Hello!


I'm trying to redesign my old website, built with frames since 1997 - the year i started learning some webdesign, and also, the year i stopped doing so. Until now, hopefully.

Having noticed my poor prescence on google images, i decided to look into why, and learning something new again found out that frames are considered notoriously bad, and are the probable cause for google's lack of interest in me.
So I have tried to find out the best alternative, read a few lines about 'ssi', got scared, and decided to try out 'dreamweaver templates'. They seemed like a nice idea, and so i've spent a few days trying to make a frame-free site.
It looked promising for a while.
However, my 'scrolling thumbnail list', in my gallery section, which worked nicely on my framed page, looks a bit clumsy on the new page.

-On the old framed page - you click on a thumbnail in the 'menu frame', and the linked page shown up in the main frame, and the 'menu frame' stays the same, still showing the same thumbnails and so on.

On the new page, Everything looks fine until you click on a thumbnail that you had to 'scroll down' to. Then , when the page reloads, the menu is 'scrolled up' to the top again.

Since there are no frames, and the entire window reloads, the linked page shows up with the 'menu' reset to the beginning of the list and... well....it doesnt look good....

here's what I mean.
This is my old site:
http://zetterstrand.com/

(click on 'work' to get to the image gallery)


This is the same page on site i'm working on:
http://zetterstrand.com/zettertest/w...dstillife.html

(never mind the misaligned graphics, corrupt menus and so on, i've just begun, and the place is a mess)
The pages all share the same template, which contains the thumbnail menu, and are thus reloaded with every new page.


Is there any way to have the content of my thumbnail menu stay the same, even though the page reloads?
Since I have quite a long list of images in my thumbnail menu - I don't want it to flip back to the beginning of the list everytime a link is clicked!


Please help the poor noob, and I would be most grateful!

There are probably a couple of ways to make this happen. I think you'll need to use javascript, though a specific solution isn't coming to mind at the moment.

However I do have an alternative for you. Instead of having the thumbnails along the left, what if you displayed them all as a grid in the main section of the page and used something like Lightbox 2 to show them at full size.

Since search engine traffic is important another option is to also use something like a grid to display all your thumbnails and then open the thumbnail in a new window. You could then have a close button on the new window for getting back to the thumbnail page.

I think ultimately your solution is going to be using a different navigational structure than the long list of thumbnails on the left. Starting with a grid of all your thumbnails will probably be a better solution and then there are different ways you can open the image.

Thank you very much for your reply.

I have considered using some other gallery layout, but I've used this one for ten years, and I really like it.
It's so simple, and it works. I would be very suprised if such a basic funcionality couldn't be made some other way than with frames.


If there is no way to keep my simple menu other that in a frame, well, I guess I'll have to continue using frames......


Or does anybody know if it's possible in javascript?

Server-side includes are not all that hard to do at all, but it would require using PHP or .Net.

As for galleries, there's a stickie that lists 30 different gallery solutions - all without frames.

Thanks. Cool. I have decided that I will probably recode my entire page using php. Dreamweaver templates seem a little silly
But the main problem was how to make a quick-responding, long, thumbnail list without using frames. I'd love to see those other gallery solutions. Where's that sticky? I can't seem to find it......

Here's the stickie: http://www.webmaster-talk.com/websit...galleries.html

Here's where the sticky points. 30 Scripts for Galleries, Slideshows and Lightboxes

Thanks for the examples!
But none of them seems to do exactly what I want (which is to have the gallery look like it did on my framed site.)

I could ofcourse tweak a design like this:
http://www.stunicholls.com/gallery/photo_click.html
But that would mean that I don't have sparate url's for each page, which I have heard is better for listings at the search engines.
Is that true?
Would a script like the one above be just as good as multiple pages for results on for example google images?
Does googlebot follow the liks in the script and index the images? If so, how would the page link appear on google images?

Is there no script that allows the position of the scrollbar to be saved and implemented on the next page? That would be perfect.

I realize I could put anchors on the thumbnail links, so that the clicked thumbnail appears on top of the scroll at the next page, but that's not a perfect solution either.....

But that would mean that I don't have sparate url's for each page, which I have heard is better for listings at the search engines.

That depends. What's the purpose of a separate page for each photo ? If you're worried about search engines, frames are one of the worst things you could use.

Would a script like the one above be just as good as multiple pages for results on for example google images?

Yes, because the images are going to be there on the page, and the spiders will still 'see' them.

Does googlebot follow the liks in the script and index the images?

No, googlebot doesn't do scripting - but those galleries are done with CSS, and the images are IN the html.

Is there no script that allows the position of the scrollbar to be saved and implemented on the next page?

You'd need PHP or .Net to do that.

Originally Posted by LadynRed

That depends. What's the purpose of a separate page for each photo ? If you're worried about search engines, frames are one of the worst things you could use.

So I've heard. That's why i'm redesigning my site
As for separate pages: I like the idea of having a page where the image is displayed, when you click on an image in 'google images'.

Originally Posted by LadynRed

No, googlebot doesn't do scripting - but those galleries are done with CSS, and the images are IN the html.

OK I see - but does the images load or preload when the page is loaded? That would make it a very heavy page :/

Originally Posted by LadynRed

You'd need PHP or .Net to do that.

Great. I'm beginning to learn a little PHP. Do you know how it could be done, or where I can find out how it's done?

Thanks all for your help. I found Galleria which I have redesigned in CSS to fit my needs.
That, combined with my redesign from frames to PHP, looks pretty good and I hope it will be friendlier to webspiders.

Have a look at my new site HERE

Please tell me what you think.

Looks like it's working the way you want. I'm still not crazy about the frame look, but I see it all works so I'm glad you were able to find a solution.