Working with Frames and Framesets

Now that you have an idea about how frame-based websites work, and you're aware of the advantages and disadvantages of them, let's begin working with them in Dreamweaver.

As you have done for the rest of the chapters in this book, you can work with the examples in this chapter by downloading the files from www.dreamweaverunleashed.com. You'll want to save the files for Chapter 8 in an easy-to-find location. I'll place mine in C:\Dorknozzle\Chapter08.

Dreamweaver makes working with framed websites a snap. Initially, everything begins with the Frames panel. Available by choosing Window, Frame, the Frames panel, allows you to easily select and work with frames and framesets.

As you might have noticed, the Frames panel looks fairly useless. It's not until you actually create a new frameset document that the panel comes alive. Let's do that now.

Creating a New Website Using Prebuilt Framesets

The quickest and easiest way to create a new framed website is to use one of the prebuilt framesets available from the New Document dialog. To create a new frameset using this method, follow these instructions:

1.	Choose the New option from the File menu. The New Document dialog appears.
2.	Choose the Framesets category from the Category list on the left.
3.	Pick a frameset type from the Frameset menu on the right. Although 15 different prebuilt framesets exist, the most popular by far is the Fixed Top, Nested Left option, shown in Figure 8.4. Select it. Figure 8.4. The most popular frameset is the Fixed Top, Nested Left option.
4.	Click Create. The new frameset appears in the Document window, split into the three frames (just as implied by the preview image in the New Document dialog). Also notice that the Frames panel, shown in Figure 8.5, visually displays the frameset as it appears in the Document window. Figure 8.5. The Frames panel displays a visual representation of the design in the Document window.

NOTE

After you click Create in the New Document dialog, by default, Dreamweaver displays accessibility options as they relate to frames and framesets. If you don't find yourself working with Accessibility features at this point, this dialog can be turned off by navigating to the Preferences window (available from the Edit menu), choosing the Accessibility category, and disabling the Frames check box.

Although this is certainly not the only way of creating framed websites, it is by far the simplest. The next section explores alternative methods of creating framesets.

Alternate Methods of Creating Framesets

Although using one of Dreamweaver's prebuilt frameset files is certainly easy enough, it's hard to ignore the other methods for generating framesets in a web page. One method involves options from the Insert menu. To see this method in action, follow these steps:

1.	Create a new blank HTML document by selecting New from the File menu. Choose HTML from the Basic Page category and click Create. A new blank page appears.
2.	Choose Insert, HTML, Frames, Top Nested Left. The result of this command is similar to the Fixed Top, Nested Left option available from the New Document dialog. In fact, the Frames submenu contains 13 options similar to those found in the list of prebuilt framesets in the New Document dialog.

The second method for generating a frameset document involves the Modify menu. To use this method, follow these steps:

1.	Create a new blank HTML document by selecting New from the File menu. Choose HTML from the Basic Page category and click Create. A new blank page appears.
2.	Place your cursor in the page and select Modify, Frameset, Split Frame Up.
3.	Place your cursor in the bottom frame and choose Modify, Frameset, Split Frame Left.

This design is similar to the previous options covered thus far. Finally, you can create the same frameset structure by choosing an option from the Layout, Frames submenu in the Insert bar. As you can see from Figure 8.6, most of the prebuilt frameset options are available in this list.

Figure 8.6. Use the Layout, Frames submenu in the Insert bar to pick from a list of prebuilt frameset files.

Whichever method you choose produces similar results. Although deleting a frame from a frameset isn't as intuitive as simply clicking a button or choosing an option from a menu, it's still fairly simple: To delete a frame from a frameset, click and drag the frame border of the unwanted frame off the page. The frame is removed from the frameset.

TIP

If you can't see the frame borders, enable them by selecting the Frame Borders option from the Visual Aids menu in the Document bar.

To prepare for the rest of the examples in this chapter, close all Document window instances except for the first one you created using the New Document window method.