Josh,
My guess, I think it's called a "hidden frame" since everyone seems to name
the frame-of-minimal-size "Hidden" in their frameset. I'm not a big fan of
frames for GUI and I do think this hidden frame technique is one example
where frames can effectively improve the user experience.
it's not really hidden, it just a frame with a size=0 pixel (or size=1
pixel, in Netscape I believe), so small that the user doesn't see it, hence
the name. however since each frame, as always, acts like its own little
browser, you'd use the hidden frame to pass the info to and from the server
and to and from the visible frame(s). The hidden frame can also be
effectively used to "pre-load" data esp if you have quite a bit, as long as
you keep in mind the browser limit on such things--our experience has been
that IE will barf much past 512k in the entire cumulative frameset--much as
you can imagine an example where you're editing records, perhaps on one of
those "Next N" pages, and rather than hitting the DB to save the edits for
each and every record and to load each and every next record, you instead
store the current visible records (you know 10 per page, 25 per page, 100
per page, whatever) in the hidden frame, populate the visible frame with any
given record's data, make changes, save the data back to the hidden frame,
and then do the commit to the db when the visible frame goes on to the Next
N or some other location. Again, this is not a catch-all solution, depending
on what you're doing this may be a very effective way to make the app appear
to work "faster" (and it does since in this example you've cut down on the
hits to the server.).
Again, apply the "right tool for the right job". Hidden frames can be
effectively used if you try to fully think out ahead of time what
specifically (that's the hard part) you're trying to accomplish by using
them. In the above example, perhaps the users were dialing up from Ethiopia
on a 14.4 modem (don't laugh, we had a scientist doing this to upload info
in a DB on an AIDS project), or perhaps the person is somewhere where they
pay per KB transmitted, so suddenly the total bandwidth used to edit the
records becomes one of the business rules that must be managed. Heck this
might even be an issue not for the client but for the server if you are
hosting at one of those server farms that charges per MB or GB served up.
Get a little traffic flowing and you can really burn through that. However
please don't quote me that I told all the bandwidth-challenged sites to go
switch to frames! I'm just trying to throw some simple ideas at you as to
how the hidden frame(s) idea can sometimes be of benefit. No band-aid is
gonna fix a bad GUI.
----- Original Message -----
From: "JoshMEagle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "CF-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 1:02 PM
Subject: Re: Allarie/Macromedia ColdFusion Feature Suggestion
> Can you explain "hidden frames" a little bit? This sounds interesting and
> although I've been writing JS and HTML for over 5 years, I've never heard
of
> this - PLEASE SHARE!
>
> Thanks!
>
> Joshua Miller
> Web Development
> Eagle Technologies Group, Inc.
> Business Solutions for the Next Generation
> www.eagletgi.com
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Todd Ashworth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "CF-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 6:42 AM
> Subject: Re: Allarie/Macromedia ColdFusion Feature Suggestion
>
>
> > Actually, you can 'simulate' this using hidden frames. I've actually
done
> > it. It works pretty well as long as the the client browser supports all
> of
> > the features.
> >
> > Todd Ashworth --
> > Web Application Developer
> > Network Administrator
> >
> > Saber Corporation
> > 314 Oakland Ave.
> > Rock Hill, SC 29730
> > (803) 327-0137 [111]
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "JoshMEagle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > To: "CF-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2001 11:38 AM
> > Subject: Allarie/Macromedia ColdFusion Feature Suggestion
> >
> >
> > | Proabably a bit late to place this request for 5.0 - but how about
6.0?
> > |
> > | Why don't you all make CF capable of grabbing JavaScript variables at
> will
> > throughout the page using a function like scriptvar() or jsvar() or
> > something like that? As many people as use ColdFusion together with
> > JavaScript, this seems like it would have been addressed in version
1.0 -
> > but now we're at 5.0 and still no mention of being able to easilly
access
> > JavaScript variables via CF.
> > |
> > | And no, I don't mean through a form submission, or in the URL or
> anything
> > else - I mean mid page I'd like to be able to do something like:
> > |
> > | <script>
> > | colorval=thing.style.backgroundColor
> > | </script>
> > |
> > | <cfoutput>You're using color: #jsvar(colorval)#</cfoutput>
> > |
> > |
> > | Not the best example, but you get the idea. I'm sure it presents
> > logistical problems since CF is processed on the server and JS on the
> > client, but you all are bright folks, surely you can figure this one out
> :)
> > (please?)
> > |
> > | Just my $0.02, thanks for listening!
> > |
> > | Joshua Miller
> > | Web Development
> > | Eagle Technologies Group, Inc.
> > | Business Solutions for the Next Generation
> > | www.eagletgi.com
> > | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > |
> > |
> > |
> >
>
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