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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">
  • 0:00

    As we covered in the php basics course,

  • 0:02

    a variable is a piece of code that references some data.

  • 0:06

    There are several types of variables.

  • 0:09

    Throughout this course, we'll be using strings, integers,

  • 0:12

    meaning whole numbers, arrays, and touch briefly on objects.

  • 0:16

    The first one we'll be using is a string variable.

  • 0:19

    To change the title tag from page to page.

  • 0:23

    Let's go back into the suggest.php file.

  • 0:26

    Let's start by specifying the page title for the suggest page.

  • 0:30

    Right before this line where we include the header, let's add a variable or

  • 0:35

    page title.

  • 0:38

    As a refresher, variables in PHP are represented by a dollar sign

  • 0:42

    followed by the name of the variable.

  • 0:44

    Variable names are case sensitive.

  • 0:47

    We can make up just about any name we want for our variable.

  • 0:50

    A valid variable name starts with a letter or

  • 0:53

    an underscore, followed by any number of letters, numbers, or underscores.

  • 0:58

    There's no predefined list of variables we have to choose from.

  • 1:01

    But it's good practice to make your names descriptive so

  • 1:03

    that your code is easier to read.

  • 1:05

    Let's assign our variable page title, a string value of suggest a media item.

  • 1:16

    If we assign this value to the variable in our code before we include header.php,

  • 1:22

    then we can reference this variable in that include file.

  • 1:26

    Open header.php.

  • 1:29

    Here we have the page title,

  • 1:31

    where we've told it to simply echo out the actual title.

  • 1:36

    This is not very useful.

  • 1:38

    Let's replace the string Personal Media Library, with our variable, page title.

  • 1:48

    Be sure to type the variable name exactly.

  • 1:51

    Again, upper and lowercase characters do matter.

  • 1:54

    Save both files, and let's take a look at suggest in our browser.

  • 2:00

    When we refresh the page, notice how the title on the tab has changed.

  • 2:05

    Let's take a closer look at what's happening in our code.

  • 2:08

    When suggest.php first loads, our code creates a variable named $pageTitle and

  • 2:13

    assigns it a value of "Suggest a Media Item".

  • 2:16

    Then our code includes header.php.

  • 2:18

    Which echos out the value in that page title variable.

  • 2:22

    Let's add the same variable with different values to our other pages.

  • 2:25

    Open catalog.php.

  • 2:29

    And let's add this variable right before I include

  • 2:35

    page title equals Full catalog.

  • 2:43

    Now lets go into index.php and do the same thing.

  • 2:51

    A new variable, page, title.

  • 2:56

    And we'll assign this the value of Personal Media Library.

  • 3:03

    Now let's go back to our browser.

  • 3:06

    As we click through the menu, we can see our title changing as we go.

  • 3:13

    By assigning a value to a variable before the header file gets included,

  • 3:17

    we can use the same PHP code for all the pages but

  • 3:20

    still give them unique values for their title tags.

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