif
home.gif
back.gif
newest.gif

(The code works so that if you're on the first comic, the first and back buttons will not display. If you're on the newest comic, the newest button will not display. If you're on the 2nd comic only the back button will be seen. If you're on the next to newest comic only the next button will be seen. )

Make comics sub-directory and name it "comics". Not "Comics", not "comix", not "iluvtoroffle".
Just "comics". If you don't it won't work and you will die. That's bad. :'(

All files in the "comics" sub-directory need to be three digits and ONLY the comics. (IE: 001.jpg, 002.gif, 003.png). The comic file extension can ONLY be any of the three listed. Flash is different from a static image and therefore will not work in this code.

Things to know:
You can put the code anywhere on any page. You pretty much make a "shell" of a layout to set the code in, and that shell will be repeated on every navigational page. You could put it on your main page with the news (as long as the news page is one file "up" from the "comics" folder) and they could navigate perfectly. However, the news would then be on every page while the end user was navigating.

Copy and paste the following to where you want your comics to show up:

<?php $listdir = "comics"; // Customizeable $listid = $_GET['id']; // Leave this alone /* This function is the one I've been using forever. It just goes and grabs an alphabetical array of files in the specified directory. */ function getlist_alpha(&$afiles, $listdir) { if (is_dir($listdir)) { if ($thisdir = opendir($listdir)) { while (($afile = readdir($thisdir)) !== false) { if (!is_dir($afile) && preg_match("/.*\.(gif|jp(e)?g|png)/i", $afile)) { $afiles[] = $afile; } } closedir($thisdir); return $afiles; } } } /* This function actually creates the strings to be put in the selection list. */ function printoptions($item1, $key, $listdir) { if (strpos($item1, ".")) { $item1 = explode(".", $item1); $item1 = $item1[0]; } $ffile = "$listdir/$item1"; if ($item1 == $_GET['id']) echo "\n<option selected>"; else echo "\n<option>"; echo "$item1</option>"; } /* This function sorts a collected array and then uses printoptions to make the list. */ function comiclist($listdir, $listid) { echo "<center><form name=\"comiclist\">\n<select name=\"id\" id=\"id\">"; $alisting = getlist_alpha($listcomics, $listdir); rsort($alisting); array_walk($alisting, 'printoptions', $listdir); echo "</select>\n<input type=\"submit\" value=\"Go\" action=\"selection.php\" method=\"get\">\n</form></center>"; } comiclist($listdir, $listid); ?></p> <div align="center"> <p><?php $cdir = 'comics'; $getc = $_GET['id']; $phpfile = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; function check_zeros($num) { $digits = 3; $pad = strval(0); $num = strval($num); if (strlen($num) != $digits) { $num = str_pad($num, $digits, $pad, STR_PAD_LEFT); } return $num; } function find_comic($idnum, $dir) { if (is_dir($dir)) { if ($cdir = opendir($dir)) { if ($idnum != 'all') $idnum = check_zeros($idnum); if ($idnum == 'all') $num = 0; while (($file = readdir($cdir)) !== false) { if ($file != '.' && $file != '..') { if ($idnum != 'all') { if (preg_match("/$idnum\.(gif|jp(e?)g|png)/i", $file)) { $idnum = $file; } } else if (preg_match("/.*\.(gif|jp(e?)g|png)/i", $file)) { $num++; } } } } closedir($cdir); } if ($idnum == 'all') return $num; else return $idnum; } $max_comics = find_comic("all", $cdir); if ($getc < 1 || $getc == NULL || $getc > $max_comics) $getc = $max_comics; if ($getc > 1) $getp = $getc - 1; else $getp = NULL; $getn = $getc + 1; $cshow = find_comic($getc, $cdir); echo "<img src=\"$cdir/$cshow\" border=\"0\" /><br>"; echo "<br><br>"; if ($getc > 2) echo "<a href=\"$phpfile?id=1\"><img src=\"first.gif\" border=\"0\"></a>"; if ($getc > 1) echo "<a href=\"$phpfile?id=$getp\"><img src=\"back.gif\" border=\"0\"></a>"; echo "<a href=\"MAKETHISYOURHOMEPAGEURL\"><img src=\"home.gif\" border=\"0\"></a>"; if ($getc < $max_comics) echo "<a href=\"$phpfile?id=$getn\"><img src=\"next.gif\" border=\"0\"></a>"; if ($getc != $max_comics && $getc < $max_comics - 1) echo "<a href=\"$phpfile?id=$max_comics\"><img src=\"newest.gif\" border=\"0\"></a>"; ?>

Towards the bottom of the code I put:
"MAKETHISYOURHOMEPAGEURL", replace that with your home page url.

Just upload and you should be good! Thanks for reading!

~ Psy