Re: Frames spec & the NOFRAMES tag

Tim Bagot (tim@oakley.keble.ox.ac.uk)
Wed, 4 Mar 1998 05:02:42 -0500 (EST) 

Date: Wed, 4 Mar 1998 05:02:42 -0500 (EST)
From: Tim Bagot <tim@oakley.keble.ox.ac.uk>
To: HTML mailing list <www-html@w3.org>
cc: Ben Haller <bhaller@apple.com>
In-Reply-To: <9803040030.AA10532@santafe.apple.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980304094444.13342B-100000@oakley.keble.ox.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Frames spec & the NOFRAMES tag



On Tue, 3 Mar 1998, Ben Haller wrote:

>   I'm trying to figure out a few things about the frames spec as it  
> stands now (i.e. 4.0).
>   Please reply to me directly as well as to the list -- I just  
> subscribed a few minutes ago & have little confidence that I'll get  
> replies sent only to the list, due to lag.
> 
>   First of all, am I correct in thinking that with NOFRAMES, there  
> is no way to specify those attributes that are normally on the BODY  
> tag, such as text color, background, etc.?  Why aren't these also  
> attributes on NOFRAMES -- why doesn't it just act identically to  
> BODY?  For that matter, why do they even have NOFRAMES -- why not  
> just use a BODY, which frames-aware apps would know not to display  
> because a FRAMESET was found first, and which frames-unaware apps  
> would treat as the body, as intended?
>   Secondly, am I correct in thinking that BODY used to be required  
> within NOFRAMES, where now it is prohibited, and that FRAMESET is now  
> legal within FRAMESET, where you used to have to used a FRAME that  
> had an url for a different document with the nested FRAMESET in it?   
> Perhaps I shouldn't even worry about such things, but I'd like to  
> know how this stuff has evolved, to know what things I'm likely to  
> find out there on the Web which may be common despite being  
> non-spec-compliant.

You are right about NOFRAMES not having those attributes. I am not sure
why it was decided to give it the same content model as BODY (hence also
preventing it from containing a BODY element) without giving it the same
attributes. HTML 4.0 is the first W3C standard to include frames; it may
be that the things you mention come from proprietary versions of HTML,
which are likely to have slightly different implementations of frames,
since they were to a certain extent developed separately. Nested FRAMESETs
shouldn't be a problem, since they are backwards-compatible and fairly
widely supported. The confusion over the BODY element may cause more
difficulties. I also cannot see the reasoning behind putting NOFRAMES
inside FRAMESETs, since it applies to the whole document, not just
individual framesets. 

Tim Bagot