Please help me with Web pages with frames/tables

[Shaotai]

Okay, I helped a friend with their website, got it all put together and it's been running pretty well. It's hosted by 1and1 and she's had good success with it, very happy overall...

Well, she wants to now do a slight update and modification to the website/pages. We have a bunch of buttons on one side of the page. We want to try to get each button to update the "frame" that is in the middle of the page. I can not for the life of me figure this out.
I'm def not a web programer, I only know my basic html stuff.
Right now, it just opens to another page. She's got a layout that would make it look real nice so I know it's possible, I'm just a newb...

For you web developers, PM me and I'll forward you the addy so you can take a look at what I mean.

TIA.

 

[professor1942]

Well each frame has a name, right? You need to add the frame target name to the link, ie.

<a href="pr0nfest.com" target="main">button</a>

to make it open up in the other frame.

I think it's like that, I've never actually used frames (generally not recommended because they are a hassle).

 

[Shaotai]

So is there a better way rather than using frames?

 

[Atheus]

Why do you say frames are not recommended professor? Would you do this with AJAX and css?

 

[blackdogdeek]

do you already have frames or not?

if not, i believe you need to do something like:

<FRAMESET cols="25%,75%">
<FRAME src="contents_of_frame1.html" name="frame1">
<FRAME src="contents_of_frame2.html" name="frame2">
</FRAMESET>

this will make one frame be 25% of the left side of the window and another frame be the remaining 75% of the right side of the window.

to make the link show up in the right-side frame do this:

<a href="http://www.yourlink.com" target="frame2">

this will make the link display in the frame named "frame2" which from the definition above is the right-side frame.

 

[Markbnj]

Frames are probably the only way to do this without using some server-side processing. Of course, with server-side processing frames are totally unnecessary for this.

 

[imported_LoKe]

I'd avoid frames at all cost. Mind you, if you're already using tables and whatnot, you might aswell just keep going.

 

[professor1942]

Originally posted by: Atheus
Why do you say frames are not recommended professor? Would you do this with AJAX and css?

I am not an expert on web development (nowhere near it), but I think most people who are would agree that frames suck in most situations.

 

[Shaotai]

Okay, well, here's the website in question... Lindemere
We're just using regular web pages right now, but I think you'll get my idea...
Each time we hit the button, we just want the "middle table/frame" to update, not the whole page...
Thanks again for your guys ideas...

 

[imported_LoKe]

Oh, no, no, no. Just have the full page reload entirely. No need for frames; the nav and all are cached.

 

[Shaotai]

Well, this is something similar (actually exactly) what I wanted to do for our site...
Take a look at this site. Just the middle "table/frame" updates, not the whole page... Cattery Anaphista

 

[Shaotai]

bump?

 

[Shaotai]

one more time... help?

 

[professor1942]

Seriously, that's just bad design... scrap the frames. Most good sites would probably just have the nav portion in a separate HTML file and use the #include statement linking it on every page.