RE: Extended URL for [I]Frames (revived)

> From:	Mjumbe Ukweli [SMTP:mjumbewu@hotmail.com]
> 
> are there any documents to which people can point me explaining _why_ 
> (i)frames are being removed altogether (or if anyone can just tell me then
> 
> that woudl be fine as well)?
> 
> 
	[DJW:]  Essentially because they have been deprecated
	from the outset.  The HTML 4.0 position is that they are
	a stop gap for style sheets.  This is not news:  it's implicit
	in the HTML 4.0 specification from December 1997 and probably
	was public information before that.

	ISO HTML does not include frames.

	As far as I can tell, XHTML 1.1 (proposed reccommendation) doesn't
	include the frames module from modularized HTML and is based on
	HTML 4.01 strict, not on the transitional version.  See
	<http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/doctype.html#s_doctype> for supported
	elements.

	The intention of HTML 4 was that people would be using only the
	strict version now, and this does not support frames.

	One of the basic reasons is that they are incompatible with the
	concept of a web because of the amount of state that needs to be
	recreated by any link to them.  Even if you extended xlink to
	allow the complete state to be recovered, including scripting
variables,
	the result would, essentially, be impossible to use in
non-electronic
	media (e.g. print, or broadcast speech radio).  It's this problem
that
	resulted in your proposal in the first place.

	Other issues are that frames do
	not work well in one dimensional media (e.g. speech) and really
	require pixel addressible devices to work well in two dimensional
	media (even then, Web TV simulates them with tables).

>

Received on Tuesday, 15 May 2001 14:37:25 UTC