View Full Version : Frames
jdiben
07-26-2003, 09:23 PM
I've noticed alot of people recommend not using frames. I personally love frames and wish more sites would use them. They help keep the important content in view while scrolling the page.
I was thinking of using frames in my next site but since reading the site reviews I am having second thoughts. My question is what are the pros and cons to using frames?
Thanks
Joe
tikanet
07-26-2003, 09:47 PM
Frames make it harder for search engines to catalog your pages. They prevent the bookmarking of internal pages, and prevent directories from linking to internal pages. If it's important to you, frames prevent proper printing from earlier version browsers.
At minimum, make sure that your <noframes> tag contains the best possible description of your site. Be sure to repeat this info in your meta tags. When possible, include a no-frames version, which you link to in the <noframes> info. More work, yes, but it covers the eventuality that the viewer's browser doesn't support frames.
As always, it depends on who your target audience is.
Stew
cyanide
07-27-2003, 02:21 AM
since you're starting a new site, try staying away from frames and see how you do.
As tikanet said, you're going to have some real troubles with search engines. In fact I can't remember the last time a frames site came up in any of my searches.
I personally love frames and wish more sites would use them.
less and less sites are using them because of the search engine factor. If you don't care about people finding your site from search engines, then sure, keep using frames.
but since you're starting a new site, why not do some research on SSI (server side includes) -make sure your host supports this.
another choice is php include files. You don't even really need to know the php language to utilize the power of the include files.
With SSI, you will use .shtml instead of .html
With php, you will use .php instead of .html
Within the pages the html coding is the same.
A quick illustration (SSI and php work this way) -just different syntaxes.
In addition to your regular pages (index.php, contact.php, support.php), you will create 2 additional pages. you can call them header.php and footer.php . As you can guess the header goes at the top containing logo, navbar, etc. and the footer goes at the bottom containing bottom links, copyright, etc. inside these 2 files is just regular thml code.
Then your index.php, support.php and contact.php is the main content, again just regular html code.
No your index.php page will look like:
<html><head></head><body>
<? include ("header.php"); ?>
<table><tr><td>
Main content, bla bla bla
</td></tr></table>
<? include ("footer.php"); ?>
</body></html>
so in essence you're saving some time.
now, if you change your links or logo, you only have to edit the 1 file (header.php) instead of all your files.
Anyway it takes a little time to try it out
Good Luck !
carju1
07-27-2003, 06:14 AM
Hi Joe,
Don't listen to them! A frames site can still be one of the best looking sites on the web. The pro to frames is that the header and navigation stays where it is and only the main content has to scroll which can make for much better layout.
In addition pages are much quicker to download when users are naviagtion around the site as all that repetative code doesn't have to be put in each page. As more mobile internet connections from phones etc. come on line and download speeds become important again I can see frames making a big comeback.
The con's to frames are search engines and the difficulty of target tags. Cyanide said:
In fact I can't remember the last time a frames site came up in any of my searches. Well search on Yahoo, google or MSN for "Rally Raid" and you will see my site at No.1 or 2 and its a completely frames based site. Yes you do have to be very careful with your tags and use the noframes bit (There are some great articles on WPN about it which you must read and follow especially the one by Jill Whalen http://www.webpronews.com/wpn-4-20020924HowtoOptimizeaFramedSiteforHighRankings.ht ml ).
The other things are that you must get all your target tags correct on your site as a single frame breaker can make a big mess and make sure every page has a link to the home page at its bottom incase users enter the site from a content page.
In my opinion the reason most new developers have moved away from frames is that all the easy to use software packages to build sites are not geared up to building frames based sites and most developers don't take the time to learn to do a proper frames site. Therefore they haven't built a frames based site and can't see the beauty and advantages of a good one (Just like me with flash I suppose:)
Regards
Julian
cyanide
07-27-2003, 01:54 PM
ha ha
I'm glad carju1 is able to get a great search result.
