On 15 Oct 98, Gill, Kathy wrote:
> Remember, folks, when you use a frameset to display One Frame -- but
> don't code well -- you consign your poor end user to head-scratching
> while they try to figure out how to back up in your site -- since their
> history feature Won'T Work.
"Don't code well" being the operative phrase here. In a hidden frame
scenario, where each "new page" is actually a new frameset, the anchor
target of each page should be "_top", i.e.,
- page1.html: frameset;
- page2.html: frameset;
- link from page1.html to page2.html: <a href="page2.html" target="_top">
This causes the first frameset to be completely replaced by the second,
allowing the browser's History to remain functional. In fact, Jakob Nielsen
strongly advises doing this in all cases when you use frames, whether
hidden or not; he points out (as I did here a few weeks ago) that the
"fixed" frames are in the browser's cache anyway, so it's not really an
issue that the complete frameset has to be redrawn each time.
Following this advice is also a good way to force oneself to reassess
using frames in the first place: "Hmm, seems kind of pointless having
frames here if each page has to be completely redrawn anyway... but the
alternative is making it impossible for my users to bookmark pages, or
navigate properly... hmm. Maybe I can live without them after all..."
-----------
Brent Eades, Almonte, Ontario
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Town of Almonte site: http://www.almonte.com/
Business site: http://www.federalweb.com
____________________________________________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Join The Web Consultants Association : Register on our web site Now
Web Consultants Web Site : http://just4u.com/webconsultants
If you lose the instructions All subscription/unsubscribing can be done
directly from our website for all our lists.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
