RE: Tables vs. Frames summary?

Bart makes some good points. Additional comments are below.

At 03:19 PM 12/22/97 -0500, B. Szyszka wrote:
>> 1. Don't listen to arguments from others who say not to use frames at all
>> because they "hate" frames or that they "never visit" framed sites. Frames
>> have a place on the WWW.
>I think the original poster (Nathan I believe) should hear
>out both sides of the story and decide that for himself.
>Let's not insult his intelligence.

Sorry if I insulted anyone's intelligence. However, the argument that
frames are "unecessary" does NOT equal that they are "bad." The plain fact
is that the majority of people surfing these days are doing so using
browers that support both frames and tables, and they don't give two hoots
about whether your site uses one or the other or both.

>> 3. Use Frames if you want to provide static elements, such as navigation
>> lists or graphics, that do not change from page to page. Having a static
>> navigation bar can greatly simplify a visitor's navigation of your site.
>I would recommend tables instead and keep the navigation on
>the same place in everypage. You'll have to create a non
>frames version of a site for the people who prefer not to
>browser with them and the disabled anyway, and it should be
>just as good as the frames version, so why bother with frames
>in the first place?

A well-designed framed site with a static navigation bar and a frame for
content that changes will load MUCH more quickly than a page that redraws
the entire page (even if most of the images are cached). Faster loading =
better site engineering, in my mind.

>Design has a way of falling into place on its own, let thing
>take their course. Thia "design in frames -> design equal
>noframes version -> dump frames because noframes is equal
>and has support for more people" this is a good example.

Anyone who is using a browser that supports tables and a connection that
can download images quickly can also support frames. The alternative
visitor, someone cruising with a text-only browser or with images turned
off, isn't going to like your tables version anyway. So the alternative to
a framed site can be a text-only site that happens to also play a part in
the total "framed" site (ie, no duplication of code).



--------------------------------------------------------------------
Chuck Evans                       E-mail: chuck.evans(at)enduracorp.com
MarCom Coordinator & Webmaster     Phone: (206) 522-0055
Endura Software                      Fax: (206) 522-0053
115 NE 100th St                      Web: http://www.enduracorp.com
Seattle, WA 98037                 Member: HTML Writers Guild
--------------------------------------------------------------------

HWG hwg-theory mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA