Are HTML frames good?

#1

Are HTML frames a good thing or a bad thing?

For someone who knows HTML, and only a measely bit of JavaScript and
DOM familiarity, what are the alternatives to frames?

When people design a navigation bar to their websites, the one to the
left that displayes links on the same website, do most of them use HTML
frames or other means? What are such other means apart from displaying
a graphic image that gives the impression of a borderless frame, and
displaying links/text in a table on top of that image?

#2

Water Cooler v2 wrote:

Quote:

Are HTML frames a good thing or a bad thing?

Worse.

Quote:

For someone who knows HTML, and only a measely bit of JavaScript and
DOM familiarity, what are the alternatives to frames?

Writing pages without frames...

Quote:

When people design a navigation bar to their websites, the one to the
left that displayes links on the same website, do most of them use HTML
frames or other means?

Other means: html code. Just like you would have done in a frame, only
without the frame. In the same page as the content.

Quote:

What are such other means apart from displaying
a graphic image that gives the impression of a borderless frame, and
displaying links/text in a table on top of that image?

Impression of a borderless frame? You mean you want to be able to see
an absent border so that people think there is an invisible frame?

Maybe you meant to ask: how do I get my navigation links to stay on
the left of the page with the content to the right, and how do I give
it a separate background colour or image?

f-up set to alt.html

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/

#3

On 12 Jul 2006 07:33:29 -0700, "Water Cooler v2" <wtr_clr (AT) yahoo (DOT) com>
wrote:

Quote:

Are HTML frames a good thing or a bad thing?

Mostly bad, for reasons discussed many times in the
comp.infosystems.www.* groups - see the archive.

They may have their uses when you are putting real content in multiple
frames (i.e. not just a heading or a navigation bar) and you expect that
the user will want to adjust the frame sizes...

Quote:

For someone who knows HTML, and only a measely bit of JavaScript and
DOM familiarity, what are the alternatives to frames?

When people design a navigation bar to their websites, the one to the
left that displayes links on the same website, do most of them use HTML
frames or other means? What are such other means apart from displaying
a graphic image that gives the impression of a borderless frame, and
displaying links/text in a table on top of that image?

.... but I gather that doesn't apply in this case.

Try something like this:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/layout3.html

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

#4

Water Cooler v2 wrote:

Quote:

Are HTML frames a good thing or a bad thing?

Well they're not as bad as cross-posting one of the most obvious and
easily searched-for web authoring questions you could possibly ask.

So yes, use frames. Do whatever you like. If it was really going to
make a difference to you, you'd have noticed by now.

#5

Andy Dingley <dingbat (AT) codesmiths (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

Water Cooler v2 wrote:
Are HTML frames a good thing or a bad thing?

Well they're not as bad as cross-posting one of the most obvious and
easily searched-for web authoring questions you could possibly ask.

So yes, use frames. Do whatever you like. If it was really going to
make a difference to you, you'd have noticed by now.

Thanks, Stephen and Els. I got it. I always used to wonder how they
squeeze something like the navigation bar to the left because HTML is
normally written horizontally, if you know what I mean -- what comes
first is put above until the space on that row gets over.

I got it now.

[PAGE_SOURCE]margin: 0 0 0 11em;[/PAGE_SOURCE]

I know a little bit of CSS. Actually, I know almost all of it until
before CSS 2 that has different selectors for different media. But the
problem is that I've used only very little of it. To be honest, I'm
mostly a library developer who works on C, C#, VB 6, VB.NET and Win32
API. I've done almost no Web development except for practice and an
incomplete ASP.NET project for real.

Now, a different question. Just for exploring all different
alternatives and possibilities.

Suppose that the navigation bar is something I want to place on every
Web page over my website. And I want the content of the navigation bar
also to be constant. I can then design a separate HTML page that
carries the code for the navigation bar.

If my understanding is correct, some CGI/ISAPI filters such as ASP/PHP
provide for server side includes. Using the server side includes, the
programmer can point to the content of the HTML/PHP/ASP/CGI file
containing the navigation bar code into every Web page that needs the
navigation bar.

