HTML – Frames --> use or not?

[BrokenKingpin]

Ok I am making a website and so far I have used frames. I know there are lots of reasons why people say that frames SUCK in html. Some of those reasons are navigation problems, book marking the page, old browsers don’t support them, search engines can’t find them, and printing of a page. Well I can get around 3/5 of those.
People say frames are horrible for navigation because it loads the original page and every page after that is loaded into a frame… so technically it is still on the first page, and this would also result not being able to book mark certain pages and print certain pages unless it is the main page. The way I got around this is for each page there is a frame set-up that will load the content of that page in one frame, and the navigation menu in the one page. So every time you click a link on the website it will load a new page with the frames for the content of that page and the navigation page. And for printing I have it so it prints the content frame and not the navigation which most people would want.
The reason I want to use frames is so that I don’t have to rewrite the navigation menu code on every webpage because it is a lot of code because there are mouse over functions and it would take a lot longer to do.
The reason I don’t want to use frames is that the site will not be found by search engines. Also the website will not be able to be displayed in older web browsers.
I was just wondering what your take on this is?

[BandC]

I personally don't like frames. You can still achieve the left-hand navigation menu effect using a modular page design (using includes etc.). Are you doing plain HTML or something like PHP? In the end, it all comes to your decision. If you have a ton of code to re-write and frames work for you for now then I'd say don't bother re-writing it. If you have time and want to learn new stuff then re-write it without frames.

[BrokenKingpin]

I am just using basic html and java script, so does js support includes?

[BandC]

Javascript is client side. To do server side includes you need server side scripting, something like PHP. Have you ever thought about learning PHP? It'd be a good experience.

[jtang613]

I have felt your pain. I recently began revamping my homepage and went the non-frames route (personal preference). And yes, it is a lot more cut&paste work, but I find the result is much nicer.

The two cleanest ways I've come across are Server Side Includes (SSI) or using a HTML preprocessor before uploading (I like this idea).

Here's a link explaining the various methods: http://www.allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Incl...ile_in_another

edit: PHP is also a great way to solve this. If you're feeling adventurous.

hth,
Jason

[BrokenKingpin]

OK thanx for all your helpful information. I dont think ill be learning php anytime soon. I am currently in a comnputer programming cource at college and don't really have time to learn another language on top of the 4 i am currently studying.