Eric Peterson wrote:
> I'm just an occasional, light-weight programmer/web page builder... IOW:
> I don't really know what I'm doing.

Your problem is not to do with Java, Perl or PHP so you crossposted this
to the wrong newsgroups.

Your problem is in working out what HTML & (possibly) Javascript you
want your program to emit. Try an HTML oriented newsgroup. One in the
comp.infosystems.www hierarchy may be appropriate.

>
> I'm working on a photo gallery page with a rough format of:
> header and menu
> content
> footer
> Where the content is dynamic showing the home page, or one of a couple
> informational text pages, or a photo gallery. For the gallery I'd like
> to have thumbnails displayed in a horizontal strip (filmstrip style)
> with a scroll bar to run through them. I'd like clients to be able to
> click on a picture from the filmstrip to view a larger version. That is
> where my problem begins.
>
> So far I've used an iframe to view the content (the only way I could
> find to get a horizontal scroll bar for content alone... no scrolling of
> header/footer).

You might be able to do this in CSS

> For the thumbnail views in the filmstrip, an iframe
> height of about 400 pixels works great, but that is too short for
> showing a larger version of the photo. But since the client clicks on
> the photo, within the iframe, I can't seem to change the height of the
> frame, which is within the parent's <iframe> tag.
>
> I know nothing about java, but it is probably my best hope???

If you know nothing about it, it is unlikely to be your best hope. You
may be confusing Java with Javascript (two entirely unrelated languages
IMO).

> A way to
> force an update of the parent page from a link/click within the child page?
>

There are dozens of different ways to accomplish this. Since you seem to
be new to this I suggest you start off with something simple: Use SSI to
include common header, menu and footer elements. Generate the thumbnail
pages as static pages from any language you know. I.e. generate them
whenever the collection of images is added to, then publish the static
HTML. The individual thumbnails would just link to the bigger pics (e.g.
<a href="photo_412.html"><img src="thumb_412.jpg" ... ></a>)

Once you have this working move on to dynamically generated pages using
ASP or PHP. Then to clever interactive stuff using AJAX or whatever.

If it all seems too much, look for a canned solution (free or
commercial) there must be lots for photo albums.

> Or maybe I could force an update of the parent page with any click
> somewhere within the iframe? (yet still have the link work for the
> content in the iframe)
>
> Other ideas? Maybe even dump the iframe idea entirely (but then how do
> I horizontally scroll a portion of the page?
>
> Thanks! Specific coding suggestions are more than welcome, since I'm no
> expert.

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