This thread discusses the Content article: TechTip: Frame Crossing, Part I

Jan wrote: "This is where frames do a great job. You can build menus and headers very easily with frames, and you can reuse these over and over again. And if you change a menu, you only have to do it once."

I faced the same problem with my own web site www.boldts.net. To maintain a common look and feel, you want to have common headers, footers, and menus amongst the pages of a web site. I considered frames, but a web search will of course give you plenty of reasons to stay away from them. (But hey, if your clients are happy, who am I to argue, right?)

Many of us are lucky enough to be using Apache. Instead of frames, I take advantage of the SSI capabilities of Apache. On my site, the header and footer are generated from separate include files. For menus, my site uses about a dozen different menu includes to handle the different categories of content. Pages that fit in two categories include two menus.

One design feature I wanted on my site was to have the anchor link for the current page to be disabled when the page is viewed. Otherwise, I found that visitors will often click on the link again. That functionality is also achieved using SSI.

BTW, Jan, have you tried out your test page using Firefox? (But hey, if your clients are happy using IE, who am I to argue, right?)

Cheers! Hans

PS, why is the BB software putting underscores around the words frame and link?

There are pros and cons to using frames in an app and you will probably discuss some of them in your next article.

I like frames for the purpose you mention... creating a nice tree structure menu system with Dynamic HTML (and a little AJAX now for lazy loading). It does great in isolating page refresh when you have multiple sections to refresh since you can target only a frame for refresh rather than the whole page.

I also like frames when I may have a large table that I want to display with a scroll bar ( works just as well).

The con for using frames is communication between frames. It can be more complex than having everything in a single frame and in the Javascript, one may get lost if you don't have consistent coding conventions.

However, I agree H.Bolt. Having a consistent set of Headers/Footers and sidebars is not a good reason for using Frames. Most web servers (Apache, Tomcat, JBoss etc etc) support SSI.

If your header/footer/sidebars have dynamic information then Java and PHP (the two languages I'm really familiar with) support includes of other dynamic web pages and Page Scope of request variables to support those dynamic features.

And H.Bolt, now days, one needs to check the web-app out in IE (6 and 7 since they support Javascript differently), Firefox and (because I'm becoming a Mac Fiend) Safari. They all have little quirks on handling CSS and Javascript that have left me beating my head against a wall more than once.

Hi,

Thanks for sharing your views about the frame tip.
The reason why I worte about frames was because it is something everybody can get their hands on.
Sure SSI and PHP can eliminate the use of frames, but that means you have to use a webhotel or set it up yourself on your own server/pc - and that will drive a lot of people away even before they get startet. I hope that my little tip will work as an appetizer which will make the reader of the tip "want more" so say.
Hans - sure the code should of course work in FireFox, but I made som embarrassing errors in the code and for some reason I did not test it in FF before I published it. But I am so lucky that the code is loacated on my own server, and I have now corrected it and also uploaded a new zip file for download, which (hopefully) have no errors.

Best regards and have a nice weekend
- Jan

Jan wrote: "Sure SSI and PHP can eliminate the use of _frame_s, but that means you have to use a webhotel or set it up yourself on your own server/pc - and that will drive a lot of people away even before they get startet."

I have Apache running on my workstation. Doesn't everyone? B)

Seriously, though, it's incredibly useful if you manage a web site to be able to test on your home LAN before uploading your pages to the server. Apache is included in many Linux distro's, including openSUSE 10.3 which I run. For those who haven't tried Linux lately, openSUSE 10.3 is an amazing collection of wonderful software, almost filling a whole DVD. No one can say anymore that Linux is not ready for the desktop.

Cheers! Hans

And since this is an AS/400 forum, Apache comes on the AS/400! It works GREAT on the AS/400. I'm working for a client that is developing an corporate level web application and Apache works great!

Apache is also an integral part of the Mac OS X operating system, easy to install on Windoz, and is easy to install and configure on Linux and is the core of many webservers including Websphere...

I can only agree with all your point of views - but is it just me or am I missing the point? The tip was about using frames and how one could exchange data between frames. But suddenly we are down to praise webserver features.
Sure the Apcahe server works very very well on the i5/Linux and even on Windows?

So if no one else will then in the near future I'll write a tip about getting started with Server Side Includes (SSI) and then we'll have two different tools either to combine or compare....

Best regards
- Jan

Jan: I too was thinking of writing to Victoria to see if she'd like an article on SSI. But hey, we all know how to read the Apache documentation, eh? B)

Deity knows I'm guilty of straying from the subject of discussion threads. But when I first read your article, I was rather surprised that someone in 2008 would actually advocate the use of frames! Suggesting server-based alternatives is, I believe, fair game when discussing frames.

Cheers! Hans

Actually, I was looking forward to the article on Frames. The first one was very good and thought it would be good to see how others used them, too

Hans,

Please do not get me wrong, I think it is great that you bring server based controls into the discussion.

Maybe I am old fashioned about the use of frames and maybe I will change my point of view, but despite of that I still think they are a good way to get started with, specially if you are new to creating web programs - but please stay tuned to next part, which I am working on at the moment - and yes everything I am planning to do can of course be done with SSI and likewise...

- Jan

ps: I know we all can read Apache documentation, but I still think people like examples and how to combine it with for example RPG....