I try not to repeat myself too much, allowing by choice at least
a year before coming back to a subject I have already discussed. This is a
subject that I have talked about from time to time before, but it always seems
to inspire such hot debate whenever it does com up that I felt it would be worth
at least stating my humble opinion once again, and allow you to ponder the
matter in order to make up your own mind.
The subject is, as the name of this piece might imply, the use of frames.
People very rarely have a middle of the road attitude to frames on websites. They either believe they are the best thing since the invention of the wheel, or that they are the bane of all existence. Personally, I'm one of the rare type I mentioned, whose opinion is neither particularly for nor against.
I do think that a good part of the antithesis towards frames is historical. In their origins, there was no way to reduce the borders between frames to nothing, resulting in a clunky, ungainly appearance to a website. Additionally, there were considerable differences between the levels of support for frames in different browsers, as well as differences in their looks. There was also discussion about page load times, which, especially in the days of 28K dial-up connections, was more important then than it is now. The resulting lack of professional appearance and lack of cross-browser compatibility, made webmasters view frames with a most unfriendly eye.
Modern browsers provide full support for frames, displaying them in a standardized fashion and recognizing the full set of attributes available. On today's Internet, with updates very easily available, and with users so concerned about security that they obtain updates quickly (or at least, they should!) most of those visiting your site will do so with a pretty current browser.
Frames allow for some interesting and very easy to maintain designs. It is particularly useful to have you navigation links on a page of their own and displayed in a frame on the parent page, so that any navigation maintenance performed is immediately available to the entire site. The use of frames is far from the only way to solve that problem, but it is a very easy solution. In my humble opinion, if you haven't considered using frames for a while now, this might be a good time to reconsider.
Q. If my site uses the same images on all the pages, do I only preload on the index page, or should I have each page preload all the images?
A. If they are all in the same directory for each page then you should not have to pre-load them for each page. Once on the first page should do the trick. You should be able to test this by commenting out the pre-load script on another page and see if the images take longer to load.
Q. I would like to eliminate the use of the Enter key that a user may enter while in a TextArea. How can I do that?
A. Here is a script example that will ignore the enter key in a textarea:
whKey = !IE5? e.which:event.keyCode; // check for NS4 and NS6
window.status=whKey // Display ascii code in status bar
if(whKey=='13') // check for ascii enter key (ascii)
onkeypress="return stopkey(event)" >Enter your response here</textarea>
Microsoft, Cisco Shake on Network Security
[October 18, 2004] Collaboration will push for interoperability between competing platforms for network security compliance.
SBC Sees Cheap Wi-Fi as Cable Cudgel
[October 18, 2004] The carrier offers its DSL customers lots of hotspots for cheap in new service plan.
Macromedia Builds More Muscle Into Flex
[October 18, 2004] The latest version of its presentation server adds IBM, Oracle and Fujitsu support with .NET waiting in the wings.
JBoss Takes On jBPM Project
[October 18, 2004] The professional open source outfit adds workflow management to its middleware software lineup..
Software by Subscription Shows Rising Interest
[October 18, 2004] Industry group survey says more than half of publishers will offer subs by 2006.
Interwoven Gives Intranet Docs a Simple Touch
[October 18, 2004] The company better known for its Web-based content management is tackling corporate intranets now.
A Decade of E-Commerce
[October 18, 2004] Industry players recall the beginnings of e-commerce -- and speculate on its future.
XHTML,HTML Get International Flavor
[October 18, 2004] A W3C task force issues a working draft to give developers some new techniques.
Tech Job Cuts Leap 60%
[October 18, 2004] Tech sector is also a major contributor to job cuts from all industries so far in 2004.
Rise of the Underdog Browser
[October 15, 2004] FEATURE: Is your company paying attention to the browser market shift? If not, there's a train leaving the station..
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1898 US Takes Puerto Rico
Towards the end of the Spanish-American war, in 1897, Spain granted Puerto Rico self-rule. A year later, in July 1898, US troops invaded the island. There was little resistance, and only seven of the invaders were killed. By mid August, the Island had been secured, and later, after the armistice with Spain was signed, the island was officially turned over on this day in 1898. The US spent about thirty years Americanizing the population, including making them US citizens, and trying to make English the official language of the island, but popular movements such as the Popular Democratic Party put up strong opposition. In 1952 the US Congress made Puerto Rico an autonomous US commonwealth, approving its constitution which was adopted on July 25 of that year. Referendums in 1967 and again in 1993 have both failed to win the popular vote for Puerto Rican Statehood.
Today was also the day that in: 1016 Danes defeat Saxons at Battle of Assandun (Ashingdon); 1648 1st US labor organization formed (Boston Shoemakers); 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, ends War of Austrian Succession; 1767 Boundary between Maryland & Pennsylvania, the Mason Dixon line, agreed upon; 1776 In a NY bar decorated with bird tail, customers ordered a "cock tail"; 1922 The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was established; 1960 In Britain, the News Chronicle & Daily Mail merged, & The London Evening Star merged with the Evening News; 1962 Dr Watson (US) & Drs Crick & Wilkins (Britain) won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for work in determining structure of DNA; 1967 Walt Disney's "Jungle Book" was released; 1979 "Beatlemania" opened in London;
Born today were: in 1697 Venetian painter Canaletto; 1898 Austrian singer and actress Lotte Lenya; 1919 former Canadian PM Pierre Henry Trudeau; 1922 comic strip character Little Orphan Annie; 1925 Greek actress Melina Mercouri; 1933 actor Peter Boyle; 1939 JFK's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald; 1947 actor Joe Morton; 1947 singer Laura Nyro; 1951 actress Pam Dawber; 1956 Czech tennis player Martina Navratilova; 1958 Belgian actor Jean-Claude Van Damme; 1962 actress Erin Moran; 1977 actor Chris McKenna;