Hi, what I'm wanting to do may or may not be possible, but if so, any tips would be awesome! I've basically got a site that's useing 2 frames - one as a menu, one as a main content display. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.thehouse.org.au">http://www.thehouse.org.au</a><!-- m --> if anyone's interested 
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Anyway, what I want to do - for a new section of the site, I wanna have a different background/colour scheme. So that would mean a different html file for the menu, as well as the usual change for the content page. That's not a problem because the new section will be in its own frameset all in a different folder.<br />
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The problem is, when someone clicks on one of the links on the menu to go back to one of the normal sections of the page, i want to change both the menu frame back to the original one, and also the content frame to whatever they select...now, I've tried using multiple sets of <A HREF...></A> tags around the link image, that's no good. Tried putting two HREF's in the one set with each one going to the separate frames, that's no good either.<br />
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Is there a way to do this?? If you're not sure what I mean, have a look at the site, and hopefully htat'll clear it up a little...
<!--content-->This is the downfall of Frames. You would have to go back to your index page to get the main frameset, but you wouldn't be able to have the main content page go to where you want. Not with pure HTML, anyway. I suppose one could do it with JavaScript, but that's VERY inaccessible and JavaScript should NEVER be used for links, so forget I mentioned it. 
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My personal suggestion is to ditch the frames. Find out if your host supports SSI (Server Side Includes) or any server side languages. Then, on each page, you have something like:<br />
<br />
<!--#include virtual="navigation.html" --><br />
<br />
I believe it's the same or similar for ASP (Active Server Pages, a Server Side Language), though I could be wrong. Or if you have PHP support, at leaste (Another Server Side Language), You use:<br />
<br />
<?PHP include("navigation.html"); ?><br />
<br />
<br />
If those aren't an option, than I'm out of suggestions. Ask someone smarter than me (there are a lot of them here).<!--content-->Thanks for the quick reply, I've got a solution using javascript that seems to work fine...is there any reason not to use javascript for links? And what do you mean by inaccessible?<br />
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Also, I dont really know anything about asp, php, or any of those, so I'd rather not having to use them...<br />
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If there's any better ways out there, feel free to let me know<!--content-->By inaccessible, I mean that not everyone on the internet can view it. I say not to use JavaScript, because 13% of Internet users don't support it. You may not think that's a lot, but consider how many millions of users there are, and that's a substantial number. Plus, think about the disabled, who use accesibily devices to browse the web. Frame are notoriously inaccessible. Plus, one thing I dislike, is not being able to bookmark individual pages of a website with Frames. I hate it. But in the end, I guess, it's your choice.<!--content-->Thanks for the feedback - it is useful to hear opinions of people that know...and I did think quite a bit about the javascript and frames before using them. <br />
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Initially I was doing the layout with tables, which I guess would be more widely useable, but that was just getting ridiculous to keep track of...any small changes to layout were taking quite a long time to make to every page on the site...
<br />
<br />
However, manageable alternatives have the same drawbacks of not being universally supported (or not standardised across different browsers - eg CSS), so I figure I might as well go for something I know that's been around a while and hope that most/all of my target audience can make it work...<br />
<br />
In terms of bookmarking, each major department section of the page has its own frameset (hence my initial problem, but it's the only way I can do things slightly different for each department easily), so you could bookmark those no problems. IIRC, there's only one page in the entire site that you can't get to immediately from one of the initial framesets (ie bookmarkable places), and its only an archives page anyway, not a main part...so I dont think that's a huge problem.
<br />
<br />
Fell free to have a look at the site to see what I mean in my case, any feedback is much appreciated.
<!--content-->
<br /><br />
Anyway, what I want to do - for a new section of the site, I wanna have a different background/colour scheme. So that would mean a different html file for the menu, as well as the usual change for the content page. That's not a problem because the new section will be in its own frameset all in a different folder.<br />
<br />
The problem is, when someone clicks on one of the links on the menu to go back to one of the normal sections of the page, i want to change both the menu frame back to the original one, and also the content frame to whatever they select...now, I've tried using multiple sets of <A HREF...></A> tags around the link image, that's no good. Tried putting two HREF's in the one set with each one going to the separate frames, that's no good either.<br />
<br />
Is there a way to do this?? If you're not sure what I mean, have a look at the site, and hopefully htat'll clear it up a little...
<!--content-->This is the downfall of Frames. You would have to go back to your index page to get the main frameset, but you wouldn't be able to have the main content page go to where you want. Not with pure HTML, anyway. I suppose one could do it with JavaScript, but that's VERY inaccessible and JavaScript should NEVER be used for links, so forget I mentioned it. <br /><br />
My personal suggestion is to ditch the frames. Find out if your host supports SSI (Server Side Includes) or any server side languages. Then, on each page, you have something like:<br />
<br />
<!--#include virtual="navigation.html" --><br />
<br />
I believe it's the same or similar for ASP (Active Server Pages, a Server Side Language), though I could be wrong. Or if you have PHP support, at leaste (Another Server Side Language), You use:<br />
<br />
<?PHP include("navigation.html"); ?><br />
<br />
<br />
If those aren't an option, than I'm out of suggestions. Ask someone smarter than me (there are a lot of them here).
<!--content-->Thanks for the quick reply, I've got a solution using javascript that seems to work fine...is there any reason not to use javascript for links? And what do you mean by inaccessible?<br /><br />
Also, I dont really know anything about asp, php, or any of those, so I'd rather not having to use them...<br />
<br />
If there's any better ways out there, feel free to let me know
<!--content-->By inaccessible, I mean that not everyone on the internet can view it. I say not to use JavaScript, because 13% of Internet users don't support it. You may not think that's a lot, but consider how many millions of users there are, and that's a substantial number. Plus, think about the disabled, who use accesibily devices to browse the web. Frame are notoriously inaccessible. Plus, one thing I dislike, is not being able to bookmark individual pages of a website with Frames. I hate it. But in the end, I guess, it's your choice.<!--content-->Thanks for the feedback - it is useful to hear opinions of people that know...and I did think quite a bit about the javascript and frames before using them. <br /><br />
Initially I was doing the layout with tables, which I guess would be more widely useable, but that was just getting ridiculous to keep track of...any small changes to layout were taking quite a long time to make to every page on the site...
<br /><br />
However, manageable alternatives have the same drawbacks of not being universally supported (or not standardised across different browsers - eg CSS), so I figure I might as well go for something I know that's been around a while and hope that most/all of my target audience can make it work...
<br /><br />
In terms of bookmarking, each major department section of the page has its own frameset (hence my initial problem, but it's the only way I can do things slightly different for each department easily), so you could bookmark those no problems. IIRC, there's only one page in the entire site that you can't get to immediately from one of the initial framesets (ie bookmarkable places), and its only an archives page anyway, not a main part...so I dont think that's a huge problem.
<br /><br />
Fell free to have a look at the site to see what I mean in my case, any feedback is much appreciated.
<!--content-->