//bodyCenter is the html used for the centerPanel
var bodyCenter="announcementsCenter.html";
var sHTML;        // string to hold the html for the center Panel from the file

// in service
// this function retrieves a html file from the server and shows it
function showPage(str)
{
var xmlhttp;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
  {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
  xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
  }
else
{// code for IE6, IE5
  xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
  }
  xmlhttp.open("GET",str,false);
  xmlhttp.send(null);
document.write(xmlhttp.responseText);
}

// not in service
// this function retrieves HTML from the server and stores the result in sHTML
function getHTML (str) {
var xmlhttp;
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
  {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
  xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
  }
else
{// code for IE6, IE5
  xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
  }
  xmlhttp.open("GET",str,false);
  xmlhttp.send(null);
sHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;
}

//not in service
//this function replaces the center panel with the retrieved HTMl
function replaceCenter (str) {
getHTML(str)
document.getElementById("centerPanel").innerHTML=sHTML;
}