Chapter 13. Framing Pages

Web pages that use frames are versatile because they allow you to keep parts of your Web site—such as a logo or navigation bar— stationary, while allowing other parts of the same page, in the same window, to change their content. Using frames, you don't have to place the same elements onto every Web page that you build, and the viewer won't have to reload them each time in the browser. A frames-based page is divided into several windows within windows, like the panes in an old-fashioned window (Figure 13.1). Frames pages can also blur obvious borders (Figure 13.2, on next page).

Figure 13.1. Each frame in a frames-based page, such as Hotwired's Cocktail, is a distinct document with its own content—including different link and background colors and background images. When you click a link in one frame (here, the left frame has a table of contents), the targeted page appears in another window.