Posted by Mark Parnell on 09/09/05 03:06

Previously in alt.html, dorayme <dorayme@optusnet.com.au> said:

> You do not see it as useful to you personally. This is different
> to it not being useful to other people.

Absolutely. I never said anything to the contrary.

> It simply isn't good
> enough for you that frames are a bad idea generally. Every
> single thing about them needs to be damned eh?

I have never said that. Please don't put words in my mouth.

> And you give a particularly unsatisfactory reason for refraining
> from putting in a facility like fixedness (never mind frames for
> this point). People besides yourself might very well find it
> useful. Perhaps you know most people don't (I doubt it). But my
> point here does not rest on this.

If you disagree, that's fine. As I said, that's my personal view on it.

> About the fixedness of the left nav being the only thing: I
> thought I had mentioned it being easy for me to work on such a
> site as I have to often update one significantly and don't have
> to bother about the markup for the largely unchanging menu, that
> it is easier text on the eye and my brain for the right hand
> pages content

Ah, so you did. I missed that one, sorry.

> ... I know, not even this would be admitted by you
> to be a pro

Sure, code reusability is always a good thing. But...

> because you have alternative techniques

....there are plenty of other methods that allow for code reuse that
don't introduce the problems that frames do.

> (superior
> ones doubtless, ones that I might get one day). But then you
> miss the fact that without knowing php one can do variously
> modest useful things.

Using includes in PHP is very straightforward, though obviously it
requires a host that supports it (which are a dime a dozen these days).

<?php include("includes/menu.html"); ?>

And there are plenty of other alternatives too.

> I should damn well make time
> and save time in the future. Alright already, I will!

There's no need to get nasty about it, and again you are putting words
into my mouth. But consider this:

You have obviously already spent quite some time learning frames (let's
face it, they're not the easiest thing to learn). So you don't mind
learning new things. Why are you then so opposed to spending a little
more time learning better alternatives?

> My view is that it is not as simple a matter as you make out.

TBH I think we agree, we're just coming at it from different
perspectives. I'm looking at it from a holistic view, whearas you are
looking at each feature of frames individually, more as general
features, rather than specifically related to frames. From that point of
view, yes some of the facets of frames are definitely good, like the
code reusability. Others are matters of opinion, such as the fixed
navigation (or whatever). Others are definite negatives, such as the
lack of unique URLs.

> Yes, non frames is certainly on balance the way to go in case
> anyone is tempted

On this we agree, and this is my point. You can talk all you like about
the good things about frames, and yes there are a few, but in the end
frames have too many problems to make them a reasonable solution. And
the positives can be achieved in other ways, which avoid the negatives.

> (for most sites)

Certainly any that are going to be released to the www. In a controlled
environment such as an intranet, they can in some cases be useful.

> and perhaps we should leave it here.

Perhaps. ;-)

--
Mark Parnell
http://clarkecomputers.com.au
alt.html FAQ :: http://html-faq.com/

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