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Knowledge Base support case for AllWebMenus, abstracted and stripped of all user’s private info.

Initial Email From: Bob
Initial Email Subject: Frames
Support Case Month: August 2012

Throughout the different times he have designed and redesigned our site we have been told many things.  And of course many things have changed through the years. 

One that I am just not sure on is the use of Frames.  I recall being told that it wasn't a good practice to use a frameset but it really does seem like the best route to go.  Let me explain...

Our old site which is www.home2000.com used 3 frames.  Top, left and main.  The topFrame held the upper navigation, logo and search feature so it was always a consistent and did not have to be refreshed.  Then when someone would select one of the links in the upper navigation, it would load a menu in the left frame and content in the mainFrame.  This really worked well for us.

When he decided to redesign our site, we wanted to move away from Java mainly.  We also wanted to rewrite our pages to load faster etc.  We had someone who converted our pages into HTML.  When he did this, he wrote the upper navigation into the page as well. Because of this, when we load a new page, the whole thing reloads because its all part of the same page.  If you look at our old site, and compare it to our new site (www.home2000.com/h2) you will see what I mean.

What is our best way to do this?  I was thinking that if I just use a very basic frame system that holds the logo, navigation and search feature; a lower frame could hold the display pages and that way the upper frame always stays consistent because it wont change anyways...it is exactly the same on each page.  I read a little on iFrames, but I really don't think that is the way to go for this situation.  Please let me know what you think would be the best route and if there are problems with using frames this way.

Thanks in advance for your help!!

Bob

Reply From: Likno Customer Support

Dear Bob,

I believe that there is no need to keep using frames in your site. The top frame is really light and considering that any images are cached and not really reloaded every time, it is probably lighter to have a single page instead of three (even if one never reloads).

Moreover, if you use a single page you will be able to use other menu features, such as the “auto-highlight” which shows the current item highlighted.

If you want to keep the maintenance easy, you could put the “top section” HTML into a separate include file (you need some server-side language for this, such as PHP or ASP), so changing the logo in a single file will update all your pages.

Regards,
Kostas
Likno Customer Support
www.likno.com
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Knowledge Base support case for AllWebMenus, abstracted and stripped of all user’s private info.

Initial Email From: Clas
Initial Email Subject: Problem when linking to pages
Support Case Month: November 2012

Hi, I recently bought a license for AllWebMenus and it really is very nice to work with. I am currently trying to incorporate the menus to a site and do have problems in getting the links to work. It does work fine when I do the preview of page but when running it under Internet Explorer 8 (and Chrome as well) and clicking on the menu, nothing happens. It seems like I do something wrong. I have a "menus" which is to be the base for each page... I have tried several forms of linking but I can not get it to work

Please find enclosed sample.

Thank you in advance for assisting in this matter.

Regards,
Clas 

Reply From: Likno Customer Support

Dear Clas,

I checked your pages and realized that they are going into an endless loop!

Your page, “index.html”, is actually a frameset consisting of “databmenu.html” and “databhome.html”. When you call “downloads-intro.html”, this is loaded into the top frame where “databmenu.html”, but this is also a frameset page so now your page has a top frame which has two inner-frames and a bottom frame. However the top frame is small so you only see the first inner-frame. Then if you click again you end up with three framesets of two frames each etc.

What you need to do:

1) Keep only one frameset page, “index.html”.

2) Set all your links in the menu to target “content” (that is the name you gave to your bottom frame).

3) The link should point directly to “downloads-intro_txt.html” as the “downloads-intro.html” is no longer required.

4) If you need to call “downloads-intro.html”, then make sure you target “_top” so that it loads in the whole page and not only within the frame.

Best Regards,
Kostas
Likno Customer Support
www.likno.com
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Knowledge Base support case for AllWebMenus, abstracted and stripped of all user’s private info.

Initial Email From: Preller
Initial Email Subject: Menu with iframe on same page
Support Case Month: March 2012

I am placing a menu on the same page with an iframe. But can't get
anything to display in that Iframe when the Iframe is specified as the
link target. When changing the link target to _top for example it does
work.
Can you please assist.

Reply From: Likno Customer Support

Hello,
Did you use the correct iframe name? Can you please send me the menu
project (using "File -> Export -> To ZIP"), along with the page URL so
that I can check what you did?

Regards,
Kostas
Likno Customer Support
www.likno.com
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Reply From: Preller

Support
Will send and URL info.
What I did not mention is that I use frames pages.
There isn't a lookup button next to iframe so I can locate the frameset.
Maybe this is my problem.
Preller

Reply From: Likno Customer Support

Dear Preller,
When you want the target to be an iFrame (or frame) then you need to add
the name of this (i)frame in the target field.
If you send me the project and the URL as I asked, I will be able to
tell you if you declared the iFrame name correctly.

Regards,
Kostas
Likno Customer Support
www.likno.com
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Reply From: Likno Customer Support

Dear Preller,
It seems that the problem is caused by the embedded frames. Can you please try setting the full frame path to see if this works?

Regards,
Kostas
Likno Customer Support
www.likno.com
Create any type of javascript menu (CSS menu, drop-down menu, sliding menu), button, html tree, modal window, tooltip, accordion, tab, scroller, jQuery slider or design for your websites!
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Reply From: Preller

Support
I tried the display other media in the iframe on the main page:
When displaying in the iframe from the main page all displays work well apart from when I display:
1.  A pdf file
  or
2. a video file embedded in html
then the sub menu dissapear behind.
I read in the help that I must add wmode transparent. The example is for flash objects. I don't know where to put the code for:
1.  a pdf file and
2. Windows media player
can you please assist.
3. When trying to display a video from the contents page (left) menu then it does not display the video in the iframe on the main page.
I actually display a HTML page with a video embedded. It is however possible to display a HTML page with text only.
Can you please assist.
Please keep same directory structure for video file to work.
websites
       Iframe_Test_Site
            ...
Preller

Reply From: Likno Customer Support

Dear Preller,

I am afraid that the “wmode” parameter will not work for PDFs or Media Player files. This parameter works with flash (and other) applets.

Unfortunately plugins for PDF, Media Player, Office documents etc do not work like this. They completely “take over” the part of the browser where they appear and there is nothing anyone can do to make them appear behind other page elements. The only solution would be to have a horizontal submenu, or in some other way avoid the submenu from overlapping with the iframe space.

Regarding the video from the left menu, I checked the online compiled file and noticed that you made an error in the target path. Instead of “main.I1” you used “main:I1”. Please correct this in order to fix the problem.

Regards,
Kostas
Likno Customer Support
www.likno.com
Create any type of javascript menu (CSS menu, drop-down menu, sliding menu), button, html tree, modal window, tooltip, accordion, tab, scroller, jQuery slider or design for your websites!
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