Best approach(es) to implementing site navigation

[eluser]ripken204[/eluser]
I have not looked at your links...
but the common way is to put the html in the header file.

you really should have a header and a footer file
that way if you need to change something in the header, you only have to change it once

the only reason to put it into a database is if you want to be able to add menu items from your application instead of hard coding the menu items.