IFRAME: Good Idea?

[Sup3rkirby]

I am designing a website and I would like to know if using an IFRAME for the page's content is a good idea.

Everything else on the page pretty much stays the same(so far). This would probably be better for loading time.

[bogbrushian]

IFRAMEs are not the way forward. check out server side includes on google. that's what i'm currently trying to implement on my site. you can have all the code that will stay the same in a separate file. with this you can make global changes in the future.

[bogbrushian]

sorry if that sounded obvious, if ur a techie

[fredmv]

No, I would not go that route. IFrames are inaccessible for a number of reasons, and are inherently inaccessible because they share many of the same problems that frames had caused. Long story short: avoid, and use server-side (SSI, PHP--whatever you have at your disposal).

[Sup3rkirby]

hmmm.... I thought I remembered learning somewhere that frames are bad, and IFRAMES are no exception. I don't really know the problems they cause or anything, but this is confirmation enough to know not to use them.

Sadly, I do not know any server-side languages yet. But I will look into that now. Is PHP similar to C++ or JS? And is it easy to learn(on a general level of someone who knows his fair share of stuff)?

And how would(could) PHP be used to load just a section of a page such as the content? I would like just a general answer, not in depth(since I haven't learned PHP yet).

[fritzw]

"Is PHP similar to C++ or JS? And is it easy to learn(on a general level of someone who knows his fair share of stuff)?"

C++ and Javascript have more in common with each other then PHP. But in general I think PHP has a lower learning curve. PHP as better error reporting at runtime then JS but both are less endowed then C++.

PHP is a fun language. The nice thing about it is you can start slow with simple small expressions. <? if ($someVariable) echo 'That works'; ?>

Its a nice replacement for frames if you not using frames for its fixed position abilities...
<a href="?changeInclude=value">Link</a>

<?
if ($changeInclude == 'value')
include ('test.html');
?>

This will load the page 'test.html' if the variable '$changeInclude' is equal to "value". In most cases the server will simply put the entire 'test.html' script right in the the current page request, then deliver it to the client with out the client being the wiser. Very nice language and parsing.

With PHP and compatibilities, unlike C and JS, you only have to worry about one computer... The Server.

I use php includes instead of dreamweaver templates for many applications. Especially on sites larger then 10 pages (and most are).

[schizo]

You don't really need to learn a server-side language, just look up how to do an include statement for whichever language your host supports (ASP, PHP, Java, Perl). The file you're including could just be static HTML... of a menu perhaps.