Chapter 13

Frames-Pages with Split Personalities

CONTENTS

Frames are a relatively new addition to the Internet scene. They offer an easier way to navigate through a Web site, creating a more user-friendly interface to the outside world. They were first introduced in Netscape 2.0, and are now supported by Netscape 3.0 and Internet Explorer 3.0. Soon, many other browsers will support them. You cannot view framesets directly in FrontPage, but the package includes an easy way to develop them.

What Are Frames?

You can think of a frame as multiple pages in one. They really are what the title of this chapter implies: pages with split personalities. Each region of a framed page displays a separate page that is scrollable, just like any other Web page.

Frames Terminology

Figure 13.1 shows four pages loaded into a frameset. This frameset is used in the support site for this book. A frameset is a special kind of page that is divided into multiple sections, called frames. You assign it a URL, just as you would any other page. The frameset gets loaded first when a user navigates to the URL. Next, the frameset loads the pages referenced by source URLs, and it displays each page in a separate frame.

Figure 13.1 : A frameset displays multiple pages in a single screen.

Each frame within the frameset has a source URL-the URL of the Web page that gets loaded into the frameset when it first opens. The source URL can belong to a page, a file, or another frameset in your web. In the example shown in Figure 13.1, you see four individual pages displayed in the frameset. The navigation bar is the source URL for the top frame in the frameset. The main section table of contents is the source URL for the left frame in the frameset. The welcome screen is the source URL for the right frame in the frameset. Finally, the bottom frame that displays links to the Microsoft FrontPage home page and the Internet Explorer download area is the source URL for the bottom frame in the frameset.

If one of the frames in the frameset displays another frameset, the initial frame is called a parent frame, or the master frame that displays another frameset within it. For example, the table of contents section in the frameset shown in Figure 13.1 can contain a link to a discussion group. When the discussion group loads into the main frame, it displays in two frames within the main frame window, making a total of five frames displayed in the frameset instead of four. The original frameset is the parent frame, and the discussion group frameset is a child frame.

In FrontPage, you'll see mention of target frames in two ways, which can get a little confusing. If you look in the General tab of the Page Properties dialog box, you find a field in which you enter the Default Target Frame for a page. Entering a frame name in this field basically tells the frameset, "When the user clicks any link on this page, load the referenced page into this frame." In the Create Link dialog box, under any of the tabs (Open Pages, Current FrontPage Web, World Wide Web, and New Page tabs), you see a field where you specify a Target Frame. (It doesn't have the Default in front of it.) When you enter a frame name in this field while you create a link, it tells the frameset, "When the user clicks only this link, load the referenced page into this frame, regardless of what the default target frame is." When you specify a target frame, you do not enter a URL. Instead, you enter the name of one of the frames in the page, such as top, contents, main, and bottom.

Take a look again at Figure 13.1. The navigation bar resides in the frame named top. When the user clicks the Links link in the navigation bar, it creates a change in the contents frame (the left frame in the frameset), as shown in Figure 13.2. The contents frame is, therefore, the target frame assigned to the navigation bar page.

Figure 13.2 : The top frame causes changes in the contents frame on the left. The contents frame is the target frame for the top navigation bar.

When a user clicks a link in the contents frame, changes occur in the main frame (the large frame at the right in the frameset). This is shown in Figure 13.3. Here, the main frame is the target frame for the pages that display in the contents frame.

Figure 13.3 : The contents frame on the left causes changes in the main frame on the right. The main frame is the target frame for the contents pages.

The main frame in the frameset displays the main content in the web. When a user clicks a link in a page in the main frame, it does not cause any changes to occur in other frames. The main frame acts like a full-screen page in this regard. If links to other sites appear in the main pages, care must be taken to assign those links a target frame name of _top, as discussed in "Naming the Target Frames," later in this chapter.

When to Use Frames

One frame, such as a navigation bar or a table of contents, is commonly used to link to other pages that display in another frame. This makes for easier navigation through a site. Instead of returning with a link or the Back button in a browser as with standard Web pages, the table of contents displays in its own frame, while its links appear in another frame.

Frames also work well for an online book. The table of contents for each section of the book can appear in one frame, the content of each chapter can appear in another frame, and footnotes for a page can appear in yet another frame.

