definatly NO

I actually find frames very hard to master. Also, ifames are better than frames. Frames create too many pages just for one end result that could have been done with tables. And you dont see many good sites using Frames. Frames should never been invented. I made the mistake of using them and i paid for it dearly. I use scrollable content devies instead (dhtml). On my new site it features a scrollable content device. But IS NOT A FRAME OR IFRAME. And if you are using FP 2000 it messes the whole thing up. Admittedly i still use FP 2000 only for certain thingsm


Mik

With just about every reasonable host (free and pay) offering either cgi/SSI/php/asp there's no reason to use frames when file includes could be used. Eons ago there were browsers that didn't support frames. That hasn't been a concern for a long time. The fact that many search engines don't follow frames well and often link to internal pages (without the frameset which usually contains the navigation), you'd need a script that forces pages to be opened in the frame. As someone else said, it's a pain to send links to individual pages. It's IMPOSSIBLE to bookmark a specific page and if you have a deep linking site, it's frustrating for visitors.

File includes do all the things that people use frames for... easily updating pages.

Looks like you got your answer

Frames are definatly annoying, tacky and just plain pointless, can anybody give me reason why you would have to use a frame? Didnt think so.

Iframes on the other hand can come in handy sometimes. heres a site i made some years ago which imploys about 5 iframes on the same page. http://www.lazyarse.net

There usefull when you want to refresh just a small area of your site rather than the whole page. Or if you have some kind of navigation system with lots of other content you want to keep displayed.

IMO, Absolutly No, i never use frames as they can really muck up your website if you get them wrong

frames are the tool of the devil!!! they're evil i say - EVIL!!! >8(
seriously, i learned to cuss in part because of having to press F6 over and over to navigate through crappy frames pages. i also tend to either use mozilla or to ignore font sizes in IE. frames pages suck for that. (try reading the first 3 letters of every nav menu item crammed into some stupid frame.)
tables or CSS layouts are easier to set up and don't have that search result problem. server side includes can be used for quick loading without pissing off your users.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NO!!! Frames are a thing of the past. I cannot think of one good reason to use them. Please someone kick me for even saying the F word.

no to frames, yes to iframes, i really think they can be great, mainly becasue they can go virtually un noticed, and any page can be targeted into it, i think they CAN work wonders, especially on sites where you have images as the layout, ie: http://revealed-destiny.net/ad

Thats my site and i have one iframe, which works great.

Unless someone can teach me a way to imitate what iframes do, i will stick by them!

I voted no but im partial becuase iframes can be very usefull in certain situations.

I say no to frames too I don't know how many times I have found pages in search engines missing the navigations and headers because it only listed the main part of the page. And I hate the look of scroll bars all over a site

Pamela

frames are good for special web applications, where otherwise you would need to reload the page too often. most web sites simply do not need this capability.

Interestingly... Microsoft have gone back to frames with their new windows update website (v5). They have managed to do a good job, that is unless you have a screen res of 800x600. If you do then the experience is nasty and I mean nasty. What was microsoft thinking......?

I'm probably gonna take some verbal abuse for saying this, but frames are still in my web-design tool box. My view is that it's better to have 'em and not need 'em than to need 'em but not have 'em. And I've encountered lots of applications where a frameset, or the way a frameset works, is the most user-friendly solution to a web design problem.

It's very unfriendly, for example, to build a page with lots of links to pictures or small content pages that open a new window or goto a new page everytime you click one of the links. Then return to the main page to click the next one and wait for another window or new page to open. Frames don't do that to you or your guests.

Yes, like most web design elements, frames have both user-friendly advantages and user-unfriendly disadvantages...

FRIENDLY...

Links to other pages are located on a nav bar, and thus always visible
Main frame scrolls "under" the top frame, so header is always visible
Content pages are displayed without opening a new window
Changes to header and navigation bar affect all frames
Frames provide a more user-friendly context for picture galleries than basic html

NOT FRIENDLY...

Links to framed pages display pages without the header and navigation bar
Links to frameset (no content) kill "link popularity" of framed pages
Browser's address is URL of frameset, not the framed page.
Bookmarks link to the frameset, not to the framed page.
Some search engine robots (spiders) will not "crawl" a frameset.

But there are ways to keep the user-friendly features while eliminating the user un-friendly ones. You'll need a basic understanding of how to build a frameset for the first method, but not the other two. If you haven't permanently closed your mind to frames, I've got a basic but very thorough tutorial on how to do frames right. I've also got the javascript for method #1, and think I can resurrect the code for method #3.

METHOD #1 - Use JavaScript to reload the frameset for each target page: Visitors see the title and the url of the framed page. If they save a framed page to Favorites, the framed page is bookmarked, not the frameset. If they come here from the url of a framed page, they see the header and navigation bar, because the script automatically loads the frameset. And spiders "see" your keyword-rich text and links to all frame pages in the <BODY> section, using <NOSCRIPT> tags. The javascript for this method is small and easy to implement in each file.

METHOD #2 - Use Server Side Includes (SSI) to simulate a frame. When a visitor clicks the link to a page, the server adds whatever content you specify in the file for the main page to be included when that page loads -- header, footer, sidebar and so forth. SSI operates just like a frameset, but without any of the user-unfriendly features, and is very easy to implement. Ask your host if it's available on the server for your website.

METHOD #3 - Use javascript and css to simulate a frame by "hiding" each target page until its "sidebar" link is clicked. This method doesn't work quite like a frame, because the hidden content cannot include tags associated with a separate web page.

Go easy on me, please -- I'm old and feeble...

METHOD #2 - Use Server Side Includes (SSI) to simulate a frame. When a visitor clicks the link to a page, the server adds whatever content you specify in the file for the main page to be included when that page loads -- header, footer, sidebar and so forth. SSI operates just like a frameset, but without any of the user-unfriendly features, and is very easy to implement. Ask your host if it's available on the server for your website.

This article is strictly referring to frames and wether or not they should be used. SSI may have the same effects as frames but do not count as frames becasue they are generated before the page is delivered (aka server side) and therefore do not have the same interactivity (e.g. the ability to have scrollable content). In your article you did not cover your actual use of frames or your opinion of them and merly glossed over them by suggesting alternatives that may be more user friendly.

Please post again, its interesting to read other peoples opinions of frames and why/how they have formulated them. Your previous post on this thread does not give me an answer to either of the above questions.

Probably reading you wrong, but pretty sure you should read me again, because I did not gloss over frames, but rather gave you a detailed list of friendly and unfriendly features, specific ways of getting around the unfriendly ones, and a specific application for their use. Enough to answer both your questions about why you might want or not want to use a frameset in a particular application.

My advice is to not narrow your decision to use or not to use frames down to one advantage or disadvantage, but to consider as wide a context as possible. I use frames, for example, when the friendly factors far outweigh the unfriendly ones. Like when my guest will want to view a gallery of pictures without clicking themselves silly. Like when my guest will have little or no reason to bookmark a framed page. Or like when the application just screams for a frameset, and I couldn't care less if Google or any other robot can crawl through it.

My advice is also to not base your decision to use or not use frames on words you read in this forum. Sit down and do the work yourself -- build a frameset, try it out, get sad, glad or mad because it doesn't work like you thought it would, fix your own errors and find ways to overcome the unfriendly aspects of the feature itself. Do it again. And again...

By the way, all my SSI pages contain scrollable content...

God even the mere mention of the word "Frames" nearly makes me break out in hives Definetly a big fat NO from me!

Karen