Reasons for not using frames
 

I know atleast 20% of the all the FIRST robotics team websites use frames, and they make editing, adding, deleting, etc... stuff easy. But there are major side effects to using them.

1. They are not browser friendly. Mozilla, Netscape, and possibly others (like CompuServe for sure) don't handle them easily. (Thanks to Gadget for announcing the "they are not browser friendly" comment)

2. A big mess. Take team 5's site for an example. Before I had the menu that's on it now, the frames destroyed the other menu basically. Sure, it was a drop-down, but the code for it was basically useless. If you want a nice, clean site, use non-frames (or atleast have an option for the user wanting to view a frames or non-frames site). My poetry site is made without frames, and easy to browse (it should be anyways, it's only 4 pages). Yes, frames can make your site load faster (depending on where your server is, and a few other things), but sooner or later, it'll slow down your site to a hault.

3. Annoying. If you think a next door neighbor with his music blaring at 2 am while you are trying to sleep is annoying, try this. Frames can make images seem distorted, text become wrapped (which is bad sometimes). Even if a high-class website designer did a site in frames, it would still look the same as if a 5-year old internet newbie did one.

4. Take over the screen for small computers [Credit to Joseph M]

More to be added soon, as soon as I can think of more reasons.

[Note: All facts are not proven, but most are reliable to be true. These are my opinions. Flame if you want]

Amen brother....

This will become a peaceful cult...na, just playing. I should've made this thing a poll:

"Do you use frames?"

ya, a poll, i tried frames once, and only once....

I hate talking about why not to use frames when I'm the webmaster of team 5, and the site has frames (not my suggestion though, I was forced to use them).

I'm going to see if I can change our web site so we don't have to have frames.

But here are more reasons to not have frames:

-Take over the screen for small computers
-Mess up pictures

The last one was already stated, but thanks :D

There is one use for frames, if you own a site like www.something.com , but it's hosted on lycos, you can turn the page on something.com to a big frame that points to the lyccos one.

still, multiple ones just don't work well.

I've attempted the lycos "hack" before, and it didn't work....maybe it does now, but why no just get a server that doesn't give you ads?

The 2nd webpage I ever made was frames.

Now I use nothing but tables:
http://replic.ricified.net

See? They're sooooo much better.

Yes, tables are easier. They also make things cleaner for viewing.

Tables are becoming passe. You should try using css instead of tables it is so much easier.

CSS = Tables w/ fancier schemes. I use both CSS and tables.

Yeah you really do not need to use tables once you upgrade to css. You can move text and pictures anywhere you need to without a table.:)

I'm assuming CSS means cascading style sheets...if so, then how can you, since it only gives the tables and whatever else better styles (like dotted borders)

It is more than that it is more than that. With css you can place text anywhere you want to using the absolute position attribute.:)

personally, I use tables w/ CSS.

but...

Yes, I'll agree w/ what you said about frames. The only place I use them on my site is at the bottem where it shows another site. (With plenty of links provided to open the actual site ;))

Ah, ok. I didn't know what that was used for, til now. thanks.

[EDIT] Jack > Frames do have very minimal uses.

there are much more effective ways of doing this.
Besides why would you ever have something like this anyway. I mean come on. hosting is really cheap.

Stop bashing frames. They are fine if you know how to use them properly. if done correctly they do not mess up on smaller screens, mozilla or low resolutions. I personally do not use frames much but there is nothing wrong with them. I sometimes use frames for navbars that don't change. this saves bandwidth. for everything else css and tables.

(btw: i think that anyone with a small screen or that is running a resolution below 1024x768 should be shot)

sorry ill shut up now

800x600 is standard resolution.

i realize that. and thats why im upset because i have to make my pages look okay in 800x600. IMHO everything looks WAY TOO BIG @ 800x600.

I agree with everything looking big, but not TOO BIG. I depends on what your used to. If you think 800x600 is too big, try viewing in 640 x 480

OMG 640x480!!!!!..........
the computers at my old school ran at 640x480. It was horrible. Maybie 800x600 isn't that bad.

lol. I remember using the 640 one at home, it wasn't nice.

Back in MY day, heck, we didn't have this 800 resolution. You played doom in 640 and loved it!


Btw, I also hate having to make my pages in 800 by 600. So I use the very limits of their screen (800 by 600 is my page design usually) just to punish them. :D

Frames are perfectly fine if done correctly.