And good job on promoting the use of frames.
I guess it boils down to preference anyhow.
jdiben
07-27-2003, 03:06 PM
Thank you everyone.
I guess I will stay away from frames for now. I think I'll design a B.S. site to play with to try to overcome the problems mentioned.
Julian, did you have to do anything special for the search engines to get your site listed?
Thanks Again,
Joe
carju1
07-27-2003, 05:12 PM
Hi Joe,
No I didn't do anything different with the Search engines themselves just the usual submission methods. It's your site that has to meet the frames requirement.
Mainly you need to have the NOFRAMES tag filled with at least 300 words of good text. Make sure its the type of text that contains you main keywords often but reads well when they put the excerpt up on the search engine. Also for 'spider' search engines make sure your NOFRAMES text has all your navigation links in it so that they can navigate your site. Have a look at the source on my home page and you'll see the type of thing I mean.
For a small site I may not recommend frames, but for a large site (I think the Nissan site is now over 500 HTML pages) I still find that frames make updating and maintenance much easier, especially when I am running 3 language versions of a 'nearly live' race commentary update and have to get results on within minutes of them being released.
Regards
Julian
PBITech
07-27-2003, 11:11 PM
Hi Joe,
Many people dislike frames, some so much they will disable frames on their browser. I won't attempt to explain peoples preferences because that would be impossible. Maybe it confuses some people, or makes them feel less in control, or it's just different than most of the sites they visit. The key here though is preferences, and if your conducting any sort of business online, well you have to pay attention to how people feel and what they prefer.
I can explain my preferences, I don't mind frames if they are done well, Julian's site is a good example. The only thing is book marking and printing, but heh? what's a right click "frame>open in new window" or "frame>book mark" ,ya a little work but I' de hardly complain about that, not publicly anyway:) There are of course scripts for this stuff too! I've seen many sites done very well in frames (that I like!).
Although I agree there may be smaller, stand alone features to a site that would require or work best in a frame set(s), I don't necessarily agree with larger sites utilizing frames for sake of update and organization. My opinion is your favorite programming language and MR.Database. Rather than having 1000(s) pages stuck in HTML format, it's much better to have only a few pages/files/templates to edit to maintain your navigation, organization, layout etc, especially with several different languages of speech. Of course your database up keep as well. One problem is, the average computer's environment is not set up for testing and manipulating some of these heavier programming languages.
To put it simply, I feel that many *new* web developers get into frames because it appears to be the next step, the higher level in HTML, neat!, or seems to be the best way to organize a lot of information. I think it is more beneficial to learn how to manipulate larger amounts of information dynamically first, before jumping into a frames thing, and later on wishing you hadn't. Of course all this depends on what you feel is good for your venture, or the extent you feel you need to take things as far as your on line business goes.
As well, there are several good software packages out there for people who do not know, or don't have the time to get that deep into development or programming.
Moving along. The big hype is the SEO and ranking/spidering thing, and the ones that hate frames will of course jump on this too. I would find it quicker, easier, less confusing - with more options to optimize a none frames site regardless of size, but that's just me. As for a showdown between frames and noframes ranking? I wouldn't waste my time, and that's not why I'm posting. I believe framed sites can do excellent for rankings, again Julian's site is a good example.
By the way Julian, you forgot to mention one of your secret ingredients to the overall success of your brew. Your HOME target="_top" link at the bottom of most of your good inner (non frames) content pages, this allows spiders or surfers that land on that page to jump to your main frameset or spider/view your noframes links/content.
As far as the <noframes></noframes> content goes? I' de recommend a good organized site map. Why?
(1) For surfers that aren't using frames, if they and on that page and it looks garbled or unorganized they'll likely split, and not want to return to fish for your information and links.
(2) NoFrames content Being organized allows you to easily and quickly update it with new information and/or links to new pages you've created.
(3) This has been mentioned but, great for keywords, descriptions foryour links/site categories, description of your company. I wouldn't even hesitate to put a nice image or two on your no frames page!
