josh.isCool()

My idea was to use the URL to determine which XML file would be loaded into the page.I was looking at THIS as an example for how to change the page based on the URL, but instead of using it to write content to the document I was going to use it to change the value of the Javascript variable that held the location of the XML file.

I think I should explain that what I was planning to do was to have a bunch of different XML files with the same structure so I could load them into a shell page based on the user's actions.I guess it was supposed to be a "database" of individual XML files rather than one single MySQL database.

Don't worry I know enough to understand just how horrible it is to use Dreamweaver. Whenever my teacher is watching I will use it but as soon as she turns away I go back to Note Pad. The way she teaches is just stupid too. We don't learn how to do things. We just copy examples from a book and the things she has us do are so simple they are almost useless. So I spend my free time in that class (which is pretty much the whole time) looking up tutorials for some more complicated aspects of web design.Unfortunately I do still have to get stuff done so I have been using the learn-as-you-go method,

ouch OK I can see I asked a bunch of stupid questionsguess its on to more tutorialsI'm just trying to make something for a school web design class (extremely basic all we've been taught is Dreamweaver so I've been trying to teach myself some more complicated stuff)For the site I'm making at school I need to finish quickly but since I don't have a clue what I'm doing I guess I just stick with doing things manually and work on learning PHP and MySQL because I eventually plan to make a more advanced version for my own personal website

OK so I've been through all of the AJAX tutorials and I was wondering why they all used PHP and MySQL to generate the XML files that the examples then parse.Couldn't you just directly load the XML files?I could see how a database would be useful for a more complicated application but do you have to use one?My other issue is I'm new to AJAX and XML and I wasn't looking forward to layering two more languages on top of that.I want to learn them eventually but for now I just want to keep it simple.