A formal presentation is another good candidate for frames. The outline of the presentation appears in one frame and the graphics appear in another. You can use a third frame in the set for navigation buttons.

Not All Browsers Are Frame Compatible

Frames offer you great flexibility in displaying pages. Don't let your Web site rely totally on that flexibility, however. Many people use browsers that are not compatible with frames. Others use different browsers at different times for various reasons. For example, a user might prefer the way one browser views mail and newsgroups over another, and that choice might not have frame compatibility.

It is frustrating to browse the Web and find someone talking about a great site. You want to check it out, so you navigate to the page. A message pops up that reads, "Your browser is not frame compliant. You cannot see this site unless you use a frame-compatible browser." It gives you no clue about which browser to use, and there is no way to exit, unless you use the Back button in your browser.

Be considerate to those out there who do not have frame-compatible browsers or who do not use them all the time. Provide alternatives for navigating to the pages that you display within the frames.

Creating Frame Pages

Because a frameset involves multiple pages that are linked together, you must have a web open to save the pages when they are created. Open a web in the FrontPage Explorer before you create pages with the Frames Wizard. You can select a predefined frame template or design your own.

Starting the Frames Wizard

You begin any frameset with the Frames Wizard in the New Page dialog box.

To create a frameset, perform the following steps:

  1. Create or open a web in the FrontPage Explorer. The frameset and its associated pages are saved to this web after the wizard generates them.
  2. From the FrontPage Editor, select File | New (Ctrl+N). The New Page dialog box appears.
  3. From the list of available page templates and wizards, choose Frames Wizard. The Choose Technique panel of the Frames Wizard appears. (See Figure 13.4.)
    Figure 13.4 : Use the Choose Technique panel to choose a frames template or to design your own.

Creating Frames with Templates

Several frame templates are already built for you. To use one of these predefined templates, select the Pick a Template option in the Choose Technique panel of the Frames Wizard:

  1. From the Choose Technique panel of the Frames Wizard, select Pick a Template.
  2. Click Next. The Pick Template Layout panel appears. (See Figure 13.5.)
    Figure 13.5 : Use the Pick Template Layout panel to select a template.

  3. Select a frame layout from the list of options. As you make a selection, a preview of the layout appears on the left of the panel. Each frame in the frameset is labeled with a name. A description of the template also appears in the Pick Template Layout panel.
  4. After you choose a template, click Next. The Choose Alternate Content panel appears (see Figure 13.6), where you select an alternate page for users without frame-compatible browsers. If you do not already have an alternate page, you can create one after you create your frameset and modify the frameset later.
    Figure 13.6 : Use the Choose Alternate Content panel to select a page that can be viewed with browsers that do not support frames.

  5. To specify an alternate page to display instead of the frameset, click the Browse button to choose another page in your Web. The Choose Source URL dialog box shown in Figure 13.7 appears.
    Figure 13.7 : Use the Choose Source URL dialog box to select an alternate page to display in lieu of the frameset.

  6. Highlight the page you want to use for alternate content in the HTML Page list and choose OK. You return to the Choose Alternate Content screen. Click Next. The Save Page panel appears.
  7. Enter a title for the frameset in the Title field. For example, enter Charlie's Home Page.
  8. Enter the URL of the frameset in the URL field. If you want to use the frameset for your home page, enter index.htm or the URL required by your remote server.
  9. Click Finish to create the frameset. The frameset and its associated pages are saved to the currently opened web.

The Frames Wizard Frame Templates

FrontPage comes with six frame templates:

Banner with nested table of contents
Main document plus footnotes
Navigation bars with internal table of contents
Nested three-level hierarchy
Simple table of contents
Top-down three-level hierarchy

Create a page using one of the templates to find out how it works. You will learn a lot. The following sections describe what each frame template produces.

Banner with Nested Table of Contents

The banner with nested table of contents frameset generates four pages; one is the frameset and the other three are the source URL pages. Figure 13.8 shows an example of this template.

Figure 13.8 : The banner with nested table of contents frameset displays three pages in separate frames.