Do I seem opinionated about frames? No not really, just had some things to add.
Jim
fathom
07-29-2003, 11:00 AM
I've noticed alot of people recommend not using frames. I personally love frames and wish more sites would use them. They help keep the important content in view while scrolling the page.
I was thinking of using frames in my next site but since reading the site reviews I am having second thoughts. My question is what are the pros and cons to using frames?
Thanks
Joe
If you like frames and are worried about the cons of frames --Cascading Style Sheets 2 (CSS2) is the way to go.
They maximize "on-screen real estate" through layering without needing to stack individual pages on top of a frameset.
And search engines love them too!
pete61uk
07-30-2003, 04:26 AM
Hi All,
As an IT newby/student the debate on the use of frames is at times quite heated and there seems to be no middle ground. Either they are loved, or hated.
Personally, as I have used them on my own site, I (by default) must be in the 'love them' camp?
However, despite the main advantages of using them, i.e. maintaining continuity of the user experience; fast upload of new content/pages, and SEO, they do present the unwary designer with at least one problem that is not immediately obvious - ensuring that the site is viewed 'in context'.
My own site is purely a means of applying the technologies I am studying in college so, as time (and my studies) have permitted, it has developed incrementally as each problem has presented itself.
I myself only become aware of the 'out of context' problem by monitoring my site statistics, a very useful tool!
cnnsmith
07-30-2003, 11:03 AM
A number of site reviews for my site have recommended losing the frames.@ http://www.wholesalebatteries.net
Would anyone recommend a floating link bar instead of frames?
press711
07-31-2003, 12:00 AM
There are several troubles with frames - printing, navigation and viewing(on old as well as new browsers).
Also pages with frames are quite slow because the browser treats each frame as a different object that requires a new connection. This in turn slows down the users computer.
You can have floating div's with css ... which is great for accessibility and the new standards but looks ugly of Netscape4.7 and older browsers.
My suggestion stick to non-frames. if you want an easy way to maintain multiple page try dreamweaver templates or server side templating. For speed issues just add meta data tp cache images which hardly change(such as your logo) and please compress those images.
carju1
07-31-2003, 07:09 AM
Hi,
Press771 said
Also pages with frames are quite slow because the browser treats each frame as a different object that requires a new connection. This in turn slows down the users computer.
Whilst on an itinial page which is loading 2 frames the above statement is true, for all subsequent pages where just one frame content is changing this is false. Overall on a site frames will decrease the total download time for a visitor as they will have less total bytes to download beacause as the 'naviagtion' or 'banner' frame stays the same they don't have to re-load the code on every page.
One of the big advantages of a frame site is that the total data to download for a visitor viewing several pages is less.
Regards
Julian
fathom
07-31-2003, 11:08 AM
You can have floating div's with css ... which is great for accessibility and the new standards but looks ugly of Netscape4.7 and older browsers.
One thing to remember here is the small usage of Netscape 4.7.
A quick search across 4.3 million visitations (my sites this year) 1.17% were using this browser.
Although still a fair number (50,310) -- time to put older browsers to bed and design for the other 4,249,690 users, as this is likely... the more profitable group of the two.
Tatter
07-31-2003, 04:28 PM
When I took my first html course, we covered frames, though the teacher of my digital pictures course told me he hated frames.
after seeing some really poor frames, I have to agree with him.
One way to navigate easily from page to page are drop down menus(my site has over 60 pages at last count, and my customers love being able to go from on page to another with them) ... in fact, I have had several people copy my code and use it on their site.
But, the company that tried to do a hostile take-over (with no success) have started their own site, and I am happy to say they use frames, and no one in Nestcape can see the prices, and in IE, if it's an old version, you can't see much either...... and they have a lot of dead links..... I am keeping my mouth shut! :-)
I am going to look into the php bit because updating all the drop down menus can be a pain when something is added, but it's worth the customer satisfaction.
