Frames - Yes or No?

Beverly-Texas · Jan 23, 2005

Hello,

I am new to FP2003 - can someone tell me if frames are, in general, a good
idea or bad idea? I have two areas (top image of company name and left menu
that will be the same on all pages) that I don't want to have to recreate
with each page. However, I really don't like using frames. Is there any
other way to "lock" these in place without using frames?

Right now, for instance, I am trying to change the font color of a table in
my left frame and it won't save the changes - only temporarily until I close
and reopen. Very frustrating.

Thanks,
Beverly

NickelSax · Jan 23, 2005

I would recommend against frames. With FP2003 I would recommend that you use
the shared borders feature. It will lend to a much cleaner site design than
frames would.
With your site open in FP go to the format menu, selct shared borders. In
the dialogue box that comes check the sides you want to have shared between
the pages.

you can then edit these areas in deign view, on any page of your site and it
will make changes to all, if you want to work with the html, then look for
the _borders directory, and you will find up to four pages there named after
the side they are for.

Jim Cheshire \(JIMCO\) · Jan 23, 2005

NickelSax said:
I would recommend against frames. With FP2003 I would recommend that
you use the shared borders feature. It will lend to a much cleaner
site design than frames would.
With your site open in FP go to the format menu, selct shared
borders. In the dialogue box that comes check the sides you want to
have shared between the pages.

you can then edit these areas in deign view, on any page of your site
and it will make changes to all, if you want to work with the html,
then look for the _borders directory, and you will find up to four
pages there named after the side they are for.

I agree on the frames, but in FrontPage 2003, I'd definitely choose Dynamic
Web Templates over shared borders. In fact, shared borders are deprecated
and no longer recommended.

--
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W E B GU R L · Jan 23, 2005

Google hates them and surely you want to be listed in correctly in Google! Google sees
each frame of your frameset as its' own page - really bad news!

--
http://hostspace.com.au

Hello,

I am new to FP2003 - can someone tell me if frames are, in general, a good
idea or bad idea? I have two areas (top image of company name and left menu
that will be the same on all pages) that I don't want to have to recreate
with each page. However, I really don't like using frames. Is there any
other way to "lock" these in place without using frames?

Right now, for instance, I am trying to change the font color of a table in
my left frame and it won't save the changes - only temporarily until I close
and reopen. Very frustrating.

Thanks,
Beverly

Murray · Jan 23, 2005

To say that Google hates them is inaccurate. It simply sees them as
individual pages.

Tina Clarke · Jan 23, 2005

I am new to FP2003 - can someone tell me if frames are, in general, a good

idea or bad idea? I have two areas (top image of company name and left menu
that will be the same on all pages) that I don't want to have to recreate
with each page. However, I really don't like using frames. Is there any
other way to "lock" these in place without using frames?

Right now, for instance, I am trying to change the font color of a table in
my left frame and it won't save the changes - only temporarily until I close
and reopen. Very frustrating.

Forget Frames , hover buttons nav bots and shared borders....

You have FrontPage 2003 so you can skip the usual nightmares and start with

DWT (Dynamic Web Templates)
Include pages for the menus (if a large site)
CSS for formatting

I've used all three to great effect (I'm not that brill at css so forgive
any other browser than ie if it looks wonky) at http://addonfp.com/

If you want to know more about these really useful features check out these
articles.

here is a two part article I wrote for outfront.net

DWT - Dynamic web templates.
http://www.outfront.net/tutorials_02/fp_techniques/dwt-1.htm
http://www.outfront.net/tutorials_02/fp_techniques/dwt-2.htm

two part article I wrote that will get you started.

CSS and FrontPage
http://msmvps.com/frontpage/articles/13615.aspx
http://msmvps.com/frontpage/articles/13683.aspx

Here is a tutorial on includes

FrontPage Includes
http://anyfrontpage.com/ezine/va/frontpage-includes.htm

For SEO purposes using frames is a bad idea, search engines see framed pages
as indivdual pages which does your site no good, people can't bookmark inner
pages easily and frames are just old hat and difficult to work with and
problematic they should only be used for discussion webs.

Let me know if this helps

Tina
Tip now out is: THUMBS.DB AND FRONTPAGE
http://frontpage-tips.com/ - FrontPage Tips
They are primarily for FrontPage 2003 but will be good
for earlier versions too.

Thomas A. Rowe · Jan 23, 2005

Like all search engines.

