RE: Frames - To Use Or Not To Use

Do we REALLY have to use foul language in these discussions?

Using the slang word for a female dog is NOT acceptable in a business
discussion or in conversation with ladies present and is abusive to them.
The word implies the attempt to equate a problem in language coding that
then becomes a malicious, spiteful, or domineering woman.

It is language used in a school yard or in a locker room or at a pub amongst
drinking partners.  That word is an insult to our ladies, to our Mothers,
Sisters, Wives and Daughters, all of whom we should be protecting rather
than insulting.

Can we not use the word "bear" or "problem" or another such word?

Your logic used in your message about the original question is helpful.
Your opinion on the subject matter is sound but WHY do you have to reduce
yourself (and readers who could be children) to the use of gutter language
is beyond my ken.

You are intelligent and articulate.  You obviously have excellent skills in
your work area.  Please lets try to keep this site clean.

Thank you.

Walter Kesting
Pax Et Bonum



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org
[mailto:owner-hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org]On Behalf Of Mike Kear
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 1:45 AM
To: Ken Cole; hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org
Subject: RE: Frames - To Use Or Not To Use


Frames are a real bitch for anyone sight-impaired using the software to read
a site out aloud for the user.  Just as long navigation bars are.


For this reason, I've adopted a non-frames policy.  ( I work with cold
Fusion mostly and  you don't need it anyway.) The main reason a developer
would use frames in my opinion is to reduce the amount of coding, and to
reuse code.  And so that when a change occurs you don't have to go through a
gazillion pages making the same change over and over.   So if you use
server-side includes - a snip with coldfusion, asp, and php -  you have one
sub-file with all the navigation bars (or whatever it is you want to reuse)
and it's included in every page.  Change that and bingo all the pages are
updated instantly and reliably.   With the big sites, they're using dynamic
techniques,  building the pages programmatically as you browse, so they
don't need frames for that purpose.  Asp and ColdFusion and PHP allow you to
build the page on the fly, so frames don't really offer a great advantage
from a development perspective.


And by getting rid of frames, there's one level of complexity gone.  You
don't have to sweat dealing with scroll bars that might appear in the middle
of your page.    When you have frames you have to be very careful of sizes
of everything for the different resolutions, so you don't either get scroll
bars or have parts of your page inaccessible because part is below the frame
border.


I inherited a frames site, and one thing I've noticed about it is that it
takes a lot longer to get to a specific section of the site, because I have
to go to the home page first,  then use a nav link to get to the section I
want to see.  I can't just type in the url and go there.   So it means that
users can't bookmark that section.  This might or might not be a good thing
for you, depending on how you want users to access your site.



As a small aside,  leading from that sight-impaired thing, one thing that's
a real boon for sight-impaired people is a tiny link at the very top of the
page, just under the body tag that links to the main content of the page,
and jumps over all the navigation.  So you have a 1 pixel transparent
graphic right under the body tag, and it links to the first word of the
content.  It's label is something like 'jump to content'.


If you want to take account of accessibility for disabled, you would do well
to watch a blind person work your site.  I did a few months ago, and it was
a revelation, I can tell you!   We had a demonstrator come in from the
Institute for the Blind, and go through our site while we all watched.
Some of the things we thought were rather clever, did nothing but put trip
wires in front of him.  So with small changes to the site, such as putting
that little link at the top,  we made the site much more pleasant for blind
people.


And one of the lessons I learnt from that demonstration was to do away with
frames completely.  They are navigable, but they are a pain in the ...  well
they annoy them.


Cheers,
Mike Kear
Windsor, NSW, Australia
AFP WebWorks




-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org [mailto:owner-hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org]On
Behalf Of Ken Cole
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 9:21 AM
To: hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org
Subject: Frames - To Use Or Not To Use

G'Day Everyone,

Firstly I hope this is the correct forum for this question.  Secondly I
am not trying to start nor wish to start a religous war.

Can someone point me to some good and unbiased views on the pros and
cons of using frames?

Should I, Shouldn't I?
What about frameless browsers?
Any security reasons why to/not to use?
Anything else I should consider?

Thanks

Ken Cole

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