The last time I used frames, was.. well when I was a "5 Year Old Internet Newbie"... er.. about 5-7 years ago.

I've used them when doing GeoCities sites, but I didn't even know of the flaws then. That's how I learned, and that's why I ain't using them.

Frames typically aren't a problem as long as they are used correctly.

http://stage.itmediaco.com/roboraiders (lotta frames)

Another reason is this:

Not all screen sizes will see the site as you want it be seen. It goes for any type of site really, but still. My computer has large icons that can be as small as a atom (figureativly (sp?) speaking of course, but they are small).

Just because I'm a hardcore CSS person... just wanted to show you guys something...

http://darkwulf.halomx.com/OMGN-proto/

The header is currently missing because this was a proof-of-concept more than an actual production ready site. Lets just say that I drew it out with tables and in CSS. CSS code ended up much smaller, and is much easier to maintain. If you look at the CSS coding, the content windows and nav menus are wrapped in individual divs (for extra yummy taste). To create a new content box, instead of making another messy table CSS does all the work. So the code looks like:

Similar idea for the nav menus.

OK, that was very offtopic.

Anyway, I don't understand the blatant table (EDIT: ... frames.) bashing. People still make those menus that scroll with you that take up room. I've made sites all in frames that didn't really look like they were frames. I will admit that they take up alot of room, but then again, I have rarely see sites without massive banners at the very top just to remind you where you are... So that arguement is fairly specious. Further, getting stuff to fit in 800x600 is fairly easy both with CSS/tables, so... erm yah. lol. Width doesn't do much to text, because a paragraph that is long enough will wrap no matter how cool you are. :D

BTW: Frames? Mozilla? what? They conflict? lol.

Frames are extremely effective, when used properly. Take a look at titanrobotics.net for example, we use frames, but the website dosn't look bad (unless of course you are running something under 1024 x 768 resolution, but these days, few people actually do, and they don't deserve to see our site anyway :rolleyes:)
Tables are useful for websites where all the content is already decided on. However, say that you wanted to add a navigation item to a 25 page website... This means you would need to change 25 pages.

I would never do a professional website with everchanging content using anything else than frames.

PS: I do know about the include tag in coldfusion, asp, and php, but I have found it to be quite unreliable for table sites.

For my own site, I gave up on cross-resolution compatibility, and got quite a few people off of 800600.

And I tried frames, it was a nav bar, and the frame and the frame border were not visible... and scroll bar was disabled... It was just so the whole page didn't have to load again (the nav bar just stayed), but I realized the pointlessness of it, and so I went to normal HTML and then to CSS.

Frames, IMO are a matter of taste, and depend on the content your site is trying to deliver. They are an easy way to get a header and navigation bar, and are still the only way to put HTML file within another. Effects can be simulated by CSS, but for a quick way, frames are the answer, and are likely here to stay. In fact, the W3C knows this and is continuing development on Xframes and framesets for XHTML 1.

BTW, a lot of you saying you use tables as spacers are actually using them in an incorrect manner. CSS is what you're supposed to use to space out parts in a page. The reasons for this are how different browsers display frames and how tabular data in tables is interpreted. However, like frames, it is the easy way out for delivering pretty content, and I do it too.

And, 800 x 600 may be 'standard resolution', but I bet if you polled all the people here, the vast majority would use something larger. Besides, 800 x 600 is useless on a screen 17" or larger.

<--- Doesn't believe in using tables for graphical markup.

But good luck convincing people of that. Ultimately people are lazy (even if it isn't truly easier) and don't want to change the way they do things... so no real use in these kinds of threads... :-/

1. They are not browser friendly. Mozilla, Netscape, and possibly others (like CompuServe for sure) don't handle them easily. (Thanks to Gadget for announcing the "they are not browser friendly" comment)
Thats simply not true. My main browser is Moz and I've never had any frames problems since some really early releases. Frames are a standard part of HTML. Don't blame browsers for faulty implementations of this.

2. A big mess. Take team 5's site for an example. Before I had the menu that's on it now, the frames destroyed the other menu basically. Sure, it was a drop-down, but the code for it was basically useless. If you want a nice, clean site, use non-frames (or atleast have an option for the user wanting to view a frames or non-frames site). My poetry site is made without frames, and easy to browse (it should be anyways, it's only 4 pages). Yes, frames can make your site load faster (depending on where your server is, and a few other things), but sooner or later, it'll slow down your site to a hault.
First off why will it slow down your site later? Secondly there are as many (if not more) sites butchered from tables or any other HTML element. Poor web design skils lead to poor sites, not frames.

