Frames, why not?

Gordon

I did a search on this forum and couldn't find good evidence as to why frames are not liked by the webmasters of the world..

I'm making a site with a flash dropdown navigation menu and I'd like the menu to be on a frame on the side that references the main html pages. The reason I need a frame for the dropdown flash menu is so that the dropdown tree of the menu stays dropped (opened) on the specific menu choice. Otherwise on a non framed page the flash menu would just refresh and start over again.

I'm going to make a non flash menu along the top within the main page so that users without flash can utilise the site. And also a noframe tag to force this page if the user cant handle frames.

However, I read that frames shouldn't be used generally. Are frames such a bad thing?

Goodshape

Not sure why either to be honest. Just know I don't like them. If for no other resason, I like the page to scroll as one.

But at the the same time using flash for a menu I don't like either, unless design is more important than navigation / usability (as may be the case with a 'showcase' website such as for a band, film or artists portfolio).

Third_Echelon

Gordon wrote:

However, I read that frames shouldn't be used generally. Are frames such a bad thing?

If you have a framed page as the homepage for example, search engine robots cannot read the information on the pages within the frames. It classes it as an 'empty' website.... and some people cant use frames properly and causes design and navigation nightmares...

Third_Echelon

A few other things that I forgot about as well after a quick search:

Bookmarking can be a pain in the @rse... You can only bookmark the frameset page... (talking about n00b surfers)

Printing can be hard....

This link is pretty good: http://www.html-faq.com/htmlframes/?framesareevil

Gordon

Thanks for the infor T_E, didn't know about those facts. I'll read up on the link.

The site is more as a showcase Goodshape so it's cool to put in that as an option for navigation. I take it that if you saw a website with a DHTML or rollover img menu on the top of the site and a flash menu with similar options on the left side you'd use the top menu?

Goodshape

It's more that I don't like having to wait for the flash to load and (more often than not) suffer through pointless overbearing animations, when all I want to do is navigate to and get the information I want. The similar stuff can usually be done with DHTML or other server side scripting.

Also, there's no flash plug-in for Firefox under 64bit Linux :-(


But from a showcase site I'd expect a bit of an 'experience' maybe

rsynnott

They're also not dramatically intuitive, the "Find" command on some browsers gets upset by them, and there is rarely actually a particularly good reason for using them. The pages generated by Javadoc and similar are the only good applications I can think of offhand.

And certainly, Google likes them not. It's also worth noting that if your sole method of navigation is Flash, then you exclude those who keep it switched off (like me) and also those on platforms where it's not supported (PPC Linux, etc.) In addition, search engines will never find your internal pages. Just Say No To Frames

evilhomer

On a more serious note about frames being evil. From an accesibility point of view for say a blind person it can be very confusing to navigate a framed website. Also Flash does not lend itself to accesibilty either.

Ianaldo

If you really want to use frames the next best thing to frames, infact the only alternative and effective is to use iFrames, im sure people would agree with that, take a look at iFrames, there only one line of code and you can put the frame inside a table on your page!

Third_Echelon

^^^ or just use tables perhaps?

Ianaldo

Third_Echelon wrote:

^^^ or just use tables perhaps?

Yes but with using an iFrame inside a table you can open up different pages inside that table, or whatever you wish to open in it, you cant do that in just a table!

rsynnott

Ianaldo wrote:

If you really want to use frames the next best thing to frames, infact the only alternative and effective is to use iFrames, im sure people would agree with that, take a look at iFrames, there only one line of code and you can put the frame inside a table on your page!

These aren't great from an accessability point of view either. They're also non-standard. They have niche roles (Google AdSense and similar use them, for instance, but as a general thing? Urgh, no.

No Flash, no frames, no animated GIFs, no other moving things, absolutely no puce. That's the key to website happiness

Ianaldo

Ah but iFrames would be the only real alternative though, to Gordon's problem as i see it, for a professional point of view designing and creating a web site for a company i would generally stay away from flash, frames and animated gifs, absolutely! Just trying to help was all!

rsynnott

The view I'd take is that he should re-think his current design; it's one that is (or was) popular with web-design firms, but is terribly unpopular with users, as far as I can see. I know if I come across a site with flash navigation, I'll almost certainly leave; they're just too annoying to use.

Ianaldo

Well flash has its good points and its bad points, for interactivity and multiple usage flash is great, but for business and professional sites its generally not noted as a good resource, but yeah im going to have to agree with ya there on the site design i think it needs a little rethink aswell!

rsynnott

Flash is great for fun little things like this: http://langerland.com/

I really don't see how it's ever appropriate for navigation, tho.

Ianaldo

rsynnott wrote:

Flash is great for fun little things like this: http://langerland.com/

I really don't see how it's ever appropriate for navigation, tho.

Exactly yes, Flash is great for fun little things, would you even look into using dynamic html though, for example at www.dynamicdrive.com, there a few nice examples there!

rsynnott

Certainly not; I'd rather die

Ianaldo

There is no turning you so, lol, i tried!

rsynnott

Ianaldo wrote:

There is no turning you so, lol, i tried!

Oh, it could be worse; I'll grudgingly use things like images and CSS these days...

