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Subject:Re: HTML documents with frames From:"Jeanne A. E. DeVoto" <jaed -at- BEST -dot- COM> Date:Sat, 20 Jun 1998 20:42:13 -0700
At 5:43 PM -0700 6/20/98, Suzanne Pyle wrote:
>I'm doing an online user guide in HTML format. I'm using FrontPage 98 and
>wanted to use frames. The user or customer has IE 3.1 or higher. Is there
>any reason you can tell me why not to use frames? I'm assuming that IE
>supports frames.
Let me count the ways.
Framesets can be bookmarked, but framed states cannot. This means that if a
user goes deeply into the framed site and sets a bookmark, that bookmark
will point to the initial frame configuration, and they'll have to click,
click, click to get to the set of pages they really want to see. This is
ugly.
Some versions of some browsers do not handle Go Back properly in a framed
document. This can be extremely confusing at best.
Most framed layouts are pretty prodigal with screen space. Users will not
thank you for wasting precious space on such things as a persistent index
or corporate logo.
MSIE 3.x for the Mac has a preference to turn off frames. (I keep frames
turned off myself most of the time.) I am not sure about the Windows
version, however.
If you are doing as you ought to by providing equivalent content within a
<noFrames> element, you face a serious update/synchronization problem,
since the same content will exist in two different places (the framed
document and the <noFrames> element in the frameset document). This is a
headache.
By shipping MSIE 3.1, you can make sure all customers have that browser
available (I assume this is what you're doing). Are you sure they'll all
prefer to use it? Are you sure none of them have a different preferred
browser? Are you sure all of them have the necessary hardware support to
run it efficiently, or might some prefer a lower-weight browser such as
WinWeb/MacWeb or Mosaic? Is it possible that any of your customers may be
blind or visually impaired and require screen-reader software or a text
browser?
Et cetera. There are not many situations where the benefits of frames
outweigh the problems caused by the ugly Netscape implementation of the
concept. I would advise someone in your position, dependent on FrontPage,
in the strongest terms to avoid using frames. It is difficult even for the
experienced to set up a framed site in a way that doesn't cause massive
user problems.
--
jeanne a. e. devoto ~ jaed -at- best -dot- com http://www.best.com/~jaed/
Morning people may be respected, but night people are feared.
