Frames - Left Nav and Top Nav

[Michel Girard]

I apologize for the basic nature of this question

I am looking to purchase FrontPage to develop a very simple website for my
company.

Does Frontpage make it easy to develop a home page that has a Frame on the
left and on top with the middle being the text pages? For example, on the
left, I will have 5 menus, when you click on a menu it loads a specific page
into the center section. I want to have the left and top not refresh and
just load the appropriate page.

Does Frontpage have a wizard for this? Or can you do this through a non
coding method?

Thanks
Michel

 

[Ruth Allen]

Dear Michel,

By all means, purchase Frontpage! It has wizards for creating frame pages,
but you can also use the html view and code it yourself. In any event,
FrontPage makes it easy to design web pages.

 

[Trevor L.]

I apologize for the basic nature of this question

I am looking to purchase FrontPage to develop a very simple website
for my company.

Does Frontpage make it easy to develop a home page that has a Frame
on the left and on top with the middle being the text pages? For
example, on the left, I will have 5 menus, when you click on a menu
it loads a specific page into the center section. I want to have the
left and top not refresh and just load the appropriate page.

Does Frontpage have a wizard for this? Or can you do this through a
non coding method?

Thanks
Michel

Yes, you can.
But as Ruth says, DIY is fine also

Frames are not recommended and I am trying to remove them from my family
site (see reference below). But I currently do use them.

Have a look at my site if you like. It does exactly what you want. Clicking
on any left item (except the email one) loads the page into the centre
frame.

The code is as simple as
<frameset rows="90,*">
<frame src="heading.html" name="heading" scrolling="no"
noresize="noresize"/>
<frameset cols="140,*">
<frame src="sidebar.html" name="sidebar" scrolling="no"
noresize="noresize"/>
<frame src="index_main.html" name="index_main" scrolling="auto"
noresize="noresize"/>
</frameset>
</frameset>

You just set up the three html files
"heading.html"
"sidebar.html"
"index_main.html" ("main.html" might be a better name)

Then you set up more files to load on top of "index_main"
"sidebar.html" has the code to do this.

 

[Ruth Allen]

First, thanks Trevor for the easy code you provided.

Michel,

When working with Frames, I also find it easier to code it from scratch as
I'm in the process of really understanding frame construction. However, once
you understand how frames work, they are powerful tools.

The controversy with frames goes back to when there were a considerable
number of older browsers which did not support frames. Alternative code
still exists to enable these browsers to view your pages without using the
frames and it's good programming etiquette to put that alternative code in
your pages. But, web designers must move into the current century and stop
designing so much for older browsers as there are considerably less of them.

Frames enable your web site to be more user-friendly, easier to navigate and
much more dynamic. It's efficient use of space. Frontpage makes it easy to
create framed pages (once you understand what you're doing--as I said I
prefer to code the frames myself so I let the FP wizard do it's thing and
then I go behind the scenes in html-view and adjust the code--but, to each
it's own I'm still in the frame-learning curve and I've absorbed so many
comments from both sides of the controversy that, frankly, I was afraid to
use frames on my site.

All this to say, USE FRAMES IF YOU WANT. They can be powerful tools and
most users' browsers view them without difficulty. But, don't overuse
frames. For small sites, frames may not be necessary, nor make sense as
small sites--especially a site of 5 pages--may not need frames at all.

Let me know if you need more help or would like another soap-box speech