Any Alternative to Frames?

[kjv1611]

From thread253-1448659

Is there a way to have a static header (such as a logo or "main" title for the site, and maybe the menu) that you don't have to edit on every single page without using frames? Is there some sort of static menu option, or else maybe a way you can do maybe "cascade edits" so that when you edit the "main" portion on one page, the web editor program makes those changes across the board?

I've not used frames yet, but for that purpose, they've seemed tempting to me. I know that Front Page has something similar called Shared Borders, but it never really worked for my site either..

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[audiopro]

If you have a large number of pages, it would be worth considering creating your pages dynamically rather than each page individually. You would need a server side language to do it but this method allows you to reuse the same code snippets over and over.

Keith

http://www.studiosoft.co.uk

 

[mmerlinn]

[ ]
You can use frames to do this if you use what are called "good frames" versus "bad frames". Using good frames allows the visible page to be bookmarked, whereas bad frames only bookmark the underlying frame and not the page itself.

I can't remember where I found an excellent description on how to make and use them, but if you do a search for "good frames" & "bad frames" I am sure you will find an explanation you can use.

Never use bad frames for any page that you want to be bookmarked. And if you do use frames, be sure that is the best format for your customers to use as many browsers do not support frames.

Set up properly, you could use one file for your header. If you needed to change your header, you would only need to edit one file. My site is frame-based and currently has somewhere around 3500 pages. I use both good & bad frames extensively on my site, good frames where I want people to link, and bad frames elsewhere.

The downside to using good frames is that you must create a separate frame page for each and EVERY page for your site, not just the first page like in bad frames. In my case, I wrote a FoxPro program to generate & maintain the entire site, so there is no extra work for me.

mmerlinn

http://mmerlinn.com

"Political correctness is the BADGE of a COWARD!"

 

[kjv1611]

it would be worth considering creating your pages dynamically rather than each page individually.

I think that really this is the way I'd prefer to go.

Assuming my web server supports a particular server-side scripting, which it does, and I could easily change servers if the need is there, is there any way to get started somewhat quickly with creating a site of that sort? Maybe a template to look at to get the right idea? Any suggestions?

I suppose I could get one going in DreamWeaver. I'm wanting to move away from Front Page if/when I do make any changes, since MS is no longer making it.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[mmerlinn]

[ ]
Even though you are not going to use frames, I found the link I was looking for.

Here it is:

http://www4.tripnet.se/~slarti/f_frames_uk.htm

Now a word of caution about using dynamic pages. If indexing your pages by the major search engines is important, you will find that dynamic pages

1) never get indexed the same way twice, AND
2) the page that the search engine presents to the searcher is NOT the same page as the search engine previously indexed.

This can be frustrating to the searcher looking for specific items. I find that dynamic pages are useless to me when I am hunting for something via Google, etc as the page I get seldom has the item I am looking for although at the time Google indexed it the item was on the page. And it does not seem to matter whether I view the target page in the cache or the latest version.

mmerlinn

http://mmerlinn.com

"Political correctness is the BADGE of a COWARD!"

 

[colorplane]

You are more likely looking for Server Side Includes (SSI). You will get more functionality out of using a server side language, but this is a lot more work. The server loads the file you specify and plugs it directly into your html file in place of the include tag.

With SSI, you can reference static html files inside your content pages. A very simple example would look something like this:

<html>
<head>
  <title>Test Page</title>
</head>
<body>
[COLOR=blue]<!--#include virtual="header.html" -->[/color]
  Now I am able to make almost-exclusively content-centered HTML files!
[COLOR=blue]<!--#include virtual="footer.html" -->[/color]
</body>
</html>

In Apache, SSI is usually supported under the .shtml extension (which can be changed by modifying Apache's httpd.conf). There should be plenty of tutorials on the web under the keyword SSI.

I used this a lot before switching to a server-side language, and it is generally easy enough to work with. Server-side programming is more robust but certainly has a greater learning curve.

 

[audiopro]

I am not getting into the frames debate here as with everything else in the

http://WWW frames

and iframes have their uses.
I have never found the search engine indexing issue to be a problem but that would depend on the content of your pages. What kind of website is it?

I use Perl as my prefered server side language but there are many to choose from.
The script selects chunks of pages from a template file and builds them up to present a full html page to the visitor.
Any change you make to the template file will be reflected on all of your pages.

Keith

http://www.studiosoft.co.uk

 

[ca8msm]

You can use frames to do this if you use what are called "good frames" versus "bad frames".

Not really as frames will cause problems no matter what "fix" you attempt to put on them. In the "good" frames example you pointed to, all of the content is in this page:

http://www4.tripnet.se/~slarti/FrameEx/page2good.htm

So when a a search engine visits your site that is what it will index, and users searches will therefore point to this page, not the framed page. Click on the link above and see if you would be happy with the user directly visiting that page...


-------------------------------------------------------

Mark,
[URL unfurl="true"]http://aspnetlibrary.com[/url]
[URL unfurl="true"]http://mdssolutions.co.uk[/url] - Delivering professional ASP.NET solutions
[URL unfurl="true"]http://weblogs.asp.net/marksmith[/url]

 

[ChrisHunt]

Building pages dynamically is the best way to go. Ideally you would store your content in some kind of database and have the dynamic code dress it up with all the presentation and navigation. This approach also has the advantage of automatically keeping the navigation up-to-date as you add more content (in a blog, for example). It's also much easier to change the look and feel when it's time to redesign.

