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Frames or not?
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!
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
Freeway user since 1997
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
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
Freeway user since 1997
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
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!
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
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.
Freeway user since 1997
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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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
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
Freeway user since 1997
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,
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.
Freeway user since 1997
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
‘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
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
Freeway user since 1997
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: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/tutorial/include.
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
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
Freeway user since 1997
