Re: Frames - does anyone like them? -Reply

>>> "David Perrell" <davidp@earthlink.net> 08/22/96 02:12pm >>>

:Paul Prescod wrote:
:> Frames have their uses. But I wonder if they should be in _HTML_.
Whether to
:> use frames or not is basically a design question, not  content
question. So
:> "frames" are good, but <FRAME> is bad. In other words, Frames
should be
:> specified in style sheets.
:
:Fisher Mark wrote:
:> Very good point -- Frames should be in style sheets. 
Unfortunately, I 
:> haven't studied CSS yet -- any experts wish to speak up?
:
:No expert, but disagree. "Design question" is irrelevant to where
:frames belong. Document structure is itself a design of sorts. Frames
:are more structure than presentation, and different presentation
:styles can appear in different frames. Frames are not a style applied
:to content, but rather containers for different content. Frames do
:not belong in style sheets.

I respectfully disagree. (I also decline to claim expertise.) The same
semantic content can be presented with or without frames. If you see
HTML as a _weakly_ semantic markup language, as I do, then frames
aren't relevant to the structure of content. If you see HTML as a
presentational markup language, as I do, then frames are part of the
structure of presentation. Frames can be keyed to the semantic structure
of the information; I can author in a somewhat more semantically-oriented
DTD like DocBook, which has no frames, and can transform the DocBook
content into HTML with or without frames. That tells me that frames are
more of a stylistic component.

-Todd Freter.
Corporate Publishing Services
Novell, Inc.
San Jose, CA
tfreter@novell.com

Received on Saturday, 24 August 1996 13:33:48 UTC