are frames good or bad?

[Melinda]

Do i go ahead using frames?
I've heard in the past that frames were not supported in some browsers & its
not a good idea to use them.

I suppose there are two sides to this & this would be a top with certain
disputes.

But in ASP.NET & teh new trends, should i use Frames?

Also, can a frame be center aligned in the browser?

 

[Michael C#]

What are you trying to do? Frames have their place, but some people try to
use them to compensate for a poor initial design...

As far as the platform, it depends on your target audience. If you're
designing an internal website for a company, you may have more control over
which browser the users connect with. If it's external for the general
public, you have to decide how many different platforms you want to support
and design to that standard. Depending on how many platforms you decide to
support, you may find that frames are one of the easier compatibility
problems to deal with...

Thanks,
Michael C#

 

[Melinda]

Well, i don't have much.
All i need is a standard header - with a flash, some pictures & a Menu.
The above should appear in ALL my we pages (currently in HTML - ASP.NET used
in feeback forms, queries, sugegstions & the like).

The site is not for a company, & can be access by anyone & all.
I have spent a heck of a lot of time developing a menu (first from ASP.nET &
then converted it into HTML & JAVA) & now i need this in all my pages.

So my worry is that this info will keep getting downloaded for ALL the
pages. (hence speed issue for users with a dial up connection of approx 56k)
When if i had a frame (where the header was in a frame), then i need to load
teh body into another frame which need NOT have the header.

So basically my question comes down to,
Should i replicate the header (flash, images, menu bar) in ALL my pages or
is there an alternative?
(my option was to have a frame for the header).

Thanx for ur help.

 

[Michael C#]

I assume this website will be running on IIS and ASP.NET? Personally I
would probably avoid frames in this situation. That's just personal
preference though. I don't think the download issue would be a big
problem - the client browser cache will probably take care of that for the
most part. It's been a long time since I did anything via 56K though, so
that might be something worth checking...

Thanks,
Michael C#

 

[Melinda]

Thanx a lot.
I too have no idea how fast the download would be on a 56k, as I have no
such SLOW line accessible to me (nor anyone i know - to at least test).
I think i'll go ahead & replicate the stuff in all the pages (hate duplicate
coding).

But anyways,
Thanx

 

[drhowarddrfinedrhoward]

One of the disadvantages of frames is when someone right clicks to save your
page to favorites or create a shortcut. They will only get one frame or the
other when they go to it later.

 

[Steve C. Orr [MVP, MCSD]]

Frames should generally be avoided in ASP.NET. They are cumbersome to work
with from server side code.
You're generally better off segmenting common page sections into user
controls or custom controls.

Here's more info:
http://SteveOrr.net/faq/UserCustom.aspx

 

[Alan Silver]

Frames should generally be avoided in ASP.NET

Or anywhere else for that matter. There is almost no good reason to use
them. Common parts of a page can so easily be done with custom controls
(or even server side includes for that matter) and browser caching will
take care of removing the need to reload files for each page.

Frames slow down your site (more conversation between the client and
server), confuse navigation, get broken as soon as someone opens a page
in a new window and so on. There are loads and loads of reasons not to
use them, and no good reason to use them AFAIK. They had their place
years ago, but with the sophistication of ASP, and even more so with
ASP.NEt, there's just no reason to use them.

HTH