Re: more on frames

At 06:41 p.m. 11/20/98 +0000, moonraker wrote:
>ORIGINS/BIRTH
>There seems to be an awful discrepancy here - no-one seems to agree on when
>they were introduced (formally) and into which HTML! My old manual is the
>"Web Publishing with HTML3.2" (Prof reference edition) by Laura Lemay,
>(1996) who says that frames were introduced with Netscape 2 and IE3!  Who
>is right? Can some learned member of this list point us to a definitive
>statement on the matter - there must be something on the web.......

Frames were introduced by Netscape in Netscape Navigator 2.0.

They were not a part of the HTML specification until HTML 4.0.

>AESTHETICS
>Clearly a lot of people don't like frames! Putting to one side those who
>are visually impaired for a moment, I cannot understand this at all.
>Obviously, as has been said, they can be overdone and used as a gimmick,
>but when done with a bit of flair and skill I think they are a marvellous
>way of navigating.

When done right -- perhaps.  However, maybe 10% of the websites out
there need this, and of those, perhaps 10% of them do it correctly.

>Think of all the books you know which have a pull-out
>containing a key, so that one has constant access to it nomatter what page
>one is using - isn't this the same idea as frames?

Not necessarily -- you can get the same effect through other means,
too.  It's possible to make a navigation scheme that uses no frames
but gives the functionality you describe, in other words.

>Also, the real joy of
>hypertext (to me) is its non-linear reading capabilities. The constantly
>visible menu provides the epitome of that position, and the use of frames
>is the main example - though I'd like to here of more.....

Actually, I'd disagree with you on this -- a linear menu actually
hurts the non-linear capabilities of hypertext by defining an "order"
for the information.

>CONCLUSIONS
>Obviously, I have to keep on using a no-frames version to back up the main
>one. Someone mentioned a gallery site, and indeed this is my own area of
>interest. I have never really understood how one can use the <noframes> tag
>to incorporate such as site. (A text alternative is different, obviously).
>If anyone has the time to look at my site in this context I'd be interested
>in any comments or tips.

Keep in mind some of the other drawbacks of frames -- for example,
they typically destroy the ability to bookmark a page or determine
the specific URL you're viewing.  This can lead to problems in returning
to information or sending it to a friend.

Also, some frames implementations are inherently non-intuitive --
you may not know just from looking whether or not a link in the
narrow left frame will change the wide right frame, take you to
another page, open a new frame, change the left frame, or anything
else.  This can lead to a lot of confusion when trying to use
the frames.

>BTW, some sites (such as image galleries) are predominantly visual anyway
>and I would have thought that the visually impaired, mobile 'phones etc
>etc, would be excluded as candidate viewers anyway - or am I wrong?

You're wrong.  Lots of people who are visually impaired use image
galleries.

--
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn(at)idyllmtn.com>             http://www.idyllmtn.com/~kynn/
Chief Technologist & Co-Owner, Idyll Mountain Internet; Fullerton, California
Enroll now for web accessibility with HTML 4.0!   http://www.hwg.org/classes/
The voice of the future?   http://www.hwg.org/opcenter/w3c/voicebrowsers.html

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