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HTML FRAMES Chapter 12 in HTML: The Definitive Guide

Frames
  • Allows you to display several inter-related documents at once.
  • Supported by Netscape & Microsoft
  • Often the same effect can be simulated with repeated image maps.
  • User operation is less intuitive than regular Web pages.

Two "classes" of html documents
  • Layout Documents.
    • Contain information on the frame structure of the page, and a "pointer" to the contents of each frame.
  • Contents Documents.
    • Contain the standard HTML that is actually displayed (in this case in a frame).

Layout Document
  • This is a html page that details your frame layout.
    It does not contain a <BODY> .. </BODY> tag.
    <FRAMESET 
         [COLS=#|%] 
   [ROWS=#|%]
   [FRAMEBORDER=yes | no]
   [BORDER=#] 
   [BORDERCOLOR =#RGB]
    ............................................... >


      < FRAME SRC=" source.html"> < FRAME SRC=" source.html"> < FRAME SRC=" source.html"> < FRAME SRC=" source.html">
    </FRAMESET>

    <FRAMESET>
    • Frameset may be nested.
    • Frameborder (yes = 3D; no = line).
    • Border thickness (BORDER) may only be set on outer-most Frameset.
    • ROWS and COLS attributes allow '*', which tells the browser to allocate the space that's left proportionally

    FRAMESET
    • Use <FRAME> to define contents Page.
      • Frames filled left->right, then top->bottom.
    • Use <NOFRAME> ... </NOFRAME> to provide non-frame page contents. Only use in outer-most <FRAMESET>.



    <FRAME> Tag
      <FRAME SRC=URL 
           [NAME="FrameName"]
   [NORESIZE] 
   [SCROLLING=yes|no] 
   [MARGINHEIGHT=#]
   [MARGINWIDTH=#] 
   [FRAMEBORDER=yes | no] 
   [BORDERCOLOR=#RGB]
      ............................................... >

    Frame Example 1

    Frame Example 2

    Direct Nesting of Framesets 
      <FRAMESET ROWS=2>  
     <FRAME SRC="DOC-1.HTML">  
     
     <FRAMESET COLS=2>    
          <FRAME SRC="DOC-2.1.HTML">
          <FRAME SRC="DOC-2.2.HTML">
     </FRAMESET>   

</FRAMESET>

    Indirect Nesting 
      <FRAMESET ROWS=2>      
     
     <FRAME SRC="DOC-1.HTML">
     <FRAME SRC="NEW-DOC-2.HTML">

</FRAMESET> 

        

      •  where NEW-DOC-2.HTML contains: 

      
     <FRAMESET COLS=2> 
         
          <FRAME SRC="DOC-2.1.HTML"> 
          <FRAME SRC="DOC-2.2.HTML"> 
     
     </FRAMESET>


    Named Frame (Target)

    • Hyperlinks have an attribute, TARGET="FrameName".
    • Special Targets:
      • _self (default), _parent, _top, _blank
    • _blank will open a new window. So will any FrameName that has not been defined.


    Frames Online Examples

    Frames Online Summary