In the example shown, the frameset was assigned a title of Andy's Place and a URL of index.htm. The pages generated by the Frames Wizard were named as follows:

Main Document Plus Footnotes

The main document plus footnotes frameset generates three pages; one is the frameset, and the other two are the source URLs for the frameset. This frameset is best used for an online book that contains footnotes. When the user clicks a footnote reference in the main document, the footnote displays in the bottom frame. Figure 13.9 shows an example.

Figure 13.9 : The main document plus footnotes frame template is a good choice for an online book.

If, for example, you create this frameset with a title of The Sunshine Report and assign it a URL of index.htm, the pages generated by this frame template are

Navigation Bars with Internal Table of Contents

The navigation bars with internal table of contents frameset generates five pages; one is the frameset and the other four are the source URLs, which are first loaded into the frameset. For an example of this frameset, refer to Figures 13.1 through 13.3.

If you create this frameset using a page title of Charlie's Home Page and assign it a URL of index.htm, you create the following pages:

Nested Three-Level Hierarchy

The nested three-level hierarchy frameset generates four pages; one is the frameset and the other three are the source URLs. An example is shown in Figure 13.10. In the example shown, the frameset was named The Ducke Family Home Page and assigned a URL of index.htm. The pages generated by the Frames Wizard are as follows:

Figure 13.10 : The nested three-level hierarchy frameset displays three pages.

Simple Table of Contents

The simple table of contents frameset generates three pages. One of these pages is the frameset, and the other two are the source URLs for the frameset. An example is shown in Figure 13.11.

Figure 13.11 : The simple table of contents frameset holds two frames.

If you use this frameset to create a frameset titled The Ducke Family Home Page and assign it a URL of index.htm, you create the following pages:

Top-Down Three-Level Hierarchy

The top-down three-level hierarchy frameset, shown in Figure 13.12, generates four pages. One of these is the frameset, and the other three are the source URL pages. The frames are arranged one on top of the other. Links to the main sections appear in the top frame, and links to the main pages in the web appear in the middle frame. The main pages appear in the bottom frame.

Figure 13.12 : The top-down three-level hierarchy frameset.

If you create a frameset titled Stargazer Home Page and assign it a URL of index.htm, the frameset generates the following pages:

Designing Your Own Frame Grids

If the frameset templates provided with the Frames Wizard do not strike your fancy, you can design your own framesets. Indeed, designing a frameset can help you better understand how framesets and frames work.

Creating the Page for the Top Frame

The top frame in the frameset contains links to the table of contents pages. Keep this page very simple, adding text links for now. You can replace the text links with navigation buttons later on.

To create the page for the top frame in your frameset, follow these steps:

  1. From the FrontPage Editor, choose File | New (Ctrl+N). The New Page dialog box appears.
  2. From the Template or Wizard field, choose Normal Page and click OK. The page opens in the FrontPage Editor.
  3. Enter the following line of text:
    Home | Main Section | Links | Discussion | Section 1 Title |
    å Section 2 Title | Section 3 Title
  4. Format the text in any way you choose. I selected Arial text and used the Decrease Text Size button on the Format toolbar once to reduce the width of the line.
  5. Choose File | Page Properties. The Page Properties dialog box appears, opened to the General tab.
  6. In the Title field, enter Top Navigation in Frameset.
  7. In the Default Target Frame field, enter contents. When you assign a default target frame to a page, you tell the frameset, "Any link that appears on this page should load the referenced page into the framename frame." In this case, that frame is the contents frame.
  8. Click OK to exit the Page Properties dialog box.
  9. Select the text in the navigation bar that reads Main Section, and choose Edit | Hyperlink (Ctrl+K) or click the Create or Edit Hyperlink button on the Standard toolbar. The Create Hyperlink dialog box appears.
  10. Click the New Page tab. In the Page Title field, edit the title to read Main Section TOC in Frameset. Edit the Page URL to read maintoc.htm.
  11. You'll notice a Target Frame field in this dialog box. You only assign a target frame to a link when you want the page to load into a frame other than the default target frame specified on the originating page. Because you assigned a default target frame of contents in the Top Navigation in Frame Set page (the originating page), the frameset knows where the Main Section TOC in Frame Set link is heading. Leave this entry blank.
  12. Choose OK. The New Page dialog box appears. Select Normal Page and choose OK. The Main Section TOC in Frame Set page opens in the FrontPage Editor.
  13. From the Window menu, select the Top Navigation in Frame Set page, which should now look like Figure 13.13. Choose File | Save (Ctrl+S), or click the Save button on the Standard toolbar. The Save As dialog box appears.
    Figure 13.13 : The top navigation bar contains links to the contents pages in your web.

