Changing a frame-based website into tables or css based design

[loopylee]

Hi,

Does anybody have a suggestion on how to change a website that was previously designed using frames and framesets into a table-based design (or better still CSS tableless design) quickly and effortlessly?.
I have been told that you can do this with a click of a button apparently?
How true is this?

I would like to do this to please the search engines before i commence optimisation for the site, but dont want to have to spend hours and hours redesigning. Unfortunately i cannot provide a link to the site in question as you know this contravenes forum rules.

Any help would be appreciated. :)

[tedster]

Welcome [webmasterworld.com] to the forums, loopylee.

you can do this with a click of a button

Not in my experience - it may be relatively easy, or relatively challenging, depending on lots of factors in the layout.

Here's a thread in CSS that covers the topic of imitating frames with css [webmasterworld.com].

If you don't want to retain the the frame-like functionality, you may find it's easier. But it will take some work, no matter what.

[loopylee]

Thanks for the reply tedster

I visited the link to css frames. Very helpful!
Is it possible to use the same type of coding for header frames and footer frames ie. the site in question has

a horizontal navigation menu bar(containing text links) in the top frame,

main content in the middle frame

and a bottom horizontal frame which contains a logo, a scroller (javascript) which is used to scroll through images in the content frame from left to right, and then two link buttons.

Regards :)

[Pico_Train]

Hello Loopylee,

Not sure you can do it with the click of a button...

Getting rid of the frames is a very good idea, at least for your search results. Whether you chose to do it in tables or with CSS layout is up to you.

If you do use tables, you can use server side includes with Apache Servers. It is very useful for maintenance purposes as it like frames, there is only one file to change for the whole site for your left navigation, top and bottom navigation.

Good luck!

[gooflox]

If you have php working with the site you should also look into using includes. You can use them just like SSI.

[loopylee]

ok cool. thx for the advice(s)

any helpful or useful links/books/tutorials on this with particular reference to my question would be appreciated.

(i have little knowledge of SSI and PHP and am running Apache Server which enables me to use either option)

many thanks

[tedster]

There's a wealth of information right here on our forums. Try some Google searches with site:webmasterworld.com as one of the search terms.

SSI on WebmasterWorld [google.com]
PHP Include on WebmasterWorld [google.com]