[Bill Posters]

mik, show us your bangers, luv.

-

if you're dead set on using frames/iframes…

iframes are no-go in XHTML 1.0 Strict, so you're looking at an XHTML Frameset (w/ appropriate DTD) housing XHTML 1.0 Transitional pages.

Beyond that, it's pretty much business as usual (given that you're already familiar with building XHTML Transitional pages)

[sleepingfish]

Pretty much clueless about the world of PHP but would PHP includes be a possible alternative here?

(more of a question than a suggestion)

[weldo]

Originally Posted by sleepingfish

Pretty much clueless about the world of PHP but would PHP includes be a possible alternative here?

(more of a question than a suggestion)

Think you'd still need to set up 'real frames' as seperate entities ..... don't think include files would get round anything would they, in PHP or ASP or whatever ??

[Stickman]

Originally Posted by sleepingfish

Pretty much clueless about the world of PHP but would PHP includes be a possible alternative here?

(more of a question than a suggestion)

Yes. Fusebox methodology.

(seeing as she's not here to say it...)

[mike_m]

depending on the layout of course, but can you not just do it all in DIV's and make the central one scrollable - similar effect, but less complicated surely?

[Bill Posters]

I think the issue was the client was sold on the idea that only the content section should be seen to reload whilst the rest of the page appears to stay put.

[smallbeer]

I couldn't be arsed reading this thread earlier as I thought It'd be the same old "don't use frames. simple as."

classic. how long's the welsh tart in london anyway? Oli, you reckon we can run a mini-competition in his honour while he's away?

[weldo]

do iframes present the same seearch engine problems as regular frames then ??

I thought they didn't but i could be way off ??

anyone still here have the answer ??

[Bill Posters]

SEs will index pages displayed within framesets and iframes just fine, which is actually where the problems start.
The dominant issue with using frames/iframes is that SEs see them as a separate page.
SE serps provide links direct to that page rather than the contextual frameset or page that surrounds it.

There are ways to reconstitute the parent frameset and display the relevant i/frame content, but the benefits of using frames/iframes in the first place are so minimal that one is usually far better off using 'complete' pages.


An additional downside to using frames/iframes to display content is that bookmarking becomes largely ineffective in recording the content that the user wished to bookmark.
Bookmarking usually registers the address of the top-most page (usually the frameset or iframe parent document).
It makes no provision for registering and redisplaying whichever 'sub-content' the user was viewing at that time, unless the location of the sub-content is somehow set within the url.

There's more to it than that, but without going into things too deeply - if you're looking to produce a professional, useful and user and search engine friendly website, then frames/iframes are rarely, if ever, worth the aggro.

[cam]

Originally Posted by Bill Posters

There's more to it than that, but without going into things too deeply - if you're looking to produce a professional, useful and user and search engine friendly website, then frames/iframes are rarely, if ever, worth the aggro.

Very true. The PHP Fusebox technique mentioned by Stickman seems a sensible solution here. Either that or just make-do with page-reloads (they aren't all that bad really, honest guv)

[oli]

Originally Posted by Stickman

Yes. Fusebox methodology.

(seeing as she's not here to say it...)

Fusebox?! is that what i used ?

[weldo]

what is this Fusebox thing ?? Loads of include files ??