[CMS-Forum] no frames |S|

[Michael B. Murdock]

To use frames or not is one of those controversial topics that gets a wide range of opinions. There are several reasons web designers use frames...

1) To keep the header or menu on the site while changing the inside content pages. 
   This is the most common reason web designers use frames. It is in my opinion that this is just being lazy. A common menu (or header) can easily be included on your content pages with a simple SSI Include tag (or IncludeOnce in PHP). Most decent WCMS systems will perform this task for you using the templating system provided by the CMS.

2) To scroll the inside of the content without the menu or header scrolling.
   This can be a valid reason to use a menu frame but on smaller resolutions (640x480 or 800x600) you give up a great deal of screen real estate just to keep the logo at the top of the page. Most all users are used to having to scroll back to the top to get at the menu on a non-framed site and having the frame doesn't make a significant difference (IMHO) to the ease of use for the end user.

3) To display "off site" content while leaving your header and/or menu on the page. 
   Not only is this practice of questionable ethics without an agreement with the third part site but many sites now include JavaScript to remove your frame if they detect they have been loaded in a frameset. If you need this capability to include an "off site" content page you can still use the "inline frame" (iFrame) in a non-framed site.

4) Depending upon the traffic to the site it can increase the load on the server quite a bit.
   It takes one request to get the frameset, and then another request for each frame. If most of your users view 1 - 3 pages on a high traffic site using a framless site is more efficient.

Frames have some significant disadvantages, the largest being that some search engines have trouble indexing content in a framed site. It is difficult enough getting quality search engine listings without handicaping your site from the outset. The use of frames is viewed by many as a crutch and a mark of a less capable web design team and can reflect negatively on the firm.

Having said all that I have seen frames used effectively on the back office administrative interface where functionality and usability is more important than asthetics. The back office does not have the same concerns that the front end web site has.

Our experience has been that most of our customers want to use frames simply as a means of simplifying the use of a common menu or header. When you explain that the CMS application automatically includes these common elements without actually using frames and the dis-advantages of frames in general they usually are happy to do away with them.

My2Cents

Best regards,


Michael B. Murdock, CEO
Starphire Technologies, LLC.
"Web Content Management Solutions"
http://www.starphire.com










-----Original Message-----
From: cms-forum-bounces at lists.cms-forum.org
[mailto:cms-forum-bounces at lists.cms-forum.org]On Behalf Of Manish
Champsee
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 4:29 AM
To: cms-forum at lists.cms-forum.org
Subject: [CMS-Forum] no frames |S|


Thanks all for the suggestions so far and please keep
the advice coming..I should note that we intend to
redesign the site, which will include removing the frames.

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