I guess there's good and bad to all types of design. I usually see a reply to the frames issue that goes something like this:
Make your home page NON-frames, then create an enter section that is "Frames" and another that is "No Frames". Then go about the work of creating the pages full of content you want people to see.
All just an IMHO thought
FishySteve
08-08-2003, 07:29 AM
My 2 cents
Frames are awesome!!
I started out with frames and found them to help the pages load faster (after the first page was hit). They keep the site nice and tight and makes it easier for visitors to browse a site with the nav frame fixed....
Then I had a close look at my site stats, when a visitor from SE hit an internal page it only loaded the content page, no header or nav frame.. I figured it might be a little more difficult for these visitors to navigate without a nav bar....
Anyhow if you do use frames make sure you put a simple text menu at the bottom of your content pages, 2 reasons that come to mind are
1. give visitors that only hit the content pages a way to navigate.
2. Give the other pages a chance to boost your SE rank by pointing to the rest of the site and vise versa.
Ok I'm braced for a good sledging....
Regards
Steve
carbonize
08-08-2003, 08:13 AM
Hi,
Press771 said
Also pages with frames are quite slow because the browser treats each frame as a different object that requires a new connection. This in turn slows down the users computer.
Whilst on an itinial page which is loading 2 frames the above statement is true, for all subsequent pages where just one frame content is changing this is false. Overall on a site frames will decrease the total download time for a visitor as they will have less total bytes to download beacause as the 'naviagtion' or 'banner' frame stays the same they don't have to re-load the code on every page.
One of the big advantages of a frame site is that the total data to download for a visitor viewing several pages is less.
Regards
Julian
Almost correct but have you heard of a little thing called the Cache? If, like on my site, you use an include for the header and footer and these files are the same on every page then the browser should be pulling them from the hard drive and not from the web. So your comment about faster downloads and less data to download is incorrect.
Also frames act differently in different browsers not to mention how the pages contained render. So while your framed site looks good in IE it may have scroll bars or even big emptiness on other browsers.
Graf1771
08-08-2003, 10:21 AM
I guess i have to add my own thoughts on this:
I have never used standard frames on a website, but i do use iframes a lot for news / extra information. And i find using php includes for headers/footers/menus to be very useful if i have a large site that needs updating often.
All of these techniques are used on:
http://www.nightmagic.co.uk - this site has about 600 pages now i think and would be impossible to keep up to date without includes and iframes...
The main problem i have with frames is being unable to link to individual pages from another website. I guess if you're happy to design with them, and don't mind the problems with search engines indexing your site properly then, hey, what do i care? I just won't link to your site! ;-)
hawkwind dave
01-06-2005, 07:29 AM
I'm digging up an old thread here, but hey, the time has come for me to play with frames. My gut feeling says 'remove all frames' but after reading Jill's excellent article http://www.webpronews.com/ebusiness/seo/wpn-4-20020924HowtoOptimizeaFramedSiteforHighRankings.ht ml I'm gonna give the frames a chance and make as much use as i can of the noframes tag.
and this is my question, can a place an entire page body in the noframes tag, images, font styles, the lot? or are we restricted to plain text & links?
would the spider prefer plain text and links? (due to less code).
hmmm....;-D
Paul B
01-06-2005, 10:56 AM
A number of site reviews for my site have recommended losing the frames.@ http://www.wholesalebatteries.net
Would anyone recommend a floating link bar instead of frames?
This a great argument for dropping frames this is what search engines see of this site:
Spidered Text :
Wholesale Batteries Inc.
Spidered Links :0
I dropped frames years ago (I was a big fan, but got into big complications with linking to pages) and I thought everyone else did - except large multinationals who replace SEO with advertising spend.
