to frame or not to frame?

[Sean]

hi

I am working on my website and creating a text banner for the name of
my business. The advice I got from the web master at work was to
create a frame set and have a small frame at the top of the page for
the banner that doesn't change.

I thought using frames like this was not a good idea?

What do others think?

Sean

 

[Steve R.]

Sean wrote in message ...

I thought using frames like this was not a good idea?

Most respondees here will tell you that frames are not a good idea and will
put a number of URLs in their posts to say that "Frames are evil", BUT many
websites use frames successfully and make lots of money from using framed
websites, so despite the anti replies and their reasons, do not be put off,
as most on the HTML newsgroups are purists and like to toe the *purist*
line.

As long as the 'top' and/or 'menu' frames do not take up much room on a
page, then I think a nice well-planned framed website is very pleasant to
navigate, as the menu always stays viewable in the browser while the fresh
content loads.

 

[Eric Bohlman]

hi

I am working on my website and creating a text banner for the name of
my business. The advice I got from the web master at work was to
create a frame set and have a small frame at the top of the page for
the banner that doesn't change.

I thought using frames like this was not a good idea?

What do others think?

That isn't a legitimate use of frames, because you're inconveniencing the
user (by effectively making their viewport shorter) simply to save yourself
work. There are better ways to include common sections on multiple pages.
See <http://www.htmlhelp.com/faq/html/design.html#include-file> for some
ideas.

 

[Kris]

I am working on my website and creating a text banner for the name of
my business. The advice I got from the web master at work was to
create a frame set and have a small frame at the top of the page for
the banner that doesn't change.

I thought using frames like this was not a good idea?

What do others think?

An alternative is a single page in which the same graphic gets loaded.
In this situation one page loads, not three (frameset plus two frames),
so that may already save time.

The frame that contains the top graphic remains in place and does not
get loaded again.

If the structure consists of single pages though, the HTML for embedding
the top graphic gets also loaded every time. A neglectible amount of
overhead, if you code it the right way. The graphic will be in the
user's cache, so it does not need to reload.

That's the word on bandwidth. Then consider the widely known
disadvantages that frames have compared to single pages and it is easy
to reach a conclusion.

 

[Kris]

I thought using frames like this was not a good idea?

Most respondees here will tell you that frames are not a good idea and will
put a number of URLs in their posts to say that "Frames are evil", BUT many
websites use frames successfully and make lots of money from using framed
websites, so despite the anti replies and their reasons, do not be put off,
as most on the HTML newsgroups are purists and like to toe the *purist*
line.[/QUOTE]

Bankrobbers and enigmatic terrorist leaders also make a lot of money.
You may want to clear up the correlation between frames and financial
successes.

 

[Adrienne]

Sean wrote in message ...

Most respondees here will tell you that frames are not a good idea and
will put a number of URLs in their posts to say that "Frames are evil",
BUT many websites use frames successfully and make lots of money from
using framed websites, so despite the anti replies and their reasons,
do not be put off, as most on the HTML newsgroups are purists and like
to toe the *purist* line.

As long as the 'top' and/or 'menu' frames do not take up much room on a
page, then I think a nice well-planned framed website is very pleasant
to navigate, as the menu always stays viewable in the browser while the
fresh content loads.

I'm from the "Frames are Evil" camp, at least they are for the Internet,
for an Intranet, or for files served locally, it's not a problem.

The two biggest problems with frames are:
1. Search engines index the pages. A user goes to the sub page, but since
there is no frameset, there is no way to navigate the site.
A. Some people use a javascript to redirect to the index page. Well,
that's fine and dandy, but it does not help the visitor who wants the
page the SE indexed, and may have a hard time finding it.
B. A above will not even work if the user does not have javascript
enabled.
2. Bookmarking only works for the frameset page, not the subpage the user
is accessing.

To the OP:
Use a server side include to include the header graphic on all your pages.
I would also use a server side include for the menu, and any
copyright/footer information. See: http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?
Include_one_file_in_another for more information.

 

[Leif K-Brooks]

I am working on my website and creating a text banner for the name of
my business. The advice I got from the web master at work was to
create a frame set and have a small frame at the top of the page for
the banner that doesn't change.

I thought using frames like this was not a good idea?

That's a bad idea. If I want to bookmark a specific page on your site,
or send one to a friend, I can't -- the link will go back to the home page.

If I search for your page on a search engine, I will get a page without
the banner (or, even worse, get a page with nothing but the banner). You
could use some Javascript to take me back to the home page with the
banner, but then I would have to go through your whole site to find the
page I wanted, at which point I would leave.

Those problems can be solved by having a seperate frameset for each
page, but that causes serious problems with maintenance. Even if you use
a script to generate the framesets, every link will have be to a page
with a longer URL and target="_top".

If it's the unscrolling banned effect you want, it can be achieved with
position:fixed and a hack for IE. But be aware that many users don't
like this effect, and your site will become unusable if the viewport is
too short for the position:fixed block.

 

[Whitecrest]

I am working on my website and creating a text banner for the name of
my business. The advice I got from the web master at work was to
create a frame set and have a small frame at the top of the page for
the banner that doesn't change.
I thought using frames like this was not a good idea?

For use exactly like this, you are right, it is not a good use of
frames.

