Posted by Rob McAninch on 12/21/05 20:49

Jake>:
> In message <VKCdneg3XKmr8jreRVn-pg@adelphia.com>, Rob McAninch
> <rob_13@excite.com> writes
>
>> Jake>:

>>> Alan Wood's site "Compendium of Pesticide Common Names" has always
>>> seemed like an excellent example to me:
>>> http://www.hclrss.demon.co.uk/index_cn_frame.html
>>
>> I can't bookmark anything, or 'easily' reference a given entry.
>
> (a) You can bookmark the context ...... if you're an IE user (and that's
> 9 out of 10 visitors):

I currently see about 85% IE users in my server logs. So your
estimation may be close; but how many IE users are using IE because
they have no choice (my visitors are mostly U.S. based) in a work or
school environment? What happens if/when those environments make a
decision to go with a non WinIE browser?

With MacIE decommissioned and Mac dealing with Intel, Mac use will
rise (and this will be a non-IE rise in visitors.

> (b) From a useability point of view, the bookmarking of a context on
> this site isn't really going to save you anything, is it?

Yes, it would allow me to bookmark specific definitions. Of course I
can't easily link to a specific definition even if I decided to
browse your site with IE.

>> I forgot this page earlier in the thread (dolt!):
>> http://www.html-faq.com/htmlframes/?framesareevil
>
> You haven't this time [...]

Did you read anything on that page? The methods to redesigning to be
more usable are in there. Mostly what it may amount to is a basic CMS.

A couple ideas would be to preprocess your site with Perl or the
like, essentially wrapping each definition page with the navigation
before uploading. Though I don't know that I would load the entire
index; perhaps just the current letter.

Or you could have the server generate and cache those pages on the
fly as they are requested, they can be cached for some predetermined
length of time (to reduce wasted processing) and you could include a
forced regeneration (or emptying of the cache) when you update a
definition.

In the end you would have 'traditional' pages without the frames and
you still only have to update your index and add definition pages as
you do currently.

--
Rob McAninch
http://rock13.com

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