Best method 2 Change bckground header img randomly?

[acidfish]

What is the best method to get a background image header/banner/title-bar to automatically and randomly change each time the page is opened. I read a PHP book that changed the image seasonally. What would be the best: flash, java, actionscript. or the php or anything else? I'm willing to explore and learn thx in advance for any ideas.

[ScallioXTX]

I would use PHP for this. Flash and the likes are way to heavy tools to solve this relatively simple problem.

Assuming you have image1.jpg, image2.jpg, ... imageN.jpg, a simple snippet like this will do:

<img src="image<?php echo rand(1, 10); ?>.jpg" alt="" />

Or you could put all images in an array and pick one at random.

(code assumes you have 10 images)

[AtSea webdesign]

the two best choices would be javascript and php. Javascript could be used on html pages where as php has to be used on a .php file.

In other words you have to make sure your server supports php. Otherwise do it with a simple javascript random script.

[Ed Seedhouse]

Well, just to be picky, I will point out that none of these techniques produce a "random" image, merely a "pseudo random" one, since no computer algorithm can produce a truly random sequence on it's own.

[acidfish]

PHP looks tops so far, I got a book on that 1 . The appeal of JavaScript is being on the page. Atsea can you direct me toward working examples or code to have a look at the mechanics?

Expanding the idea. Can you mix-up a "shtml" site with PHP added onto a working shtml site? Out of curiosity... interest??? Thx for the help above and any to follow bellow

[xhtmlcoder]

As far as I remember you cannot mix both; SHTML with PHP in that sense, i.e. on the same page.

[AtSea webdesign]

Acid, google javascript random image. There are a ton of examples out there.