Why stick a 'second website' in noframes - whcih will need updating along with the visible site
If you like the layout then CSS is the way to go. Stick this in your browser:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>CSS Experiment</title>
<style type="text/css">
html, body {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
height: 100%;
width: 100%;
overflow: auto;
background: #cce;
font: 11px/1.5em verdana, sans-serif;
}
#container {
height: 80%;
width: 100%;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
overflow: auto;
z-index:0;
}
#content {
margin: 40px 40px 40px 250px;
border: 1px solid black;
background: #868;
color: #eee;
padding: 20px;
}
#fixed {
border: 1px solid white;
background: #55a;
color: white;
font-weight: bold;
position: absolute;
top: 48px;
left: 251px;
width: 180px;
padding: 10px;
}
h3 {
font-size: 16px;
line-height: 1.2em;
}
#top {
background: #449;
color: white;
width: 100%;
height: 20%;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="fixed">
<h3>No Frames
No Tables</h3>
This is an experimental page showing what can be done using Cascading Style
Sheets (CSS)
</div>
<div id="top">
This page does NOT use tables or frames!
</div>
<div id="container">
<div id="content">
<H1>Top Up - Top Down</H1>
Through a top-down, proactive approach we can remain customer focused and
goal-directed, innovate and be an inside-out organization which facilitates
sticky web-readiness transforming turnkey eyeballs to brand 24/365 paradigms
with benchmark turnkey channels implementing viral e-services and dot-com
action-items while we take that action item off-line and raise a red flag
and remember touch base as you think about the red tape outside of the box
and seize B2B e-tailers and re-envisioneer innovative partnerships.
Evolve dot-com initiatives delivering synergistic earballs to incentivize B2B2C deliverables
that leverage magnetic solutions to synergize clicks-and-mortar earballs while
facilitating one-to-one action-items with revolutionary relationships that
deliver viral markets and grow e-business supply-chains that expedite seamless
relationships and transform back-end relationships withthrough a top-down,
proactive approach we can remain customer focused and goal-directed, innovate
and be an inside-out organization which facilitates sticky web-readiness transforming
turnkey eyeballs to brand 24/365 paradigms with benchmark turnkey channels
implementing viral e-services and dot-com action-items while we take that
action item off-line and raise a red flag and remember touch base as you think
about the red tape outside of the box and seize B2B. </p>
<H2>e-tailers and re-envisioneer</H2>
Innovative partnerships that evolve dot-com initiatives delivering synergistic
earballs to incentivize B2B2C deliverables that leverage magnetic solutions
to synergize clicks-and-mortar earballs while facilitating one-to-one action-items
with revolutionary relationships that deliver viral markets and grow e-business
supply-chains that expedite seamless relationships and transform back-end
relationships withthrough a top-down, proactive approach we can remain customer
focused and goal-directed, innovate and be an inside-out organization which
facilitates sticky web-readiness transforming turnkey eyeballs to brand 24/365
paradigms with benchmark turnkey channels implementing viral e-services and
dot-com action-items while we take that action item off-line and raise a red
flag and remember touch base as you think about the red tape outside of the
box and seize B2B e-tailers and re-envisioneer innovative partnerships that
evolve dot-com initiatives delivering synergistic earballs to incentivize
B2B2C deliverables that leverage magnetic solutions to synergize.
</p><H2>clicks-and-mortar</H2>
Earballs while facilitating one-to-one action-items with revolutionary relationships
that deliver viral markets and grow e-business supply-chains that expedite
seamless relationships and transform back-end relationships withthrough a
top-down, proactive approach we can remain customer focused and goal-directed,
innovate and be an inside-out organization which facilitates sticky web-readiness
transforming turnkey eyeballs to brand 24/365 paradigms with benchmark turnkey
channels implementing viral e-services </div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
hawkwind dave
01-11-2005, 09:04 AM
Wow, thanks for the huge bit off css heaven!
top man Paul B!
regarding your comment "Why stick a 'second website' in noframes - which will need updating along with the visible site"
because in this case , it's one of those brochure type sites, so it's only updated say every twelve months or so.