3. Annoying. If you think a next door neighbor with his music blaring at 2 am while you are trying to sleep is annoying, try this. Frames can make images seem distorted, text become wrapped (which is bad sometimes). Even if a high-class website designer did a site in frames, it would still look the same as if a 5-year old internet newbie did one.
I'm not even gonna bother with this one...

4. Take over the screen for small computers
Again, if they do its the fault of the webmaster not the tool. Frame websites can be made that don't take over the screen.

Kinda late reply but...

Don't be so cocky. While around 50% do use 1024 x 768.... arpimd 45% of the general population still uses 800 x 600, you don't want to not cater to almost half of the users. Bah.

When I saw this topic header, I thought to myself, AHHHHHHHHH!

I have perhaps seen less than 10 websites in years and years of using the internet that implement frames well.

Otherwise, you can construct a great website out of just XML and CSS.

Even simpler and better looking than using frames to get a header is just to make a php header and include it in each page... lack of frames is great. How many commercial websites have you seen that uses them?

Ebay? no
Amazon? no
Apple? no
Slashdot? no
Yahoo? no
Netscape? no
Mozilla? no
Gaim? no
Trillian? no
VBulletin? no
w3c.org? NO
etc etc etc etc etc etc

Those are just some examples. :)

Like on my site, http://silent-poet.vze.com, I don't use frames, I use includes (a.k.a.: headers). In asp, just do this:
where enter_file_here.asp is your file to include.

With the list of sites not using frames monsieurcoffee posted, here's a few more:

FIRST Offical Website
Chief Delphi
GameDev.Net
Game Tutorials
Jasc Inc.
AFL (it's an intranet site, but I've seen it before)

this list could go on for ever and ever, but I hope it doesn't ;)

They are usually gawdy and overused. But if done right they can help out a site. Also, iframes can be useful and save time in the creation of the site. They can be easily integrated and are easily updated.

Here's a few more reasons against frames:

Not very search engine friendly
Makes it difficult to bookmark specific pages within your site to easily return to
What happens if someone stumbles onto a page intended to be just a content frame and your navigation is in another one? ...confusion.

Also, here's a solution to a common problem:

For those looking to frames for an easy way to have standard navigation, take a look at SSI (Server-Side Includes). The free services are more likely to support them than they are to support a full-fledged language like PHP or ASP. It makes it easy to include a standard navigation menu, example:

<!--#include virtual="/navigation.txt" -->

Also, for those who do have access to PHP, you can set an option in the php.ini, httpd.conf, or .htaccess file to allow a common header and footer to be added to your pages.

Here's an example of how you would do this in a .htaccess file:

php_value auto_append_file "header.txt"
php_value auto_prepend_file "footer.txt"

There's an easy way to do the same thing in ASP, too. (I'm not quite sure what it is, off hand, but it shouldn't take too long to look up)

Frames can be search engine friendly when properly implemented. The key is proper head info such as meta tags in your head info. Also, the 'main' frame can be made search engine viewable in much the same way. If webmasters of frame sites are intelligent enough to use doctypes in the future, search engines will never stumble upon content frames. The problem is as usual, not the technology's fault, but rather a human screwed up somewhere.

The only problem with using SSI like that is that it behaves differently. The closest way to emulate the way a framed page works (wherein the two entities don't move together) is position: fixed through CSS, and that isn't yet properly supported by IE so it isn't used on pages. It also has some faults that I won't get into here. I use SSI on headers and footers for example, and I occasionally use frames. Both still have their place, and will continue to do so in the future. The other thing about your mentioned method is you're assuming the consumer is using a cache, and with the correct settings. Otherwise, they have a long time to wait for your page to load, especially if there's Flash or something to that effect on it.

Ebay? no
Amazon? no
Apple? no
Slashdot? no
Yahoo? no
Netscape? no
Mozilla? no
Gaim? no
Trillian? no
VBulletin? no
w3c.org? NO
etc etc etc etc etc etc

Hmmm none of them use fancy images or lotsa flash either. Does that mean they should never be used? No. Different sties work differently. You can't compair the design of a search engine to that of a message board. Frames work on some sites, but not all. The same can be said about image intensive or flash intensive sites. They are all only effective when implemented properly. Don't blame bad web design on frames, blame it on bad webdesigners.