 

[Whitecrest]

I'm from the "Frames are Evil" camp, at least they are for the Internet,
for an Intranet, or for files served locally, it's not a problem.
The two biggest problems with frames are:
1. Search engines index the pages. A user goes to the sub page, but since
there is no frameset, there is no way to navigate the site.

Actually some simple javascript and server script will load the page in
the proper frameset solving the problem for better than 85% of the
possible visitors (lets not argue about if that 15% is worth it or not
because I can probably guess we already disagree about that.)

2. Bookmarking only works for the frameset page, not the subpage the user
is accessing.

Actually similar issue as above.

To the OP:
Use a server side include to include the header graphic on all your pages.

Now, here is a shocker, I completely agree with you. For this
particular application, while you could easily use frames, there is no
advantage to doing so.

 

[Whitecrest]

If I search for your page on a search engine, I will get a page without
the banner (or, even worse, get a page with nothing but the banner). You
could use some Javascript to take me back to the home page with the
banner, but then I would have to go through your whole site to find the
page I wanted, at which point I would leave.

Simple server side script and javascript will load the frameset and put
the page you bookmarked or found on google into the correct frame. So
this is not an issue, there are others, but this is not one of them.

And I agree, if you are looking for a static banner, then while it is
completely correct to do it with frames, they really gain nothing.

 

[Karl Core]

hi

I am working on my website and creating a text banner for the name of
my business. The advice I got from the web master at work was to
create a frame set and have a small frame at the top of the page for
the banner that doesn't change.

I thought using frames like this was not a good idea?

What do others think?

definitely use frames.
they work best with orange-on-green text and highly dithered animated gifs
of spinning mailboxes

 

[Karl Core]

Sean wrote in message ...

Most respondees here will tell you that frames are not a good idea and will
put a number of URLs in their posts to say that "Frames are evil", BUT many
websites use frames successfully and make lots of money from using framed
websites,

find one fortune 500 company that uses frames.

 

[alansmith]

Not to frame!

I personally believe that using php includes is a much bette
alternative to the old school framed website method. If you do go th
framed router dont forget to include the javascript i
document.location <> location code to display the pages correctly t
the end user


-
alansmit

 

[Adrienne]

Actually some simple javascript and server script will load the page in
the proper frameset solving the problem for better than 85% of the
possible visitors (lets not argue about if that 15% is worth it or not
because I can probably guess we already disagree about that.)


Actually similar issue as above.


Now, here is a shocker, I completely agree with you. For this
particular application, while you could easily use frames, there is no
advantage to doing so.

Oh, I don't think there's anything wrong with frames, if they are used in
the right context. Frames are great because they can be resized, if the
author has not restricted that, so a menu can be collapsed if desired.

As a matter of fact, I built the interface for a small "app" for
screenwriters called ScriptAssist [URL:
http://www.scriptassist.com/sample.asp]. It is frame based, and the files
are on the user's system. Search functionality is provided with
JavaScript, and the user is advised that it is necessary. There are over
2200 links in the menu, and 7000 links in the various subpages. Since it
is being served on the user's system, and it must be able to be used
without an Internet connection, there was no way to use server side
includes. Making the sample pages to sell the product was a challenge,
because we did not want to use frames for the reasons above, and yet, we
had to make it *look* like the product. I used CSS and server side
includes. The only thing I could not duplicate was the ability to resize
the menu.

 

[Toby A Inkster]

find one fortune 500 company that uses frames.

Microsoft (at about #50 in the Fortune 500 last time I checked) uses
frames for parts of their website, in particular some documentation and
MSDN stuff.

 

[Citizen X]

hi

I am working on my website and creating a text banner for the name of
my business. The advice I got from the web master at work was to
create a frame set and have a small frame at the top of the page for
the banner that doesn't change.

I thought using frames like this was not a good idea?

What do others think?

Sean

Here is a great framed site
http://www.bbvd.com/

Here is a bad one (I mean really bad)
http://iteslj.org/Articles/Kelly-MakePage/samples/bad/overdoneframe.html


my point? it matters not what you build with, it's what you build that
matters

The Guru has spoken

 

[Spartanicus]

Here is a great framed site
http://www.bbvd.com/

It's fine to like the look and/or content, but this site is just as
horrible as most framed sites from a technical perspective. The look
could have been achieved easily without frames.

The site also suffers from other problems, poorly optimized images etc.

 

[jake]

In message <[email protected]>,

Here is a great framed site
http://www.bbvd.com/

[snip]

To a graphics browser it looks quite attractive.

Unfortunately, according to my (non-graphics) reader, it's got three
frames:

Frame 1: Untitled Document
Frame 2: Untitled Document
Frame 3: Untitled Document

Certainly makes navigation easy.

 

[Steve R.]

Citizen X wrote in message ...

Here is a great framed site
http://www.bbvd.com/

I approve of well-constructed framed websites, but I though that was a very
poor example.

The menu and header frames were too large and the images were all very
poorly web-optimised, creating long download times.

Not a good example.

 

[Whitecrest]

To a graphics browser it looks quite attractive.
Unfortunately, according to my (non-graphics) reader, it's got three
frames:

It is good to know that it looks good in graphics browsers. If I were
you I would just leave and go to another band site.

That will teach them a lesson....