RE: Frames and People With Napoleanic Issues >>

To add a twist to this interesting perspective, there are clients out there
that simply want frames. 
 
They might not all be programmers, but they are not all computer illiterate.
No matter what my opinion or your debate, the client is who pays my bills
and thought they might pay for suggestions too, ultimately they pay for what
they want - frames or no.
 
- Deanna

-----Original Message-----
From: www-html-request@w3.org [mailto:www-html-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
Francis X. Speiser Jr.
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2000 2:32 PM
To: www-html@w3.org
Cc: frank@cablevision-boston.com
Subject: Frames and People With Napoleanic Issues >>


Hello All, 

My favorite part about his list is when some amateur author of HTML and a
"standards hobbyist" attempts to speak on behalf of the entire world
communicating via markup language. Those folks are the best, because I laugh
my tail off every time you post. Keep up the good work. 


As for frames, you can deprecate them, hide them under your bed, put them
away in the closet, or bury them in the end zone with Jimmy Hoffa, and I'll
tell you what -- people are still going to use them. Maybe not everyone, but
there is still a use for them. 


Now, I think we can all agree that we've seen a misuse of frames. However, I
am currently involved with one major media company and a start-up, and I
have seen a genuine use for being able to affect one section of a page but
not the others, and the best way to do that now is frames. You can cheer
when they change the standards, and you can pull out your rule book and
explain to me in 46 different ways how rule 12345 specifically states how
"you got picked on in high school and still can't get over it", but we need
some sense to reign here. 


Perhaps there can be some style attribute that will allow the client to
differentiate between static and dynamic elements of a page. Coming from a
programming perspective, I can see how that is going to be extremely
difficult. Until someone comes up with a better way to import dynamic data
into a page with both static and dynamic elements, we people in the real
world are going to continue to use frames and any browser that moves to
support them, and shuts a user out from his or her favorite site or function
is not going to remain popular for long. (To vendors on this list) To
blindly drop your products' ability to support frames is just going to allow
some little guy to come in and scoop up an unfilled niche (maybe someone
like me will write a browser for free and release it open source if you do),
and with all the problems the big guys have supporting stuff now, I don't
see them being able to do that. 


If there is a better way and it is just not publicized, then by all means,
share it with us... That is, the people who actually develop  using HTML
instead of praying to an obscure section in a manual (that someone wrote for
a trial run of a first of its kind language). 


Also, I would like to ask a few of the people on this list (you know who you
are) to stop condescending to some of the others on the list who are helping
to develop this standard. I understand and follow the discussion on this
list, and I have no trouble keeping pace with your discussions, but a)
sometimes you sound ridiculous when you get into a semantic pissing contest
- especially when you do nothing to propose a resolution to a
style/tag/attribute situation, etc. and b) you alienate some entire areas of
the development process, which probably isn't a good thing when you are
developing a language that communicates WORLDWIDE. Just make your point, and
move on please.If you need to use specific language, then use it, but don't
try to sound like you know something we don't because there are those of us
out here that you just aren't fooling. This all really isn't so complicated,
so I hope you'll take this moment and get over it. 


One more thing, I'd like to propose a tag... <rant> </rant> so we can
enclose all of our rants that will be filtered out by people who choose to
filter them. 


Thanks. If anyone else was wondering, there <i_really_mean_it> are  real
people on this list.</i_really_mean_it> 
Yes, I said it. Stop taking yourself so seriously and start doing things to
help this world out if you are involved in this process. 


-Plain Old Frank- 
######################################### 
#####With no pompous signature file.##### 
######################################### 
  
  


John Whelan wrote: 


G. James Berigan writes: 
> Ann Navarro <ann@webgeek.com> wrote: 

>> That said, it still has no bearing on whether or not XHTML 1.1, a next 
>> generation spec twice removed from HTML 4.0(1) should or should not
contain 
>> Frames in it's core. 


> HTML 4 already does not contain frames in its core.  There is zero frames 
> support in the Strict DTD.  Noframes markup in a Frameset document is 
> validated as Transitional markup with no option to validate it as Strict. 


> FRAMES ARE DEPRECATED IN HTML 4!  THEREFORE THEY CAN BE DROPPED ENTIRELY 
> FROM ANY SUCCESSOR! 


It's a bad sign when the tone of the discussion has been reduced to 
shouting.  Since everything appearing in the Transitional but not 
Strict DTD *except* TARGET and NOFRAMES is explicitly indicated in the 
spec as being deprecated, and since 
< http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/struct/global.html#h-7.2
<http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/struct/global.html#h-7.2> > 
says 


"The HTML 4.01 Strict DTD includes all elements and attributes that 
have not been deprecated or do not appear in frameset documents." 


it sounds to me like the W3C was deliberately leaving the question of 
frames' status open by dividing HTML4 into three categories: Strictly 
Validating Stuff, Deprecated Stuff and Frame Stuff.  At any rate, I 
think it's quite a stretch to look at the spec and declare frames to 
be deprecated without more knowledge of the W3C's thinking. 


Unlike most items deprecated in HTML4, frames cannot be replaced in 
any obvious way using stylesheets.  In addition to zillions of bad 
uses for frames, there are a few good ones, and since frames are not 
likely to go out of use any time soon, I think the community is better 
served by promoting responsible use of them.  At any rate, 
TARGET="_top" attribute is useful for sites which don't use frames 
themselves but know they're likely to be linked to within someone 
else's frameset.  I was once in that situation with a site I linked 
back to, meaning that I could not use the Strict DTD if I wanted to 
avoid nesting this site's frameset. 


Incidentally, the fact that Frames don't appear in HTML 3.2 does not 
rule out their being deprecated.  For instance, the S element was new 
in HTML 4.0, but deprecated at the same time. 


                                        John T. Whelan 
                                        whelan@iname.com 
                                        http://www.slack.net/~whelan/
<http://www.slack.net/~whelan/>