Team Mercury's Webmaster's Opinions
 

okidoke. here's 1089's website: http://mercury1089.tk. It runs in frames. I being a long time internet user (try since I was about 8 or 9) hate frames. however, i wanted to have a stationary menu. The site was running on frames earlier, and i can easily change it back if someone would be kind enough to figure out a way for me to have a stationary menu with tables (not an image menu...way too much of a hassle). Also, I try to be browser friendly, so if there is something that works best with your browser, let me know. Same goes for window resolution. (I run 800x600)

So, yeah, stationary tables...anyone, anyone?

I used to use frames when I first learned HTML, but now I use all tables and sometimes the occasional IFRAME. It just keeps everything neater. One of the first mistakes I made when designing a website for a local band was designing it in my 1600 by 1200 resolution. Giant surprise to me when the band member told me how terrible it looked. And then I finally realized why when he sent me a screenshot and I had to convert everything to a smaller size :(..What do you CD-ers think of IFRAMES. Yay or nay?

In reply to Aignam, yay for sure. They're very useful, again, when properly used. My most recent use of them on team188.com (the perfect spot for one) is on the Mozilla/Netscape Forum sidebar tab I made.

In response to BandChick, you can simply apply the CSS property position:fixed to a div with your menu in it--SSI in this case isn't a bad idea--and play around (give the div an id attribute, call it 'nav' for example, and put in your CSS '#nav {position:fixed;}' then play with dimensions). Sadly, this is an iffy imlementation at best, as it will not display in WinIE6, and isn't quite the same as a frame. There is a way to force IE to sort of do this with JavaScript, but I'd tend to avoid JS for something so integral. I can elaborate or give examples.

i use IFRAMES w/tables. and they work well for me. all of todays modern browsers support frames and iframes.... Compliant with... Phonex 0.5, NS 6.0 ^, Opera 6.02^, IE umm, Mozilla handles web just like NS ... If u dont bleieve in Iframes check out my teams web site or another one of my websites whsgg.com...

Your team's website is down....

I know fo sum reason its is. when i go to the my school districts web site all that loads is the title bar text and the the unavable notice... umm never had a prob like this though i mean a school district wit 100K+ student should have the tech ppl who manage the web stuff on call... Just watch all this stuff come down to sum1's type o that killed apache or sumthin...... lol

and i didn't even inhale! ;)


seriously, first time i used frames was when i was on my school's web team in 7th grade. back then, i had no idea, but eventually we dropped the frames for an intricate table design.

since then i've never used frames. our site DOES, however, use an iframe for scrolling the news section, cause having an infinitely expanding news section would screw up the design of the rest of the page. Regardless, iframes aren't nearly as intrusive as frames are, as they are just like any other dynamic element on a page (images, tables) and move with the page when you scroll, etc. not only that, they are an approved standard by the w3c (word wide web consortium)

www.harker-robotics.org <- iframes done right :D


oh, and yeah. about the SSI includes thing. problem with SSIs is that you can't see what you get until you upload it. if you've got a WYSIWYG editor that keeps track of entire sites at a time (like Adobe GoLive) you can use the templates feature, and whenever you change the template, it auto-updates every paged tied into the template. best of both worlds - synchronized code, and previewing without uploading.

I've seen quite a few admin backends that used frames. I don't recall wanting to tear my hair out from that at the time.

I mean, alot of these could be used as arguements for anything. It blocks your view? Your table-based layouts (or css, or heck, your non-existant layout) blocks my view. What do you call whitespace?! Or margins? Heck... your images blocks my view of the background... if thats what you mean.

There are hacks to emulate position: fixed, but suffer from really weird results in macs. Its kind of sad that just because IE can't handle something means for most people that feature doesn't exist. (Like adjacent selectors in CSS...) Course as a user of mozilla, I pretty much get the shaft if somebody wants to make a browser-specific site.

But anyway, whats the arguement here? I've seen it blocks your screen and that its unprofessional. Pretty much anything can take up screen space, so IMO thats a moot point. As to unprofessional, I truly think that is more of a design consideration than an actual problem with frames themselves.