Frames or not?

Freeway
1

Hello everybody, I’m new, so my question may be silly! Is there any way (excepting frames) to create a page in which different areas can change independently, like you can do with frames? In the Freeway documentation there are advice against the use of frames. So what can I do to split the page in different areas where (for example) a menu on the left side calls different texts ad images on the rgiht side of the page (without reloading a new entire page)?
Thank you and sorry for my english!

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2

On Nov 21, 2007, at 9:27 AM, Beniamino wrote:

Hello everybody, I’m new, so my question may be silly! Is there any
way (excepting frames) to create a page in which different areas
can change independently, like you can do with frames? In the
Freeway documentation there are advice against the use of frames.
So what can I do to split the page in different areas where (for
example) a menu on the left side calls different texts ad images on
the rgiht side of the page (without reloading a new entire page)?
Thank you and sorry for my english!

Nothing wrong with your english, but I do have a question here. Why
on earth do you want to do this?

One of the many things wrong with frames is that they break the Web.
If a page exists, it ought to be link-able as a destination – a URL.
Barring clever scripting hacks, frames or iframes are not linkable,
except as broken fragments. If you link to a page that’s meant to be
framed in, it will appear missing all of its context.

Now if you want to do what you describe, you have a few different
options. One would be to use Frames. Another would be to use iFrames,
which are similar to Frames but a bit less fiddly in practice.
(There’s an Action to create them in Freeway Pro.) Still another
would be Ajax – using JavaScript to load the content into a named
DIV on the page. This last one would be very cool and all, but it
would also raise the bar above frames or iFrames – anyone browsing
with JavaScript turned off would miss most of your page. It would
also be the hardest to pull off in Freeway, because you would need to
strip off the HEAD and BODY tags from the page fragments you wanted
to load dynamically.

Tell us a little more about why you want to do this, there might be
yet another way (there usually is!).

WAlter

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3

Hello Walter, thank you for your fast answer!
I’d like to do that just to avoid the loading time of the elements of the page that I don’t need to change (like the menu). In browsers like Internet Explorer I don’t like to see, in the loading, the page that build itself anytime I call a new link… It’s hard for me to explain! You can see my portfolio at this link where I’d like to do that:

http://www.dellatorrerivoira.com/Beniamino/Grafica/allemandi.html

I’d like the do same also the video section (avoiding to open pop-ups and loading the video in the same page)!

Beniamino

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4

On Nov 21, 2007, at 11:04 AM, Beniamino wrote:

Hello Walter, thank you for your fast answer!
I’d like to do that just to avoid the loading time of the elements
of the page that I don’t need to change (like the menu). In
browsers like Internet Explorer I don’t like to see, in the
loading, the page that build itself anytime I call a new link…
It’s hard for me to explain! You can see my portfolio at this link
where I’d like to do that:

http://www.dellatorrerivoira.com/Beniamino/Grafica/allemandi.html

I’d like the do same also the video section (avoiding to open pop-
ups and loading the video in the same page)!

Beniamino

I understand what you’re trying to work around here. Ask yourself if
it’s worth the price – to your visitors – of not being able to
bookmark pages, send URLs to friends, etc. Nobody likes to get a URL
and then eighty words of “first click on the portfolio link, then the
third portfolio icon from the right, …”.

A well-made browser will cache everything that doesn’t change from
page to page, so this problem is minimized in that case. I don’t
notice much if any flickering between links on Safari.

By the way, your designs are GORGEOUS! Love the posters for CRF SPA.

Walter

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5

Ok Walter, you have persuaded me! I’ll follow your advice without doing strange things! Thanks for you congratulation about my works… I have a lot of material to upload in the next days!

Beniamino

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6

If you have a navigation strip along or down a page. It can load so fast for
most that there isnt a sense of discontinuity. If it uses many identical
elements then it will load from cache.

I think this is the way to go rather than frames.

Frames can still be fine for a gallery site in my opinion.
But if content gets unframed - via search engine links - or if the viewer
wants a bookmark - as well as printing issues - its just not worth going
that way.

all the best
Brian

Beniamino said recently:

Hello everybody, I’m new, so my question may be silly! Is there any way
(excepting frames) to create a page in which different areas can change
independently, like you can do with frames? In the Freeway documentation there
are advice against the use of frames. So what can I do to split the page in
different areas where (for example) a menu on the left side calls different
texts ad images on the rgiht side of the page (without reloading a new entire
page)?
Thank you and sorry for my english!