  14. In the File Path Within Your FrontPage Web field, edit the URL to read frtopnav.htm. Choose OK to save the page.

Creating the Page for the Contents Frame

You have the contents frame already started from the previous steps. Now, add some links to this frame. You want the links in this frame to cause changes in the main frame of your frameset. This page should contain links to the pages in the main section of your web, as the page title implies. Refer to Figure 13.14 as you develop your page.

Figure 13.14 : The main contents page contains links to the pages in the main section of the web.

To complete the contents page, follow these steps:

  1. From the Window menu in the FrontPage Editor, choose Main Section TOC in Frame Set. The page appears in the FrontPage Editor window.
  2. Choose File | Page Properties. The Page Properties dialog box appears, opened to the General tab.
  3. In the Default Target Frame field, enter main. This tells the frameset to load any links that appear on this page into the main frame of the frameset.
  4. On the first line in the page, enter Home. Then, press Shift+Enter to insert a normal line break. The insertion point moves to the next line.
  5. Enter the following additional lines in the home page, ending each line (except the last) with a normal line break:
    What's New?
    Table of Contents
    Search
    Guest Book
  6. Format the text in any way you choose. I selected Arial font again and reduced the size of the text by one size with the Decrease Font Size button on the Format toolbar.
  7. Select the text that reads Home. Choose Edit | Hyperlink (Ctrl+K), or choose the Create or Edit Hyperlink button on the Standard toolbar. The Create Hyperlink dialog box appears.
  8. Select the New Page tab. In the Page Title field, enter Home Page (Framed). In the Page URL field, enter frhome.htm.
  9. Leave the Target Frame field blank. The frameset already knows this page is to be loaded into the main frame.
  10. Choose OK. The New Page dialog box appears. Highlight Normal Page and choose OK. The home page appears in the FrontPage Editor window.
  11. From the Window menu, select Main Section TOC in Frame Set. There are four remaining links on this page. You can create the new links to the other new pages now, or you can save them for later. When you create the links to these new pages, enter main in the Target Frame field, as you did in Step 7 for the home page.
  12. Choose File | Save (Ctrl+S), or click the Save button on the Standard toolbar. The Save As dialog box appears. Verify that the page title reads Main Section TOC in Frame Set and that the file path is maintoc.htm. Then choose OK. The page is saved to your web.

Creating the Page for the Main Frame

Now you enter some content into the source URL page for the main frame. This is the frame in which your main pages appear. Any links you create on these pages cause the target page to load into the main frame as well.

For purposes of this chapter, enter a page title and a comment that instructs you how to complete the page. The page is shown in Figure 13.15.

Figure 13.15 : Create a basic page for now to display in the main frame of the frameset.

To complete the home page, follow these steps:

  1. From the Window menu, select Home Page (Framed). The page opens in the FrontPage Editor window.
  2. Choose Heading 3 from the Change Style drop-down menu in the Format Toolbar. Enter Home Page.
  3. Press Enter. The insertion point moves to the next line, and is formatted as a normal paragraph.
  4. Choose Insert | Comment. The Comment dialog box appears. Enter the following text:
    This page is the source URL for the main frame in the frameset.
    It can contain an introductory graphic, welcome message, or
    home page contents. When you create graphics for this page or
    any page which displays in the main frame of the frameset,
    remember that the page will not be displayed in a full browser
    window. Size your graphics accordingly.
  5. Choose OK. The Comment appears on your page. That's it for this page for now. You want to get into designing the frameset, don't you?
  6. Choose File | Save (Ctrl+S), or click the Save button on the Standard toolbar. Verify that the title reads Home Page (Framed) and that the file path is frhome.htm. Choose OK to save the page.

Creating the Alternate Content Page

There is still one more page to create-the alternate content page that gets displayed when users do not use frame-compatible browsers. This page displays in a full browser window, so you can size the graphics any way you choose. You'll create another basic page for now, as shown in Figure 13.16.