--
==============================================
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Dave · Jan 23, 2005

Jim,
Do you have to change all your pages to DWT if you
don't use frames or shared borders. I'm currently
building a web site using frames and I'm running into
issues with publishing times, back and foward buttons
using frames. It also seems like it impossbile to size
the frames the way you want them.
Dave

Stefan B Rusynko · Jan 24, 2005

John · Jan 24, 2005

Google hates them and surely you want to be listed in correctly in Google! Google sees
each frame of your frameset as its' own page - really bad news!

Why ?

Regards,

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.puresilver.org
Please remove the "_" when replying via email

John · Jan 24, 2005

It also seems like it impossbile to size
the frames the way you want them.

I haven't had any trouble with sizing. Is there something
specific that you are having trouble with ?

Regards,

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.puresilver.org
Please remove the "_" when replying via email

John · Jan 24, 2005

I am new to FP2003 - can someone tell me if frames are, in general, a good
idea or bad idea?

Like all things in life .... it depends ;>)

Frankly I've been using frames for sometime now as I like
pages that load fast and are easily updated via stylesheets. I assign
a stylesheet to each section of the framework and simply leave them
labels as 1.css, 2.css and 3.css for the three segments used to
navigate my entire site..

I have two areas (top image of company name and left menu
that will be the same on all pages) that I don't want to have to recreate
with each page. However, I really don't like using frames. Is there any
other way to "lock" these in place without using frames?

If this is going to be a small site (less than 100 pages) then
I'd certainly use frames but you might also consider using the Dynamic
Web Templates as others have suggested. They're a neat actually but
I'm somewhat leery of using MS stuff as it seems to become "obsolete"
very quickly.

Right now, for instance, I am trying to change the font color of a table in
my left frame and it won't save the changes - only temporarily until I close
and reopen. Very frustrating.

CSS is the way to handle fonts. Period. I wrote about 6 style
sheets using Topstyle and they have served my site well.

Regards,

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.puresilver.org
Please remove the "_" when replying via email

Tina Clarke · Jan 26, 2005

John S. Douglas, Photographer - http://www.puresilver.org

Please remove the "_" when replying via email

At first I thought your top links were broken then I realised they pointed
to the menu not the content ... never seen it done that way before... not
intuitive and quite clunky ... a two fold menu system plus when I clicked on
one link in the menu it opened up in a new window (I was still on the site )
http://www.puresilver.org/info/metricconv.html I was then left with only
three links on that page one of which you might want to sort out...

http://www.tundraware.com/pure-silver/ sounds like the owner is not too
happy with you.

and http://www.ilford.com/cgi/Ilfopro/ilfopro.pl you will want to
update.....

The other links from there opened up in new windows... so how confusing is
that? Though this only started happening after I got stuck with a pdf in the
frame ...

It's a pity because your photos are very good ... only your homepage has any
PR (not that that matters) I did not look a all but I could not find a inner
page that had any.

Your site is not accessible to all either ... since it's a photography site
I would have thought you would be up on what do with graphics ... you need
alt tags.

If this is going to be a small site (less than 100 pages) then

I'd certainly use frames but you might also consider using the Dynamic
Web Templates as others have suggested. They're a neat actually but
I'm somewhat leery of using MS stuff as it seems to become "obsolete"

very quickly.

DWT's by the way are NOT MS stuff .... dwt can be switched out back and
forth between dreamweaver and FrontPage (providing certain layout rules are
observed on the coding ... see http://dwtig.com ) ... you DON'T need FPSE
(FrontPage Server Extensions) in fact your best working with them on a disk
based web... same with FrontPage includes they don't need FPSE ....

I've a large site which is text based and uses just includes and a template
.... includes save me so much time for the menu's .... newer sites have dwt
css and includes for menu's .... I'm the laziest person I know and believe
me I find the best way to save me time while trying to adhere to web design
principles .. I stumble along ... it's the best method if you have fp03 (or
dreamweaver for that matter)...

Your site is easily converted since you don't have any navigation or
formatting to get rid of... the only thing you would need to do, would be to
make a template to surround your inner pages and include files for the
menu's... and make either one sheet or encode them in the .dwt.

frames - shudder, that is one nightmare I never used thank goodness (except
of course for what they are meant for - discussion webs.) But I tried most
everything else .. even (whisper) fp hover buttons) - don't tell anyone

Tina

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Frames - Yes or No?

Beverly-Texas

NickelSax

Jim Cheshire \(JIMCO\)

W E B GU R L

Murray

Tina Clarke

Thomas A. Rowe

Dave

Stefan B Rusynko

John

John

John

Tina Clarke