Re: Problem targeting frame to be populated

On Wed, 14 Mar 2006, Richard Lionheart wrote:

noframes
body
Your browser does not handle frames!
/body
/noframes

I think you meant:

"Downgrade your browser now, to one that cannot disable frames"

Richard Lionheart wrote:

noframes
body
Your browser does not handle frames!
/body
/noframes

Alan J. Flavell:

I think you meant:

"Downgrade your browser now, to one that cannot disable frames"

Or, "My authoring skills are impaired, you cannot browse"

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Hi Alan,

I think you meant:
"Downgrade your browser now, to one that cannot disable frames"

Do you mean this code is unnecessary because virtually all browsers can
nowadays accommodate frames? Or do you mean I should have included
guidance of some sort for the poor user who has an old browser. Or do
you mean I should go into some other line of work instead of HTML
authoring?

Regards,
Richard

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "Richard Lionheart"
<RLMuller (AT) USComputerGurus (DOT) com> writing in news:1142447408.714422.57390
@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com:

Hi Alan,

I think you meant:
"Downgrade your browser now, to one that cannot disable frames"

Do you mean this code is unnecessary because virtually all browsers can
nowadays accommodate frames? Or do you mean I should have included
guidance of some sort for the poor user who has an old browser. Or do
you mean I should go into some other line of work instead of HTML
authoring?

Regards,
Richard

There are many, many problems with frames and that is why you are
discouraged from using them. That being said, there _are_ valid reasons
why a site would use frames. They are not:
1. So that the menu stays in place for all pages
2. So that edits to a menu only have to be to one file
3. To provide scrolling part way down the page, keeping the header in view
all the time

Number 1 can be solved with CSS and some sort of server side include
Number 2 is solved by a server side include
Number 3 is solved with CSS

The only valid reason I can think of for using frames is that they are
resizeable, although most authors disallow resizing.

--
Adrienne Boswell
http://www.cavalcade-of-coding.info
Please respond to the group so others can share

On Wed, 15 Mar 2006, Richard Lionheart wrote, quoting me:

I think you meant:
"Downgrade your browser now, to one that cannot disable frames"

Do you mean this code is unnecessary because virtually all browsers
can nowadays accommodate frames?

Not at all. I mean that advanced browsers allow the user to disable
frames quite deliberately, and it would be wise for you to accommodate
to their preferences, rather than trying to argue with them.

What I didn't mention is that there are browsing situations where
frames make no sense (e.g a speaking browser), and your accommodation
will be to their benefit also.

Or do you mean I should have included guidance of some sort for the
poor user who has an old browser.

I don't know what you have in mind as an "old browser". The old
browsers which I'm thinking of are those which don't allow the user to
disable frames - so they're stuck with your frameset whether they
like it or not.

The better ones, as I say, allow the user to choose your non-framed
variant, if you've had the perspicacity to provide one. Those users
*DO NOT* want to find that you've provided some silly text that argues
with their choice. Remember the principle that in business, nobody
ever won an argument with a customer[1]

On the other hand a browser like Lynx *does* have support for frames -
it just doesn't handle them in the way you might expect. So Lynx
users are irritatedly accustomed to seeing misguided authors telling
them that they can't use frames, along with the links which *do* give
them access to the frames.

I't all rather a mess; quite a number of experienced authors would
advise you to lose the compulsory-two-dimensional picture of frames,
and simply adopt a more flexible approach without them. Making a
properly accessible frame-based site, with its accessible fallback, is
feasible, but it needs extra work, and a certain minimum of expertise:
I'm one of the people who would advise against it, in general. And
especially when your reactions seem to show that you have a quite
narrow experience of the possible range of client agent situations.

Did I mention that getting frame-based sites to work well with search
engines also needs extra care?

cheers

[1] http://www.jahns-home.de/rentmei/html/opti.html