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7

Hi,
This is from an amateur in programming but :
Wouldn’t it be perfect to have a site working as frame-built one, easy maintenance, fast loading, never have to repeat a meny more than once and without frames and not Java dependant? I have found it (I think):

If you surf to http://www.kraus.com.ar and click on the first round logo to the right of KRAUS SHOP you will only see this url in the url window regardless of what link you click on, a typical frame solutions.
But here’s the interesting: try open a frame in new window or new tab and you will open an identical page as in the frame solution but with direct google-friendly url. And you can go on surfing with this urls.

This is just the one I want to build. It works when Java is turned off.
Actually it is the same technique if you direct click on http://www.kraus.com.ar and open a frame in new tab, besides it is made with tabells.

Ulf

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8

The thing is, besides framing in the site, they’re not actually using
frames on the inner pages. Each time you navigate within the site,
you’re loading an entire page. If you pop one of the pages open in a
new window, it’s a full page. There’s just no good reason for what
they’ve done. They’ve effectively just put a site made out of regular
pages in a single-frame frameset, and not done any of the things that
framesets are actually good for.

Walter

On Apr 23, 2009, at 1:02 PM, ulfr wrote:

If you surf to http://www.kraus.com.ar and click on the first
round logo to the right of KRAUS SHOP you will only see this url in
the url window regardless of what link you click on, a typical frame
solutions.

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9

You often see this full page, single frame, technique when users want
to mask the true site URL with the URL of the frame set but here, I
agree, it offers very little to the site. This is the first site I’ve
seen like this. Odd.
Regards,
Tim.

On 23 Apr 2009, at 18:49, Walter Lee Davis wrote:

The thing is, besides framing in the site, they’re not actually
using frames on the inner pages.

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10

Alright, thanks, I agree it’s odd, but the beauty is how the full page is built.
You can turn Java Script off and it still works.
It seems as if the center part loads the surrounding areas.
Is this doable in Freeway?
I just love this kind of solutions, if I ONLY could make it myself !! <:-|

Ulf

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11

That may be your perception, but it simply not the way the site is
built in fact. This is a desperately ordinary HTML site, built in
Dreamweaver, wrapped in a single-frame frameset for no apparent
purpose, except perhaps to break the bookmark functionality of your
browser.

You could re-make this site in 25 minutes in Freeway. It’s just one
Master page for the layout, then Page / New Page… and set the dialog
for the number of pages you need. Copy, paste to update the body copy,
one trip back to the Master page to update the navigation links once
you’ve made the target pages, and hey, there is no step 3 (as Jeff
Goldblum once intoned…)

Walter

On Apr 24, 2009, at 1:13 PM, ulfr wrote:

Alright, thanks, I agree it’s odd, but the beauty is how the full
page is built.
You can turn Java Script off and it still works.
It seems as if the center part loads the surrounding areas.
Is this doable in Freeway?
I just love this kind of solutions, if I ONLY could make it
myself !! <:-|

Ulf

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12

Thanks a lot, I will try this simple solution. Guess more sofistikated non-frame solutions uses php or AJAX.

Ulf

On 24 Apr 2009, 6:30 am, Tim Plumb wrote:

You often see this full page, single frame, technique when…

On 24 Apr 2009, 5:33 pm, waltd wrote:

That may be your perception, but it simply not the way the site is
built in fact. This is a desperately ordinary HTML site,

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13

No, this is an ordinary page, nothing fancy about it at all. There is
no reason on earth (that Tim or I can think of, anyway) why it is
wrapped in a frame. It doesn’t serve a useful purpose – it’s actually
quite user-hostile.

Tim and I have each been making Web sites since the mid '90s, and we
have seen these fashions come and go. Frames (in general) is one
technique that was buried behind most people’s sheds long before the
turn of the century.

But neither of us have seen this sort of thing – forcing all pages to
have a single URL, essentially – used on its own like this. Usually,
forcing all pages to have the same URL comes as a necessary evil – a
trade-off – of using the other frames (visible or invisible) for some
purpose that either helps the visitor or enhances their experience, or
helps the developer in some way.