Gordon

Goodshape wrote:

It's more that I don't like having to wait for the flash to load and (more often than not) suffer through pointless overbearing animations, when all I want to do is navigate to and get the information I want. The similar stuff can usually be done with DHTML or other server side scripting.

Also, there's no flash plug-in for Firefox under 64bit Linux :-(


But from a showcase site I'd expect a bit of an 'experience' maybe

Yeah, I update a completely Flash based website with (relatively) small intros and loaders and I keep thinking when I test the swfs that it must be a bitch to have to wait through all that crap to just GET TO THE F*CKING SITE! And as hinted - Flash based sites have no page tracking possibilities.

The site I'm making is basically a showcase site (me with relatively little experience) that will show to potential web-design firms my VAST range of abilities including Flash, HTML, Font creation and other such crap. I will be having a flash based navbar on the left frame and a simple html menu on the main frame. In the case of noframes I will have a purely html based site. ie: the html menu will link to purely html based pages and the flash menu will link to html pages with flash objects within tables.

I'm trying to cater for users with flash and frames, and users with no flash and no frames at the same time. While, really, my target audience is web-design firms that will most likely have both enabled (this is really a kind of CV). Hence I don't mind if the average user switches off from my 16kb flash menu and goes elsewhere. It's just for show.

I'm deffo going to check out iFrames though, thanks for the info.

jmcc

Gordon wrote:

I did a search on this forum and couldn't find good evidence as to why frames are not liked by the webmasters of the world.

Frames are disliked by search engine operators even more. And if search engine operators do not like your site, they will not put it in their indices. As others have probably pointed out here, frames break the navigation of a site and make it difficult to bookmark a site.

However, I read that frames shouldn't be used generally. Are frames such a bad thing?

Yes. I've just been checking the new .ie website index for one of the search engines here and the number of frames based Irish .ie sites is quite depressing. It is like looking at an index from the real web for 2000. The Irish web hasn't really grasped the concept of search engine optimisation either.

There are some situations where frames can be a good thing. However they should not be used on the front page of a site. This is the page that search engines will hit first and if a spider has a problem with the index page, the site may not get spidered at all.

With preindexing (when the search engines build the search index and check sites for inclusion), the main aspects of the index pages are examined to see if the site is worth spidering (ie not a holding page or a duplicate). These aspects are the title, the description, the keywords and the page text. If the page text is an error message stating that the site requires a frames capable browser, then it has a strike against it. If you have to use frames, then don't use them on the index page. And don't even think about a flash splash page .

Regards...jmcc

mewso

Regardless of the reasons for not using frames they are not well regarded by most folks out there. i.e. the people who will be visiting your site. I would think that right now that is the ultimate reason for not using them. Personally I have never liked them, in vogue or not.

colm_c

jmcc wrote:

...I've just been checking the new .ie website index for one of the search engines here and the number of frames based Irish .ie sites is quite depressing. It is like looking at an index from the real web for 2000. The Irish web hasn't really grasped the concept of search engine optimisation either...

New .ie website index?

What's this you speak of?

hostyle

colm_c wrote:

New .ie website index?

What's this you speak of?

sssh! jmcc works for the NSA.

jmcc

colm_c wrote:

New .ie website index?

What's this you speak of?

Well country level search engines require lists of websites and I was building the latest one for .ie websites. This list will then be spidered by one of the search engines here. There is also a list for .com, .net , .org, .biz and .info sites. The common factor being that these are Irish sites. The domain count for the Irish part of the net is around 105K domains. A lot of the work here involves tracking new/deleted/transfer activity of domain names and producing statistical reports on the hosting industries of a few countries. The other part involves building search indices for country level search engines.

It would be best to think of the NSA that I work for as being the Planet Magrathea of search engines.

Regards...jmcc

Gordon

Well ye dirty beggars, you've convinced me to take my frame away. Now I'm going to stick an animated background that doesn't scroll with the scrollbar.. hehe. Thanks for the heads up

jmcc how many .coms are there?

jmcc

Gordon wrote:

jmcc how many .coms are there?

Roughly 37.8 Million .com domains.
Roughly 5.9 Million.net domains.
Roughly 3.65 Million .org domains.
Roughly 6.6 Million .info domains.
Roughly 1.17 Million .biz domains.
48369 .ie domains.

The .ie cctld is miniscule in global terms. More Irish people would own com/net/org/info/biz domains. The utilisation (domains actually used for websites or mailservers rather than being registered and unused) figure for .ie is higher - around 95%. The utilisation figure for com/net/org/biz/info is typically around the 70% mark.

The data for .ie domains (updated daily) is here: www.whoisireland.com

Regards...jmcc

Gordon

Wow! That's 10 million unused .coms in existance.

jmcc

Gordon wrote:

Wow! That's 10 million unused .coms in existance.

Easily. The churn (new/deleted) per month is in the order of a few million each month. Many com domains are registered and never used. Some last about a year before lapsing others last for about two years. Sometimes it is possible to see 10K+ websites on a single IP when checking sites. These are the "coming soon" holding page sites. In reality, the active figure for .com could be lower than the 20 Million mark - maybe as low as 15 million active sites (as in www.$domain.com rather than www.$domain.com/~username).

Regards...jmcc

rsynnott

Gordon wrote:

Now I'm going to stick an animated background that doesn't scroll with the scrollbar.. hehe.

Er, you're joking, right? Right?