Yes-- this is the direction I want to go in: a variable. But I cannot figure out how to code it, and everything I find online deals with forms. This isn't a form-- it is a jQuery function from an imagemap. I don't think I can make Master/Detail pages because the link and the overlay are all in the same document (tried using Ajax, but then only the first overlay would work.)

I tried getting Dreamweaver to create the variable, but it kept throwing syntax errors when done (which I could not debug.) So let's say that the variable will be called "location." I appended the query above with "AND store_descriptions.locat_id = location". Then I opened the recordset in DW and clicked the + Variable button. I gave it Name:location; Type: Integer; Default Value:-1; Runtime value:-1.

The code I got out of that (besides the "sprintf" statement,) is this:

$location_getStore = "-1";

if (isset(-1)) {

  $location_geStore = -1;

}

And there is a syntax error on the second line, which I could not figure out.

Even so, suppose I get this snarl untangled, then what? What am I supposed to put into place?

So far, I have:

<?php do { ?>

<li><a href="<?php echo $row_getStore['store_link']; ?>"><?php echo $row_getStore['store_name']; ?></a></li>

<?php } while ($row_getStore = mysql_fetch_assoc($getStore)); ?>

I thought about saying:

... while ($row_getStore = mysql_fetch_assoc($getStore) && $location_geStore = 6); ?>

But this resulted in a blank overlay.

Does this make any sense? I feel so close, and yet so far...

> PHP variables need to begin with the $ so the correct code would probably be "AND store_descriptions.locat_id = $location".

This was just the variable name set up so that the Dreamweaver query wizard could make a runtime variable out of it. "location" was replaced by "$%" after the wizard ran.

I did use the $ in the mysql_fetch command above. That is not the cause for error here. After your suggestion above, I tried href="#louisianaTip?location=6", but again, nada.

So I took a different tack, and used AJAX, and this actually worked. Rather than have fifity modal boxes, each with a separate ID, I made one modal box and used an AJAX callback for it. The downside, is now AJAX calls fifty different PHP files, each with an iteration of the MySQL query. Now, each area of the imagemap links to one of the PHP files. When it is clicked, it loads the PHP file--and the embedded query--into the modal box. This actually resulted in a much faster page load (only one DIV in the host file, and only the PHP file with the query loads when clicked), and it also makes for a more progressively enhanced imagemap (if the user does not use javascript, the PHP file loads anyway.)

Still, there has got to be a better way. There's got to be a more economical alternative to fifty "include" files, where the only content difference is the name of the query and the number of the location ID. Any further thoughts?