Frames Tutor
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Hello. My name is Joe and I'm going to give you a few simple lessons on how to make frames for your web documents. The intelligent use of frames can give your pages a cleaner look and make them easier to navigate. Note the operative word is intelligent. Nuff said?
Dividing a page into frames is actually quite simple. The basic concept goes like this: Each frame is a regular, complete html document. If you wanted to divide your page into 2 side by side frames, then you would put one complete html document in the left frame and another complete html document in the right frame. In addition you need to write a third html document. This MASTER PAGE (I'm coining a new phrase here folks) contains the <frame> tags that specify what goes where. As a matter of fact, that's about its only function.
There are only two main frame tags to contend with: <frameset> and <frame>. The easiest way to explain them is to have you dive right in and start making some frames. I guarantee that in 90 minutes you'll be a feel-no-pain framing machine!
Now's a good time to stress that if you want to learn how to make quality html documents, then you would be well served to take the time to teach yourself the tags. If you rely on the so-called "frames wizards" in the "easy as pie html editors" out there, you will have greatly limited flexibilty, and the end result may not be what you are trying to achieve. In my opinion the best html editors to use are text based editors or just plain text editors. I use NoteTab Pro... easily one of the most powerful text editors on the planet (and probably a few other planets as well ;-)
And while we're at it, if you're still using Microsoft's Internet Explorer, you might want to give a look. It's absolutely free and has some excellent tools for the web developer... especially if you're going to do any Javascripting. I use it all the time and I think it's faster and better all the way around. Even if you decide to stick with Explorer, it will at least give you a second browser to check your pages with... which is a very useful thing to do.