Figure 13.16 : Create another basic page to display when not in a frame-compatible browser.

To create the alternate content page, follow these steps:

  1. From the FrontPage Editor, select the New button on the Standard toolbar to create a normal page. A new page appears in the FrontPage Editor.
  2. Choose Heading 3 from the Change Style drop-down menu on the Format toolbar. Although you really wouldn't name your home page as shown in this example, enter a different title for purposes of demonstration only. Enter Alternate Home Page.
  3. Press Enter. The insertion point moves to the next line. Enter the following text:
    This page should appear if the user is using a browser
    which does not support frames.
  4. Choose File | Save (Ctrl+S), or select the Save button from the Standard toolbar. The Save As dialog box appears.
  5. In the Page Title field, the title Alternate Home Page appears. Leave this entry as is.
  6. In the File Path Within Your FrontPage Web field, enter althome.htm.
  7. Choose OK. The page is saved to your web.

Building a Frameset of Your Own

Now that you have all the preliminary content done, you can build the frameset. To summarize what you have and what you need to do, here's the rundown. You have four pages in your web to use in the frameset:

You've got everything you need; now, build a frameset:

  1. Open the FrontPage Editor, and select File | New (Ctrl+N). The New Page dialog box appears.
  2. From the list of available page templates and wizards, choose Frames Wizard and click OK. The Choose Technique panel of the Frames Wizard appears.
  3. Select the Make a Custom Grid radio button. Click Next. The Edit Frameset Grid panel appears. (See Figure 13.17.)
    Figure 13.17 : Use the Edit Frameset Grid panel to design your frameset.

  4. In this panel, enter the number of rows and columns that you want in your frameset. As you make your selections, the preview in the left side of the panel updates to reflect your entries. Remember that these framesets are displayed within the confines of a browser window, so don't add too many frames to the frameset. If you add too many frames, the user must rely too heavily on scroll buttons to see the contents of your frames. For this project, enter 2 in the Rows field and 1 in the Columns field.

TIP
Don't go overboard on the number of frames in your frameset. Keep in mind that some people browse the Web with low screen resolutions.

  1. To move the dividers between the rows, position the mouse in the preview screen and place the cursor over the divider line. Directional arrows appear. Move the divider toward the top edge of the page until the top section of the frameset is about one fifth or one sixth of the height of the page preview.
  2. Shift-click to select the bottom portion of the frameset in the page preview. The Split button enables. Enter the number of columns in which to split the middle portion. You can merge the split columns back together with the Merge button if you do not like how it looks. For this project, enter 1 in the Rows field and 2 in the Columns field.
  3. Move the vertical divider line between the two new columns toward the right of the page. This creates a larger area for the main content of the frameset, which should now look like Figure 13.17.
  4. Click Next. The Edit Frame Attributes panel appears.
  5. Click the top frame in the frameset preview window. This frame initially loads the Top Navigation in Frameset page (frtopnav.htm). In the Name field, enter top.
  6. Click the Browse button next to the Source URL field. The Choose Source URL dialog box appears. From the list of pages in your current web, choose Top Navigation in Frameset (frtopnav.htm) and click OK. You return to the Edit Frame Attributes panel.
  7. The Margin Width and Margin Height settings designate the size of the borders between frames. For this project, enter 1 in the Margin Width field and 1 in the Margin Height field. If you don't want borders, enter 0 in each of these fields.
  8. The Scrolling setting determines whether a scroll bar is located at the left and bottom edges of the frame. Here, choose Yes to include scroll bars, No to not include scroll bars, or Auto to provide scroll bars when needed. It is generally a good idea to leave it set to Auto, unless the page length is less than two or three lines of text. Leave this setting at Auto.
  9. The Not resizeable checkbox should be checked only when you do not want the user to resize the frames in the frameset. It is generally a good idea to leave this option unchecked, allowing the user to resize the frames as necessary. Leave this option unchecked for the top frame. Your settings should now look as shown in Figure 13.18.
    Figure 13.18 : The settings for the top frame in the frameset.

