Last week, we learned about tables. This week we will
learn about the other most
popular layout tool in web pages, frames.
Frames
Frames split the web page up like window panes split a window. In creating a frame page you write a page that defines the frames as well as one for each section of the page. Essentially, what the actual frame page does is tell the browser "where" and "how" to split the web page, then takes existing pages and places them into the different sections. For example, if you would like a web page that is split in two vertically so
you
have a left and right side, your web page would look like the following: Now, on the right side you can put information that interacts with the right
side of the brain and on the left side information for the left side of the
brain.
This is actually a really good way to show two different ideas at once. For example, for a political debate you could put one canidate on
each
side. This way someone could look back and forth comparing points. This is also good for citing work as you could split the page horizontally and put a research paper you have written in the top 80% and cite your information in the bottom 20%. This way, the reader can go right from a quote in your paper directly to your bibliographic information for where you found it. There are very few frame tags and they are as follows:
HTML (FRAME) TAGS
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TAG/ATTRIBUTE
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DESCRIPTION
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FRAME
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For creating frames
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BORDER
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For specifying the thickness, if any, of the border
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BORDERCOLOR
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For specifying the color of frame borders
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NAME
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For naming a frame so it can be used as a target
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NORESIZE
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For keeping users from resizing a border
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SCROLLING
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For displaying or hiding a frame's scrollbars
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SRC
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For specifying initial URL to be displayed in frame
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TARGET
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For specifying which frame a link should be opened in
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FRAMESET
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For defining a frameset
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BORDER
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For specifying the thickness, if any, of the border
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BORDERCOLOR
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For specifying the color of frame borders
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COLS
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For determining number and size of frames
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FRAMESPACING
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For adding space between frames
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ROWS
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For determining number and size of frames
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The most common use for frames is making your title and menu a permanent entity. To do this, you will need to split the page both horizontally and vertically. Notice that a frame page is not a strict document type and uses a frameset opening tag. The pages in your frames can still be strict documents.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//w3c//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1-frameset.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>My Fourth Page</title>
</head>
<frameset cols="144,*">
<frame name="menu" src="menu.html">
<frameset rows="108,*">
<frame name="title"
src="title.html">
<frame name="main"
src="main.html">
</frameset>
</frameset>
</html>
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Most designers now try to avoid frames because they feel it clutters the screen and does not look as good as tables do. If you can use
tables to
do what you want to do with frames, then I would suggest using a table. There are a few things that frames are still the best tool for.
A warning though--when you have links in a frame page make
sure you have your targets right. More than likely, you would prefer another part of your page to open up in the frames settings, but outside pages should not be in your frames page, or at least should open up in a new
window.
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Name: Kevin
Comments:
Jonelle, the complexity of these articles continues to amaze me! Thanks for writing :D
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