Neither of these purposes are being served here. The hidden blank
frame is truly blank, there is no tracking bug or JavaScript hidden in
it, there is no soundtrack MP3 playing on all pages of the site, and
because the frame is hidden, there’s no earthly purpose to it from the
developer’s point of view – he or she is not saving any effort at
all; not re-using any common content, nothing, nada, zip, zilch.

Which leaves us with hiding the true URL from the visitor. Why anyone
would think this was a good idea eludes me. And Tim.

Now if you are looking at this site, and seeing that most (all) of the
pages look exactly alike, and everything is aligned with the page
before and after it, then that’s nothing to do with the fact that it’s
wrapped in a frame. That’s simply a page that was designed once (as a
sort of template) and then filled with variable content during the
design phase. You can do the same thing in Freeway, much faster than
in most other applications. Make a Master Page, place any content or
placeholders on it you like, then make pages based on that Master.
Each one will inherit a copy of the master element, and as long as you
only change the content of that “child” element, it will maintain its
link back to the Master. And every page will look exactly alike. Click
from page to page, and elements will snap into place as if they were
part of the background.

Yes, the URL will change from page to page, but you actually want
that. It’s a good thing. It’s the cornerstone of the Web, and if you
knock it out, your house falls down.

Walter

On Apr 27, 2009, at 9:08 AM, ulfr wrote:

Guess more sofistikated non-frame solutions uses php or AJAX.

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14

Sometime around 27/4/09 (at 10:07 -0400) Walter Lee Davis said:

neither of us have seen this sort of thing – forcing all pages to
have a single URL, essentially – used on its own like this.

I’ve seen this both a long time ago (mid 1990s) as part of simple
domain and web hosting (not good hosting, naturally), and more
recently as a crude way of cloaking content location. But I totally
agree that it is actually a Bad Thing, all things considered.

I agree 100%: don’t do it. It has the same twisted logic as papering
over the windows of buses and trains with adverts; that would
increase ad views per person, but it would drive people off the
services. People like to be able to see where they are.

k

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15

'Folks, please f o r g e t I ever mentioned the “wrapped in a frame” !! I DON’T give a **** about that =) sorry.

Now, I am only interested in the technique of incorporating a page as a part of another page without using frames, iframes or master pages.

I was wrong in believing that those full pages was done in some advanced technique. Terribly sorry.

Ulf

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16

This page that you want to incorporate in another page – is it your own, or is it on another domain? There’s a couple of ways to go here, but whether you control the content or not rules the decision of which way to accomplish your goal.

If the page is not your own, you will need to do some “scraping” to it (read the source, re-write it so that the combination of the original page and your page isn’t some sort of monster with two heads that crashes browsers) before inserting it into your page. And especially if the page is not your own, you will need to do this on the server side – JavaScript cannot cross domain barriers.

If the page is on your own site, and you control it, then you can do a server-side include, a JavaScript (Ajax) include, a PHP include – the sky’s the limit. Or even, dare I say it, a frame.

Walter

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17

There’s a couple of ways to go here, but whether you control the content or not

The page is on my own site

If the page is on your own site, and you control it, then you can do a server-side include, a JavaScript (Ajax) include, a PHP include — the sky’s the limit. Or even, dare I say it, a frame.

PHP include seems to be about what I was looking for. I found an easy-to-follow tutorial here: Include Pages in PHP | Tutorial.

I realize that one is loosing a lot of design control this way.

Is is possible to strip head and body tags in Freeway?

Thanks

Ulf

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18

Use the PHP Make Insert Page Action, available at ActionsForge. Note that you have to pay attention to your styles, of make sure you use external stylesheets or your text will look mighty desperate.

Walter

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19

Thanks Walter.

Ulf

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20

Hi.

I noticed a few familiar names on this thread, Hi again Walter.

I was looking for exactly the same solution as the original poster of this thread and for the same reason. My site is pretty big and I used to use frames in DW (my pre-mac days!).

I resurrected this thread just because I wondered if it is still current?

I have unsuccessfully had a bit of a play with frames in FWPro and wondered if it was worth pursuing?

Happy not to, I don’t really want to start a rewrite… but it’s always worth asking!.. Just in case I’m missing anything.

Thanks all.

James

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