  10. Click the bottom-left frame in the frameset preview window. This frame displays the main pages when the user clicks a link in the contents frame on the right. When the user first opens the frameset, you want to display the Home Page (Framed) page (frhome.htm) in this frame. For this frame, assign the following:

AttributeValue
Namemain
Source URLfrhome.htm
Margin Width1
Margin Height1
ScrollingAuto
Not resizeableUnchecked

  1. Click the lower-right frame in the frameset preview window. This is the frame that displays the Main Section TOC in Frameset page (maintoc.htm) when the frameset first opens. Assign the following attributes to it:

AttributeValue
Namecontents
Source URLmaintoc.htm
Margin Width1
Margin Height1
ScrollingAuto
Not resizeableUnchecked

  1. Click Next. The Choose Alternate Content panel appears.
  2. Use the Browse button to select the Alternate Home Page from your current web, or enter althome.htm in the Alternate Page URL field.
  3. Click Next. The Save Page panel appears. (See Figure 13.19.)
    Figure 13.19 : Assign a title and a URL for your frameset in the Save Page panel.

  4. In the Title field, enter Home Page Frame Set. In the URL field, enter index.htm.
  5. Click Finish to generate the frameset. The frameset page is saved to your web.

Viewing the Frameset

To see how your frameset looks, open a frame-compatible browser, such as Netscape 2.0, Netscape 3.0, or Internet Explorer 3.0. Enter a URL similar to the following, replacing the server name and Web name with the one you created your frameset in: 


http://localhost/yourWebname/index.htm

The browser loads the frameset. It should look like the one in Figure 13.20.

Figure 13.20 : How your frameset actually looks.


TIP
If you have a screen capture program, capture a screen shot of the frameset while you view it in 640×480 and in 800×600 resolutions. These screen shots will help you size your graphics appropriately.

Editing Framesets

You can edit a frameset after you create it. When you remove, add, or rename frames, verify that the new frameset uses the same frame names as the original one did. The steps to edit a frameset are similar to those discussed in "Building a Frameset of Your Own," earlier in this chapter. For example, you might want to remove, add, or rename frames:

  1. Use the File | Open command to open the frameset from the FrontPage Editor. The Open File dialog box appears, opened to the Current FrontPage Web tab.
  2. Highlight the frameset page, and click OK. The Frames Wizard appears again, opened to the Edit Frameset Grid panel.
  3. Edit the frameset grid, if necessary, using the steps outlined in "Building a Frameset of Your Own," discussed earlier in this chapter. Click Next to continue. The Edit Frame Attributes panel appears.
  4. Edit the frame attributes as necessary, and click Next to continue. The Choose Alternate Content panel appears.
  5. Specify or change the alternate content page for your frameset. Click Next to continue. The Save Page panel appears.
  6. Edit the title of your page, if necessary, and click Finish. To discard the changes, click Cancel.

Adding a Default Target Frame to a Page

To edit or add the default target frame of a page, you use the Page Properties dialog box:

  1. Use the File | Open command to open the frameset from the FrontPage Editor. The Open File dialog box appears, opened to the Current FrontPage Web tab.
  2. Select the page that you want to edit, and choose OK. The page opens in the FrontPage Editor.
  3. Select File | Page Properties. The Page Properties dialog box appears, opened to the General tab.
  4. In the Default Target Frame field, enter the name of the default target frame. All links on the page load the referenced page into this target frame unless otherwise specified.
  5. Click OK. Save the page to your web using the File | Save command.

Assigning Target Frames to Links

As you learned in the exercises in this chapter, you can designate a target frame when you create links from pages in a frameset. You can display any page in your web inside one of the frames in a frameset by designating a target frame in the Create Link or the Edit Link dialog boxes:

  1. Open the page that you are going to add the link to.
  2. Select the text, image, or hotspot that the user will click to navigate to the page.
  3. Click the Create or Edit Hyperlink button on the Standard toolbar. The Create Link dialog box appears if you are creating a new link. The Edit Link dialog box appears if you are editing an existing link.
  4. In the Target Frame field, enter the name of the frame in which you want the page to appear. If you are creating a link to a page that is not in your current web (that is, a page in another site on the World Wide Web), refer to the section "Naming the Target Frames," which follows this topic.
  5. Click OK. When the frameset is loaded in a frame-compatible browser, the page displays in the specified frame. If the frameset is not loaded, the browser may create a new window to display the page.

