Are FRAMES dead?

[khaki]

I was reading one of those site review panel discussions (the ones in CRE@TE Online Magazine, if you must know), and one of the "experts" was hammering a site for using frames.

Basically his statements were "Why would anyone still be using frames when there is no longer any good reason to do so" (or something along those lines. I didn't really commit it to memory because I was too busy trying to contain my anxiety attack. lol).

Anyway, he went on to say that frames are "amateurish". YIKES! (please don't tell anybody, but I still use frames :eek: ).

So anyway, it got me to thinking about frames, and maybe there ISN'T a reason to use them. I mean, each frame is it's own page, and each page could just contain all of the necesary elements (repetition could be handled by using Includes and Style Sheets, and JS pages, etc).

Right? Or not?
I don't know. :confused:

Are frames for amateurs? I see so many questions about them in here (so they would appear to remain relevent, right...?). Do they send the wrong message (about the developer)? Should I be reworking my pages to eliminate them?

I usually work in ASP, and the content is often dynamically populated by a DB. I've always used frames so that I wouldn't have to burden the server with re-writing my page header and menus every time the user wanted to query the DB.

I need some of our "experts" here to tell me what they think.
Are frames dead? (or have I worried a few years off of my life over nothing?)

I was having such a relaxing Sunday.. then THIS!

sighhhhhh...
k

----
OH shoot! I posted this in JavaScript. It probably belongs in HTML or something. Can one of the kind monitors in here please move this to where they think it belongs for me? I'm in enough trouble in this forum as it is.
...sorry..

[khaki]

Says YOU!. Just kidding.
(hey I was going to PM ya, but you are behind a fortress of secrecy or something).

OK, yes. I suppose if you are using frames intelligently (changing specific frames for logical and effective reasons), then the main advantage would be the economy of bandwidth (hey, did that really come from my brain. lol!).

But if the repeditive elements are light-weight (and/or cache-able), then a seperate page for each change of content could replace the need for frames to be used (I should be writing technical manuals. Where is THIS coming from? lol).

But there has GOT to be more to this frames issue (I can't let it go now). So... until I can sort it all out for myself, I'm doing what Dave does with his pages (NO frames). And if the "real" need arises, I'll use frames for that.

If anyone else has 2 cents, lets hear it.
k
(Dave, I don't know what "Final Fantasy" is, but I'm sure it's more innocent than it sounds. Fes-up)

[Charles]

Frames certainly aren't the worst thing that you can do to you site and they have some very real advantages. If you don't have access to server side includes, they cannot be beat. And from an accessibility standpoint they are a great deal better then using the table element for layout. (Braille and audio browsers read each page sequentially which means that with the typical, nav bar on the left layout the user has to listen to the whole acurséd nav bar at the beginning of each page. You can expect most all browsers to have some way of dealing with frames, but to make sure put a redundant nav bar across the bottom of each page.) The only real drawback is the linking problem.

[Ribeyed]

hi,
biggest problem with frames is some search engines (Google) doesn't know how to handle frames. This is a big problem so if you want higher rankings DON'T use them.

[pyro]

I'd agree that frames are not dead. I usually try to avoid them when I am designing sites, for the simple reason that I don't like the way they look all that much. But, I have used them in a few sites (usually at the clients request), and it does make certain things quite a bit easier...

[khaki]

PRINTING!

Printing a frames page produces a page for each page in the frame.
I don't think that I want to contribute to the destuction of our forests just for frames (also, I'm not sure that frames are dolphin safe, but that discussion is probably best dealt with off-line, I think).

So anyway, it means that you would need to create a print-friendly version as well as the frames version (or provide a print function to handle the printing of a specific page in the frame, I guess).

And Pyro is right. The look of frames (with the partial-screen scrollbar) can look kind of cheesey.

I knew Charles would divulge the accessibility issue (you are such a dear, Charles) but it's not like scrapping frames will mean that the impaired will be excluded from any of the elements on the page - it's just that they will hear them again on the next page within that site (it could be worse of course - we could all just create non-accessibe pages and find ourselves thrown into prison for violating accessibility laws. lol! Sorry... couldn't resist fanning that flame! I'll be good now. wink).

OK... I think I'm falling off of frames (unless I really really really need them).
And by the way, the site that the guy in CRE@ATE Online was so critical of is:
http://www.gadgetshop.com/tgs/defaultframes.asp
(and I can't blame him. The frames are only part of the problem over there).

I've got access to server side includes, so I think that I will wean myself away from frames in the future. Now I'm kinda glad that the guy got me all worked-up about this. It's a valid subject to explore.
If anyone wants to keep this alive and try to turn me back the other way, I'm game.
Thanks for the input guys. There's never a shortage of opinions in here (lol!).
k

[jdavia]

Originally posted by pyro
I'd agree that frames are not dead. I usually try to avoid them when I am designing sites, for the simple reason that I don't like the way they look all that much. But, I have used them in a few sites (usually at the clients request), and it does make certain things quite a bit easier...
HEY This is no frame!!! I did not write the above it was there when I went to post. A boo-boo from somewhere.

Anyway, I used to do a contents frame and a main frame site. Simply because I only had to make the menu only once. But the drawbacks you all mentioned got me back to doing no frames, and not to be so lazy.

[jdavia]

OK I know what happened. I hit the quote above the Post Reply link.
I never knew it was there, so I just learned something.

[pyro]

lol. I was wondering what that was all about. :D

[jdavia]

Yeah! Self tought as usual. Now life is easier. It looks like it was meant for that person's post, not mine, since it is next to Edit.

[pyro]

Well, now that you've found it, it'll come in handy. It's nice to be able to let people know (via the quote) what you are talking about. :)

[jdavia]

Originally posted by pyro
It's nice to be able to let people know (via the quote) what you are talking about. :)
I have been doing it the hard way. This is a well designed site. In comparison to the one I came from called http://hiveminds.info/
I haven't been there since I joined this one.

[Zach Elfers]

I use to use frames because I liked their look and was lazy.:D Now I still use frames, but not as much and most of the frames I use are iframes.