But those includes, if I understand correctly, are not built into a Web
server. They're extensions provided by ISAPI or whatever other web
server API. So, they're accessible only when you are doing server-side
programming such as ASP/PHP etc.

In plain HTML, using only HTML and nothing but HTML (or may be some
lite JavaScript), is it possible to include content from another HTML
page into the current page?

I hope I've made my question clear.

#6

On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 09:20:33 -0700, Water Cooler v2 wrote:

Quote:

In plain HTML, using only HTML and nothing but HTML (or may be some
lite JavaScript), is it possible to include content from another HTML
page into the current page?

No. Not really. Using Javascript for this is a Bad Idea(TM) , IMO.

But what is wrong with something like ASP or PHP or SSI? At this
point, these technologies (or their equivalents) are very, very, very
commonly found on web servers.

--
JDS

#7

Water Cooler v2 wrote:

Quote:

Now, a different question. Just for exploring all different
alternatives and possibilities.

Suppose that the navigation bar is something I want to place on every
Web page over my website. And I want the content of the navigation bar
also to be constant. I can then design a separate HTML page that
carries the code for the navigation bar.

If my understanding is correct, some CGI/ISAPI filters such as ASP/PHP
provide for server side includes. Using the server side includes, the
programmer can point to the content of the HTML/PHP/ASP/CGI file
containing the navigation bar code into every Web page that needs the
navigation bar.

But those includes, if I understand correctly, are not built into a Web
server. They're extensions provided by ISAPI or whatever other web
server API. So, they're accessible only when you are doing server-side
programming such as ASP/PHP etc.

I'm not familiar with API or ISAPI, but I just use includes in PHP.
However, if your server doesn't have PHP installed... :

Quote:

In plain HTML, using only HTML and nothing but HTML (or may be some
lite JavaScript), is it possible to include content from another HTML
page into the current page?

Nope.
You could pre-process though, as explained in the link I gave:
http://allmyfaqs.net/faq.pl?Include_one_file_in_another

That way you do all the including at home, and voila, the result is an
entire website with navigation on every page.

Quote:

I hope I've made my question clear.

Yup - except for that (IS)API stuff, but I don't think I needed to
understand that ;-)

BTW - are you sure your server doesn't have PHP installed or SSI
enabled?

(f-up to alt.html again)

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/

#8

Quote:

But what is wrong with something like ASP or PHP or SSI? At this
point, these technologies (or their equivalents) are very, very, very
commonly found on web servers.

Thanks, JDS. No. Nothing is wrong with the server side programming
tools. I was only inquiring out of curiosity so as to increase my
knowledge on the subject.

Thanks for the help.

#9

Water Cooler v2 <wtr_clr (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote:

Quote:

In plain HTML, using only HTML and nothing but HTML (or may be some
lite JavaScript), is it possible to include content from another HTML
page into the current page?

See http://www.htmlhelp.com/faq/html/des...l#include-file
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew (AT) stanfordalumni (DOT) org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, darin (AT) htmlhelp (DOT) com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"I'd love to make time, if only I could find the recipe."

#10

On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 09:39:15 -0700, Water Cooler v2 wrote:

Quote:

Thanks, JDS. No. Nothing is wrong with the server side programming
tools. I was only inquiring out of curiosity so as to increase my
knowledge on the subject.

Thanks for the help.

No problem.

What you *really* want, though, is a good templating system.

Something like ColdFusion has a good bit of templating kinda built-in.

Something like PHP does not.

However, PHP has a lot of available templating systems available. From
the fairly simple (bTemplate) to the quite complex (Smarty).

Actually, though, what you might *actually* want is a pre-built content
management system (CMS). No sense in reinventing the wheel and all. Take
a look at http://opensourcecms.com for more information and sample CMSes.

Actually, looking back on your OP, your question is pretty broad.

what, exactly, do you aim to achieve? Being more specific in your goals
and your perceived solutions may help provide more clarity from the
responses.

later...

--
JDS