Stylesheets - Emulating frames

Author

Emulating frames

Bart

2005-01-28, 7:42 pm

Hi there,

Since you've all told me that frames ar evil, I'm planning to disguard
frames in favour of CSS "pseudo-frames" for my personal website.

While trying to "emulate frames" (that is I want a 2 column layout,
with the menu in the left column) I came up with this:

http://home-1.tiscali.nl/~knmg0017/css_frames_1.htm

I had some trouble getting the heigth of the "div#content" to be at
least the height of the viewport, so I used the

html, body{
height: 100%;
}

div#content{
height: 100%; /* IE: height = viewport */
...

and

body>div#content{
/* Non IE: height = viewport */
min-height: 100%;
...

This seems to work in both IE and FF (click on "drie" in the menu to
see what I mean)

My question is:

- Is this a sound approach ?
(The CSS will be in an external file in the future of course ..)
- I saw lots of different examples using all kinds of "tricks" with
the overflow property of the div#content, do I need tha in this
approach ?
- Can anyone report me how this looks in any other browser (Opera,
Safari etc.), I don't have them to test it.

Thanks in advance.

Bart

--
Bart Broersma
broersma.juda_ANTISPAM_@tiscali.nl
(ff _ANTISPAM_ wegpoetsen uit dit adres natuurlijk)

Barbara de Zoete

2005-01-28, 7:42 pm

On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 21:29:19 +0100, Bart <broersma.juda_ANTISPAM_@tiscali.nl>
wrote:

> Since you've all told me that frames ar evil, I'm planning to disguard
> frames in favour of CSS "pseudo-frames" for my personal website.
>

What function of frames are you most interested in? Is it the fixing of parts in
the viewport of browsers ('I want the menu to alway be visible')? Is it not to
have to repeat elements (like the menu) in every page?
Which features? And why?

> While trying to "emulate frames" (that is I want a 2 column layout,
> with the menu in the left column) I came up with this:
>
> http://home-1.tiscali.nl/~knmg0017/css_frames_1.htm
>

In Opera behaves as a simple two column layout. I see nothing special happening
at all.

> - Is this a sound approach ?
> (The CSS will be in an external file in the future of course ..)

For what? The page doesn't behave as a frames page in that it doesn't fix
anything in the viewport and I don't notice anyting special happening to the
content when clicking on a menu item, either.

Or do you mean the two column layout? There are many way to solve the problem of
the length of the columns. Google for them:
<http://www.google.nl/search?q=two+column+layout> or read back about a week or
so in this newsgroup, as it gets asked a lot. You're bound to stumble upon the
answer.

> - I saw lots of different examples using all kinds of "tricks" with
> the overflow property of the div#content, do I need tha in this
> approach ?

Depends. If you really mean to emulate frames, like I do in several of my
example pages (see
<http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/v...op-fixeren.html> or
<http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/v...overeffect.html> ),
you will have to do something with the overflow, otherwise how are you going to
deal with a page of which the content runs till below the fold?

> - Can anyone report me how this looks in any other browser (Opera,
> Safari etc.), I don't have them to test it.
>

Like I said, in Opera I see nothing happening that comes close to emulating
frames. Just a plain two column layout.

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Bart

2005-01-28, 7:42 pm

Op Wed, 26 Jan 2005 21:43:15 +0100 schreef "Barbara de Zoete"
<b_de_zoete@hotmail.com>:

>What function of frames are you most interested in? Is it the fixing of parts in
>the viewport of browsers ('I want the menu to alway be visible')? Is it not to
>have to repeat elements (like the menu) in every page?
>Which features? And why?

I think I used the wrong terms to explain my intention.
What I want is a 2 column layout. The menu left, the content to the
right. The width of the colums depending on the users current
fontsize.

>
>In Opera behaves as a simple two column layout. I see nothing special happening
>at all.

Well I'm not looking for anything special ...
If it looks like 2 colums, I'm satisfied for the moment.

>For what? The page doesn't behave as a frames page in that it doesn't fix
>anything in the viewport and I don't notice anyting special happening to the
>content when clicking on a menu item, either.

Fixing the menu in the viewport might be nice. I used position: fixed
on the menu, wich looks nice in FF, but IE doesn't support this (I
think).

[snip]

>Depends. If you really mean to emulate frames, like I do in several of my
>example pages (see
><http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/v...op-fixeren.html> or
><http://home.wanadoo.nl/b.de.zoete/v...overeffect.html> ),
>you will have to do something with the overflow, otherwise how are you going to
>deal with a page of which the content runs till below the fold?

For the moment, I think this (emulating frames behaviour like you
explain it) is too complex for me, so I'll let it rest. Maybe I'll
give that a try later on.

>
>
>Like I said, in Opera I see nothing happening that comes close to emulating
>frames. Just a plain two column layout.

Ok.

Thanks for yout input !

Bart

--
Bart Broersma
broersma.juda_ANTISPAM_@tiscali.nl
(ff _ANTISPAM_ wegpoetsen uit dit adres natuurlijk)