Web Design with Frames

Frames are the ability of the browser to display multiple web pages windows at one time. Windows can be divided in (vertical) Column Frames, (horizontal) Row Frames or a combinations of both-Row and Column Frames.

  • Browser features of Netscape 2.0 and IE 3.0
  • Language features in HTML 4.0 and included in XHTML 1.0 with the frameset DTD.
  • Frames display navigation bar.
  • Frames enable more information on a single Web page.
  • Separate pages the Navigation, Logos and text pages
  • Easy to update pages
  • Use DOCTYPE Definition for frames
  • Frames can be used with JavaScript/DHTML
  • Page source codes are not displayed

Web Design Difficulties with Frames

  • Longer download time
  • Too many frames can be confusing
  • Visual Accessability Problem exist
  • Scroll bars can alter viewing area
  • Designers must prepare for various size monitors
  • Search engines must work harder to index pages
  • Some older browsers lack resources to display frames
  • Inability to Bookmark specific pages or print specific pages

Frameset and Noframes Format

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd">

<html> <head> <title>Frameset 2 Columns</title> </head>
<frameset cols="25%, *">
<frame name="left" src="first.html">
<frame name="right" src="second.html">
</frameset>

Noframe version

<noframes>
<body>
<p>Place alternative text within the body tags</p>
</body> </noframes> </html>
Web Design with XHTML Part II
Community College
Doris Cuffey, Instructor