Re: Frames - does anyone like them?

On Thu, 22 Aug 1996, Fisher Mark wrote:

> >Does the [CSS Layout] specification do everything that those who use FRAME
> >need? If not, what needs to be added?
> 
> Very good point -- Frames should be in style sheets.  Unfortunately, I 
> haven't studied CSS yet -- any experts wish to speak up?

How about DIVs or SPANs that float, but don't scroll? A simple enough
addition to CSS.

Come to think of it, this poses an interesting problem. If you could have
something like this on your screen:

mmmmmmmmmmmm | ooooooooo
mmmmmmmmmmmm | ooooooooo
mmmmmmmmmmmm | ooooooooo
mmmmmmmmmmmm | ooooooooo
mmmmmmmmmmmm | ooooooooo
mmmmmmmmmmmm +----------
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Where m is the main document and o is a floated region that doesn't scroll.
Does the region in m continue wrapping to the screen border when it's
underneath o, or does it re-wrap so that you can see all the data?

The most useful thing would be,in my mind, to have a different attribute
in addition to float (W3C gives me a strange error when I try to bring up
the Style page so I can't check the Spec... would you guys get your server
straight? :-)) sich as "fixed" or "window" or "frame" whoch would float it
to left, right, top or bottom and make it stick there as a frame.

In the case of navigational features, this would mean that you could have
them in the top of your document so that a non-style aware UA would render
them there while a style-aware browser would make them a frame in the
appropriate position. Making this section as well as the rest of the
document in *correct* HTML would mean

a) There would be *no* reason to specify size in any way since the document
would resize nicely (obviously frames onthe left or right of the main
document would have narrower margins by default) in all respects
b) There would be no problem of having frame content not fitting in a frame.

This should *definitely* be a feature that a user could implicitly disable,
especially if his screen real estate is highly valued (Oh I love this
metaphor! :-))

= Stephanos Piperoglou = stephanos@hol.gr = http://users.hol.gr/~stephanos/ =
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"I want peace on earth and good will toward man"
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                                    [ from the film "Sneakers" ]

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Received on Thursday, 22 August 1996 17:06:52 UTC