For more static sites, or if you just don't want the hassle of setting up a dynamic system, SSI is the way to go. I've written a FAQ at faq253-6554 which discusses the best way to go about using them.

I'd avoid using frames, be they "good" or "bad".

If you decide to go down the dynamic route, you could use a free Content Management System (CMS) like Drupal or Joomla. Another option - that I'm using on a coupleof my sites - is a blogging system like Wordpress. I think you said in one of your threads that you were building a church site on which you would post sermons. Some blog software could be just the thing you're after.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[kjv1611]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I haven't really considered using blog software, even though it is something very popular. And given how many of those systems are setup pretty easily from what I've seen, that might could be an option - maybe more of a short-term, and the long-term to combine with the SSI/server side/dynamic pages as mentioned here. I'm definitely thinking that the way I am WANTING to go is the SSI/Dynamic direction.

Maybe by the end of this week I'll have time to look at the SSI FAQ listed above, and other info..

Thanks for all the references/ideas. I've got a feeling it'll be a while before I can make a big change, unfortunately, on the website, as I've too many irons in the fire as it is. We just started video recording, and I'm brand new to trying to edit .m2t files (hdv: hidef digital video files).. So, I've got to get busy on that, before I get overwhelmed with storage needs!

Then once I've gotten that one quelled back down, I can look more at the much needed (in my opinion) web design.

--------------------------
--------------------------

As far as what sort of site it is, the site is a basic church website, which currently the biggest, most popular, part of it is the sermons page (currently called "Audio Files" page) - I'll also probably just change that to "Sermons" eventually...

The website is:

http://www.parkwoodbaptistchurch.us

One reference site that I looked at where I liked the layout for listing the audio was:

http://cbcspringfield.org/

And their sermon page is here:

http://cbcspringfield.org/sermonpage

That site is where I found out about drupal - from the web admin.

I really like the sermon page layout, the clean look, and the flash or flash-like audio player built in.

And here is one church site where I like the search tool usage (also with drupal):

http://www.calvarybible.org/sermons

Good layout (again, drupal):

http://www.hope-lutheran.org/podcast

Good search tool usage (drupal):

http://www.ibclouisville.org/audio?filter0=sermon&filter1

And here is a site that lists church websites using drupal for any further reference/ideas on that front:

http://groups.drupal.org/node/2700

Of course, I've not had the time to fully investigate any of it yet, but I like what I see - whether or not that would be the route I take will just depend.

I'm totally open right now, as we can change to just about anything when/if we ever get there... The only thing will be that I don't want to end up building something that will require an expensive dedicated server contract - right now it runs really well on a shared hosting package. We could probably get the funds together from more people if need be for a virtual server setup, but I doubt a dedicated server would happen.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[ChrisHunt]

Well, if it were me building the site, I'd use Wordpress. You can combine fixed permanent content ("pages" in Wordpress parlance) like your bible studies and staff details; with blog entries for church news, prayer requests and sermon recordings/transcripts.

It's easy to set up and run, there are tons of plug-ins available to let you host all kinds of features and media types, and it's free!

That said, I'm now pretty familiar with WP which is why it's the tool I tend to reach for. If you're able to call upon a lot of experience with Drupal maybe that's the way to go.

Either way, I don't think you'll need a dedicated server - you're not going to be generating all that much traffic in the grand scheme of things. Still, you might look at how you can off-load media content onto other sites, e.g. putting video onto YouTube and embedding a link on your page.

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[dhpridemore]

I'm a dreamweaver guy (CS3) and when I faced the same question you are posing, I solved it by creating templates. I basically have a template file that holds all the navigation (including subscript text links at the page bottom) so I only have to change one file everytime there is a navigation change. I'm sure there are participants on this thread that are much more saavy than I who may give a good reason why SSI is better than a template but I liked this solution because the learning curve was almost nill. It's basically just like created another html page with a few minor alterations to the process. I'm not from a development background, I'm from a Graphic design background so the less code writing the better where I'm concerned.

 

[ascotta]

I use Visual Studio Express and use Masterpages. Works like a charm.

[blue] A perspective from the other side!![/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[ca8msm]

I use Visual Studio Express and use Masterpages. Works like a charm.

Which is fine if you happen to be using ASP.NET but as this forum is for generic web design, that solution probably isn't possible for most people.


-------------------------------------------------------

Mark,
[URL unfurl="true"]http://aspnetlibrary.com[/url]
[URL unfurl="true"]http://mdssolutions.co.uk[/url] - Delivering professional ASP.NET solutions
[URL unfurl="true"]http://weblogs.asp.net/marksmith[/url]

 

[ascotta]

I know that. Just saying.

Having said that it was one of the extra benefits of moving to apsx, if it hadn't been there I would have ignored CSS as being elitist, which would have been extremly stupid and arrogant.

[blue] A perspective from the other side!![/blue]

Cheers
Scott