Storm Imaging

[storm7]

www.storm-imaging.co.uk (http://www.storm-imaging.co.uk)

or

www.stormimaging.co.uk (http://www.stormimaging.co.uk)

[Stemmy]

Always an advantage getting a good website when you work with computers all day.

You know your telephone number is always the top of my list when my site goes "Belly up" :D

[storm7]

Don't work with computers anymore, it's now people ...and it's a lot harder ... :(

[Stemmy]

Craig - question for you.

My website still used frames for navigation. A few times ive been told that this is not the best method. Why? - And is it easy to correct?

I am also thinking of having a flash section to the website. I will still have the standard site but everybody will have the chance to enter the flash section if they want.

Check this site out for a top flash site. A top photographer as well. Aparently he spent 30k on this site. Maybe one day !:rolleyes:

http://www.eccentris.com/splash.htm

[storm7]

Browser and Accessibility Problems: Several of the old browsers don't support frames. You may think that people update their browsers, but alot of people don't. Many people don't know how, just don't want to, or don't have the computer disk space to hold the newer (and more memory consuming) browsers.

This is an especially important concern when you consider those visitors who might be accessibility challenged (such as the sight- or physically-impaired). They may be using special software which reads the web pages out loud. Unless they are fortunate enough to have the money to spend on sophisticated software and hardware, the commonest of the special software can't deal with frames and the other "fancier" technologies on the web. Hence, they can't access frame-set sites.


Legal Issues: If you have a link in your site which loads someone else's site into one of the frames in your frameset, the viewer can mistakenly believe that the information being presented belongs to you. This can result in a charge of copyright infringement (see the copyright page for links to more information, and a description of the Shetland Times Case found at this site).

For the site designer/coder, it can be a pain to juggle what page is loading within what frame. And if you have links to outside sites, you have to remember to put in the proper code (either _blank, _top, _parent, _self, or your own designated frame) to have that external site not load within your frameset. I see this happening to many of the AGNR sites which use frames. This can be potentially confusing your visitor about who is providing the information.


Search Engines won't list your web site: Search engines (such as Yahoo - which statistics show is the one most frequently used) cannot catalog websites which have been designed in frames. That means more users won't find your website.

Bookmarking Problems: If your entire site uses frames, a visitor often can't bookmark any pages within the site except the first one (the home page). With frames, when someone attempts to bookmark any of the pages, the bookmark usually defaults to the home page, or it bookmarks one of the sections of the frame, and reloads that section only, devoid of the frame set (and probably without the navigation).
[back to list of reasons]

Having to give directions in addition to the web address: If you want to direct someone to a given page from outside the site, you'll have to give them the main URL (website address) and then tell them how to navigate to find what they want, rather than giving them the direct page's URL.

In addition to the hassle of having to give directions, if you give them the individual page's URL, they will get that page alone, devoid of the frameset (and probably the navigation which would normally be included in another frame).


Another site wants to link to a page on your site, but can't: Another site can't link to a page within your site, only the home page. Or if they are clever enough to link to an inner page, then the user again gets the linked page alone, without the rest of the frameset.


Problems reloading frame-based web sites: You sometimes can't successfully reload/refresh any page within a frameset. What may happen is that you visitor gets taken back to the web site's home page. You have to pay special attention to your code to get this to work right.




I'm busy learning Dreamweaver / Flash and will have a new site up in the next 4-6 months ...

[storm7]

Just checked out that website link


ffffffff flippin' eck - it's good....not got a spare 30k at the mo tho...

[Stemmy]

Top reply Craig - That is what I hope this forum will be able to do for everybody soon.
The only thing you missed out is how easy is it to put it right. I have looked on the web and there are loads of fancy floating nav frames but can i just add them to my pages somehow.