What other ways are there to do includes?

One of the neatest ways is to use php/fi which has a very simple include directive. It looks like this when coded for an HTML page:

<?include("top.php")>

In this example the file "top.php" contains the HTML code you want inserted at that exact location.

Be sure to enable the php_module and mod_php.c in conf/httpd.conf.

Like this:

Uncomment the following line:

#LoadModule php_module modules/mod_php.so

and this line as well:

#AddModule mod_php.c

Note: to uncomment means to remove the "#" sign.