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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