i am getting a white page flashing in right before my intended pages (color is dark grey) comes into the frame. its rather distracting. i was wondering how to fix that. i went to the books and searched the forum, but could'nt find the answer. thanks for the help!

Why are you using frames ?? Frames = bad.

It would help if you could post a link or the code so we can see what's going on.

Definitely need to see some code or better a link to the page in order to help, but it's possible you may have to live with it. It's likely just the way you coded both pages. For example if you used a table based layout then the browser will need to read through the code a couple of times before it can present the layout. Tables will load in a browser completely and until the code is read the browser will generally display a background color.

It could also be the case that it's taking time to load the page you want into the frame. Similar situation in that the browser will display the background color while it's reading the code to display what goes into that frame.

i am working on it right now andd should have it up and running in a few days. but there is a construction page up. and if you go to about or contact you will see the white flash. i am a newbie to web design so its probably somthing easy. easy once you know anyway. hope this helps.

frames are bad? i just started learning how to use them! i mean really i get a huge headache trying to figure out some thing and the its out the window. sa la vi i guess. i am now trying layers which i love in photoshop but hate in dreamweaver. are the on the way out too?

I'm not sure if you fixed things, but I wasn't seeing the white at all in either Firefox or IE. I have a high speed connection so it might be something that you'll only see on a dial up connection. I do think it's happening though because those pages (about.html and contact.html) are using tables for their structure.

When a broswer encounters a table it reads through all the code once to understand the structure of the table and then reads through it again to being displaying it. Tables are also displayed either all or nothing so what I think is happening is you're seeing a whte background momentarily while the table code is being read that first time through.

I'm not sure if it will help, but you can try adding the same background you're using on the body in the table as well. For people with fatser connections it probably won't be an issue anyway.

Frames do have issues. The main reason for using them is so you can have all your site repeating code in one file making it easier to make site wide changes to things like menus. There are simply better ways to do the same thing. I use PHP includes, though you can use any server side language. If I'm not mistaken LadynRed uses server side includes (SSI). Neither is difficult to learn.

Search engines spiders will have difficulty reading framed sites so you're almost assuring most of your pages won't get indexed. Another problem with frames is when people bookmark a site they are really just bookmarking the main frame. If I bookmark your site while on the About page and later go to your site through the bookmark it's the home page that will actually load for me. People also can't print framed sites.

There are other issues, but those tend to be the main ones. It mostly comes down to there being much better ways to do the same thing. Just try a search for php inlcudes or ssi and you should be able to find some pages letting you know how to set them up. Both really are easy and if you can't find anything feel free to mention it here. Either LadynRed or myself (whoever gets here first after you post) will be happy to help.

thanks i'll try that. i am also viewing in saffari, which might have a problem too. i think i'll get the page up and running then go back and improve bit by bit. again cheers!

Glad to help. Keep us updated on how things are going and don't hesitate to ask more questions if you have them.

You might want to read the following 2 articles, one about frames, one about tables

http://karlcore.com/articles/article.php?id=2

http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/everything.html

Good articles LadynRed. I think I forgot to mention the accessibilty issues with frames in my post above and just want to mention them here. The details about their problems can be found in the first link LadynRed posted above.

thanks lady in red. i finaly read those articles. i will probably by one of the books and a bottle of asprin next week. i have some of my site up (www.crepinsekphoto.com) using the wrong stuff. but its basicly just an online portfolio for me. i still have a to post my art and personal photo sections. i figure i will get them up and running the way i know how then redo the entire site correctly.

hey by the way what would you say would be the best way to present images on the web?

There's nothing wrong with doing it the way you know how at the moment and then redoing it later once you know more. I try to learn something new on every site I do and while what I learn may not make it into that site it usually will on the next one.

As far as the best way to present images I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. Do you want to know whether it's better to use an image gallery kind of thing or whether to have the images full size or as thumbnails?

I just took a look at your site and the photos in particular. I liked how they were layed out up until the last page with all the band images. I think once you have that many on a page it looks better to have them aligned more, though I'm sure there are some creative ways to orgranize them out of line and still have them look good. I usually tend to lay out images in a tabular way when there are that many. Not necesarily with an actual table, but aligned in columns and rows. It's not a bad use for a table though.

Other options I see that look nice are having a kind of slide show where the images are all in a line and either moving in one direction or first needing a click to see what's beyond the initial 3 or 4 images that load.

I've seen a lot of good different slide show applications. It usually comes down to how many images you have and how many you want to display in a given space.

yah ive been having trouble finding a good way of presenting my images in a way that has dignity if you know what i mean. it can be hard to present art on a screan. i have been looking at some slide show programs or some made using flash. i was wondering if anybody new a good somewhat easy to use one. i plan to subdivide images by country then by type, so there shouldnt be any more than in the commercial section. i was looking for one that maybe has thumbs on the right side and as you click a arrow button or something they would slide over into the middle in full view, showing the next images as thumbs.

What you're describing sounds like a pretty nice way to show the images. I'm not sure if I've seen an application like that anywhere, but admittedly I haven't looked all that often so it might already exist. I think most of the nicer ones tend to be custom applications.

If you can find one online that's close to what you want you might be able to grab the code they use and see how it's done and then write your own custom version. Some JavaScript should be able to handle what you want to do if you're comfortable with the language.

You can try searching HotScripts for some scripts.

i will check that out. i dont really know anything about java though. (another book another bottle of asprin, se la vi!)

JavaScript (different language than Java) isn't too hard to learn, but it obviously helps to know some programming.

Some of the scripts you'll find will be incomplete and need you to understand the language if you want to modify it. Other's will just need an install and often the script author has provided that.

There will also be similar scripts in other languages. I mentioned JavaScript specifically, because I think the effect you're looking for is usually written in JavaScript, but there will most likely be scripts in other languages that that will accomplish the same thing.

i took a look at that site. had some nice stuff. there were a few that said they use flash. i have the mx kit with flash and all that. and was thinking of trying it for the show. but i hear a lot of people saying to stay away from flash presentations. i know myself that even on a hispeed line it might be impresive to see a flash site once but i never like to return. so if i can i'll try that javascript.

Yeah it is a good site. One I'll always browse through when I'm looking for a script I can modify. Normally I'm not crazy about Flash, but I think a slideshow is an application where it can work well. Be prepared for search engines not being able to read the images though, so if that's important to you it might be better to use something. Of course they're not that great reading JavaScript either.