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So, okay... my teacher for my webdesign class is making us get peoples opinions on whether or not to use frames to build a website... He wants us to write a one page paper about our findings on the advantages and disadvantages of using frames...
Can you guys give me some thoughts about frames, and whether you use them or not? Brownie points will be awarded to anyone who helps out... :-D :-P
Thanks a lot
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Could be either...depends on what ur usin em for...
The old excuse for not using frames was always browser incompatibility. This was very ligit reason for not using it. But unfortunatly the reason behind doing something (in this case avoiding use of frames) is forgotten.
A lot of people will say dont use frames, but I havn't seen a logical reason for not using frames for a long time.
Advantages for using frames? you can have static html that stays on the screen while the rest scrolls. sure u can use dhtml and flash to do different, but then it will look pretty poxy, similar to how geocities works.
A lot of sites dont use frames, they choose to use tables. of course the problem with this is you need go to the bottom or top to find the standard links, which is always a pain. however most forums and blogs dont use frames. also a lot of teh news sites dont use frames, so one could argue that going with the flow keeps consistancy with sites of similar nature (which is actualy a very good argument).
So if it's not a matter of doing a forum, a blog or a news site then I would most prob use frames. however if using any of the former I would most prob not, to keep a consistant feel to the site.
Btw, not sure how arrows work and focus works in IE and Firefox with frames if multi frames exist.
I-Frames are horrible.
Frames are horrible.
Tables and/or PHP includes are the only options. If your making a site and you want to get indexed on google, google wont index half as any pages if you use Iframes/frames.
im using CSS all the time ..... i used to use frames or/and tables, but CSS is the best way IMO
I generally don't like frames, I guess in certain circumstances they can be ok. but in most cases frames make pages look.....busy
Or just thow up the entire site on flash and tables
The reason i use neither of those is because they are spanking ugly.
I mean a scroll bar in the middle of a page?
And a Frame that's just there and doesn't move.
I use templates.
I was in a similar situation last year. To get full marks for our web design unit, we had to use frames. I however, got away with using iframes, and that design is still up on my website (http://www.wingtips.org.uk -- No, I'm not hit-whoring :p) While frames and iframes are sometimes useful - if you have a graphic heavy layout, it means your whole page isn't refreshed, just the frame which could be nothing but text; and it's easier to update a navigation frame than to update your navigation system on every single page - they have disadvantages. Not all browsers let you view frames correctly. Another is usability problems. Open my website, choose an internal page, and try bookmarking or e-mailing someone the url. You'll only get the home page. Another is targetting. It's so easy to forget to put a target frame at the end of a link, and doing that once could screw up your whole site from the viewer's point of view. I know I'm guilty of doing that on my site in one or two places, but frames are only a temporary solution. Some WYSIWYG editors cannot use frames, although they tend to be older. Both Dreamweaver and Frontpage gave me problems with my iframes. Also, a lot of search engines have problems indexing framed pages, as the home page merely has the frames text. Another problem is printing issues.. ever tried to print a framed page? And of course, there's always everyone's favourite problem, scrollbars and frame borders. These can be hidden, but again, not all browsers can interpret this code. Your page can also give problems for other site makers. What if someone wants to link to a specific page? And again, the targetting issue, apparantly legal action has been taken because some site owners object to their website appearing in someone else's frames. (Petty, but apparantly true. But when you see some frames pages, you can see their point.) And there's always my major gripe with frames pages, refreshing. I get really annoyed when I hit F5 or my browser refreshes by itself, and I get taken back to the home page. I normally kill my browser at that point. That's another point..user opinion. Never forget that when doing, or writing anything about web design. It's what your visitors think that matters.
Take my advice, try PHP! Might take longer to do, but much easier to update :)
I hope this helps :) I feel like I've just written something for my old lecturer >.<
You can disable scrollbars on frames.Quote:
Originally posted by 1337elite@6 Hours Ago
The reason i use neither of those is because they are spanking ugly.
I mean a scroll bar in the middle of a page?
And a Frame that's just there and doesn't move.
I use templates.
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To me, frames are an easy way of achieving things without knowing PHP. If I knew PHP, and could have the code re-write the menus and all the information for me, then I wouldn't need frames. Since I don't know any PHP, I usually create a frame or iframe in the middle and use a standard custom-made template for all the pages to be loaded within the frame.
Another thing, use tables for everything!
MetalSkin made an excellent point.
Frames were bad mouthed for a long time because of their compatibility issues. Now they've pretty much evaporated.
I don't use frames for a few of reasons. I think it's really difficult to do a site design that looks good with frames. Frames are a pain in the ass to work with. And you can still run into some issues with webcrawlers and etc.
I think it's much easier, cleaner, and better looking to use Div's and the overflow control via CSS.
