MS FrontPage

Frames

In your travels around the Web, you have probably seen pages that present a mix of never-changing parts (typically a menu on the side or top of the page) and a main section that changes depending on the link you've clicked. Welcome to the world of frames.

Frames don't just divvy up screen space like the tables you learned about in the previous tutorial frames actually present multiple Web pages simultaneously within one browser window. Using frames, you can divide a browser screen into sections and display a different Web page within each one. Each separate Web page appears within its own border, or frame. An additional page, called a frameset, serves as the host for all these pages. The frameset tells the browser how to apportion screen space and which pages to display in each section. A simple frames page is illustrated in Figure 6-1.

While frames can create interesting effects, they also come with serious disadvantages, all of which you'll learn about in the next section. If you decide to use frames, read on to learn how to create and manage them. Or check out the alternatives mentioned at the end of this tutorial, on Section 6.5.1.