Web designers are always in a state of confusion regarding the use of frames in web design. Though they offer certain advantages like static header area and side menu bar, there is still a number of negative aspects to their use. By using frames, you can carry out quick updating of websites. But there are other means of achieving rapid site updates without the need for frames.

A frames page itself does not contain any visible content. It contains instructions on which pages to show concurrently and how they will be displayed within the browser window . It gives you the thought of a clear overlay, much like a paneled window frame. But the difference is, this window frame permits you to look into different rooms of the house. A frames page can contain references to many other pages, but usually they consist of references to pages to be used as the header, the content, a left hand menu bar and a perhaps a footer bar. When a hyperlink is clicked in one frame, say the left hand navigation window, it will open a page in the content window or the target frame.

This facilitates wide changes within the website easy to implement, especially when used in conjunction with Cascading Style Sheets. Because you can change certain items like the menu bar and logo for your site in one page and that update will be reflected in the entire site. Using a frame for the header (top) area or navigation bar of your pages will also make it static or fixed so visitors can easily access menus. There will be no more scrolling back up the page. Among all these good things, there are a number of points you need to be careful about before making a framed site functional, especially when using WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web page editors.

Your site may face problems in search engine optimization, as many search engines are unable to index framed sites. The home page is simply a frame, that has little content or hyperlinks to follow. Search engine spiders may stop dead on the page and have nothing to report. A solution for this problem is the proper implementation of Meta tags and use of the ‘noframes’ tag.

Even if a search engine manages to spider your site, visitors from search engines may find themselves on the content pages, rather than the full-framed version. In other words, they may arrive on your site and all they will see is the menu bar.

Though only one percent of browsers do not support frame sites, the problem still persists. You require to use ‘noframes’ tag to solve the problem. But to be effective, you actually need to generate two sites, one framed and one without any frames. This will consume more of your valuable time.
A visitor cannot bookmark a particular page in your site without requiring further tailored scripting for each page. But there is a danger of users landing on the content frame and with no navigation frames visible.

Scroll bars will not be visible if your framed sites deploy a number of frames. You can remove the scroll bars, but ensure that it is compatible with other popular browsers. Individual care is required to be taken with coding otherwise when a visitor tries to refresh a particular page, they may be taken back to the original frameset.

So, in the end, you need to consider a lot. Check all the pros and cons of framed sites carefully. As a substitution, you can use a few lines of JavaScript code for quick site updates.

Tags: Frames in Web Design – To be or not to be