Stupid question alert

Hi, first of all apologise to the list ­ this is a very basic question for you I¹m sure. I have tried to find an answer on the web but the problem is knowing HOW to ask the question ­ and I hoping you can provide me with a starting point. Anyway.. I design a lot of graphic intensive pages which rely heavily on layers that contain images, mouseovers and image swaps. The trouble is, when there are more than a couple of these layers on a page the code gets long and over complicated. For example, if I have a page which on one side contains an image map with 5 clickable points that shows one of 5 possible layers on the other side of the page (each with different content) this is automatically a page with lots of code which is slow to load ­ especially if the page already has a layer based navigation bar! My question is: is there a way to use a language like php to make this process easier? For example populate the layers from a different file rather than have all the code on the same page and perhaps slim the page down a little ­ or is this missing the point of what a language like php is about. Thanks for your help and my apologies if this is the worst question of the week. Tim Rogers