Frames vs other choices

[stardell]

My site currently uses frames. The left hand menu (Frame)is for navigating to documents which open in the right hand menu. I am opening them using html pages vs PDF. Besides using frames, what other suggestions would you make?
I have SE concerns related to using frames.

Thanks

[Stefan]

There'll be others here who can give better advice on the layout, but imo, there are better ways to go than frames. They're annoying, if nothing else.

If the left frame is just for navigation, perhaps you could redo the pages to have the same links on the left of every content page, without the frame. Do it with CSS or tables. Make it fluid or not.

And welcome to WW.

[stardell]

Thanks for quick response. I have considered the tables process which I'm pretty comfortabl with, but the list of artiles is going to grow and might be to much to scroll down the page for. Maybe an Iframe on each content page?

[piatkow]

In my innocence I used frames on my first ever site and quickly decided that it was a bad idea.

They are useful on occasions but only on pages where SEO isn't an issue. I assume that the documents in question are not initially created as pages on the site so don't contain any in-built navigation when they come to you and you are unable or unwilling to edit them. The options there are a frame, either classic or iframe, or opening in a new window. Personally I prefer getting that sort of document in a new window but that is terribly confusing for a lot of people.

[Marshall]

stardell, welcome to WebmasterWorld.

IMHO - avoid frames at all costs. If, as you mentioned, your navigation may get long, you could run into two problems: the frame will disappear below the window or visitors are going to have to scroll it thus having two scroll bars per page which I find to be a pain.

You would probably be better of with a standard navigation on the left or use a dynamic navigation on the left listing your articles by category and having each category expand/collapse or show/hide when selected. In this day and age, I believe more people are more comfortable with dynamic navigation than frames pages.

Marshall

[Baruch Menachem]

speaking only as a customer, frames are horrible. Also ugly.

CSS works a whole lot better, and as Marshal said, dynamic navigation is better yet.

Frames are a turn off, and will probably go the way of the <blink> tag.

[daveVk]

If it is inconvenient to redo content pages to include the navigation consider using PHP of other server side support to combine the navigation and content into single page.