Naming the Target Frames

When you design a frame grid, you assign each frame in the frameset a name, such as top, contents, and main. Typically, you assign a name that describes the frame's location in the frameset. As you've learned, you can load the pages in your web into any frame in the frameset.

What happens when you create a link to another site? How do you specify that you don't want a link to appear in your frameset? Four frame names have special meanings, as described in Table 13.1.

Table 13.1. Frame names with special significance.

NameDescription
_blankLoads the page to which you are linking in a new browser window.
_parentLoads the page to which you are linking in the parent frame, if the current frame is one that has a parent frame.
_selfLoads the page to which you are linking in the same window as the link.
_topRemoves the frameset and displays the page to which you are linking in the full browser window. This is most commonly used when creating links to other pages on the World Wide Web.

Displaying Clickable Images in Frames

If you have a clickable image, you do not necessarily have to assign a target frame for each hotspot link that appears on the page. Instead, you can use the Image Properties dialog box to assign a global default target frame. This means that all links in the clickable image that do not have target frames associated with them are associated with the global default target frame.

To add a default target frame to a clickable image, follow these steps:

  1. Click to select the clickable image.
  2. Choose Edit | Image Properties, or right-click and choose Image Properties from the pop-up menu. The Image Properties dialog box shown in Figure 13.21 appears.
    Figure 13.21 : Assign a default target frame to a clickable image.

  3. Choose the General tab if it is currently not selected. In the Default Hyperlink area, enter the name of the default target frame in the Target Frame field or use the Browse button to locate the page in your current web.
  4. Click OK to exit the Image Properties dialog box.

You also can add a target frame to a hotspot when you create it. Use the steps outlined in "Assigning Target Frames to Links," discussed earlier in this chapter.

Workshop Wrap-Up

In this chapter, you learned how to give your pages multiple personalities by using framesets. With the Frames Wizard, you designed your own frameset and learned how to include page content in specified frames. You even learned how to use the same content for people who do not use frame-compatible browsers. Now that you know what frames are and what they do, it is time to hit the ground running and develop more framesets of your own.

Next Steps

More challenging projects with frames await. In Chapter 18, "Real- Life Examples III: Adding Navigation and Automation," you design another frameset for your Web site. Soon, the pages you design throughout this book will be displayed in a frameset. For related topics, refer to the following chapters:

Q&A

Q:Can I put anything I want into framesets?
A:More or less, yes. You can insert picture presentations, animations, video files, Java applets, forms (such as those used in the discussion groups), and even links to your favorite sites.

NOTE
Exercise caution when you use links to other sites in your frame pages. When you include a link to a page on someone else's site, assign it a default target frame _top. Otherwise, the pages at the other sites are displayed in your frameset. This gives the illusion that the pages from the other sites are part of your site. The user continues through the Net with those pages displaying in your frame. You can see what a mess that might cause.

Q:When I divide pages into frames, how large should I make the graphics?
A:The resolutions most commonly used when browsing the Web are 640×480 and 800×600, with the latter being most common. In 640×480 resolution, Netscape's viewing screen measures close to 626×278 pixels. Internet Explorer's measures 610×312 pixels; release 3.0 supports frames. In 800×600 mode, Netscape's screen measures 786×398 pixels, and Internet Explorer measures 764×408 pixels. You can use these figures to estimate sizes for graphics.
Alternatively, design your frameset and open it in a frame-compatible browser. Using a screen capture program, take a screen shot of the frameset exactly as it appears in your browser at each resolution. That way, you can determine the exact measurements for your graphics. The hard part is deciding whether you want to design your graphics for 640×480 resolution or for 800×600 resolution. It is probably best to design for 640×480 resolution.
Q:How many frames can I put in a page?
A:As many as you want. Remember, though, that some users display pages at lower resolutions. You do not want to use so many frames that the content of your pages becomes unreadable. If your framesets contain many sections, check them out at 640×480 resolution before you put them on the Web. If you find it difficult to view many frames in that resolution, your visitors will also. Either reduce the number of frames or recommend that your visitors use a higher resolution, such as 800×600 or higher.