Thread: I frame advantage?

Wow, i've seen some really great I-frames on here today and the tuts are great! What I want to know is your opinion on WHY to use an i-frame?

i mean, for the website Viewer/customer, or even SE, load time, whatever....

Is it simply an artistic / design difference? Or does it change the quality of your pages/loading etc.? Does it save bandwidth or storage space? I'm just curious as my site is so graphic heavy that I want every loading advantage possible!

I'm sure it would help unify the pages might even save me alot of building time! I like the one postd today, GR88 (not sure if it's ok to put a link here so I won't).

ok. just wanted your opinons!

I have to admit, I am not a big fan of I-Frames. I am using one tiny I-Frame in my entire website. I-Frames restrict me from using the entire page space. The way I know how to make I-Frames is by creating a page and then calling it into an I-Frame positioned in another page. My simple way of thinking is why bring the page you created into another page when you can simply link it and use its entire space, ie, ads, menus... etc. I feel that if I have no choice but to use I-Frames, I would opt for I-Frames with no borders or scrolls. The technical aspect of I-Frames is indeed advantagous in that they will call certain portions of your website wthout having to reload the static content like headers, menus, disclaimers.. etc, ultimately this means quicker display.. And that's my 2 cents.

Originally Posted by islandcrazy

Wow, i've seen some really great I-frames on here today and the tuts are great! What I want to know is your opinion on WHY to use an i-frame?

i mean, for the website Viewer/customer, or even SE, load time, whatever....

Is it simply an artistic / design difference? Or does it change the quality of your pages/loading etc.? Does it save bandwidth or storage space? I'm just curious as my site is so graphic heavy that I want every loading advantage possible!

I'm sure it would help unify the pages might even save me alot of building time! I like the one postd today, GR88 (not sure if it's ok to put a link here so I won't).

ok. just wanted your opinons!

They are also useful for displaying information common to all pages on your website, like headers and nav bars. By onlt having one header and navbar which gets displayed in an i-frame if makes loading times much quicker. It also means that when you want to make a change - you only have to make it the once and all your pages are updated. Great, if you want to add a new button or change your header design - especially if you have 50+ pages like we do! LOL

The best way to use an I-Frame as a primary website set up is to have the header and menu or navigation bars on the top portion of the page. Then stretch the I-Frame covering the entire 800 pix width under that. Then
each link can be set up to display in the I-Frame and you still have the ability to send a link to a specific web page on your site if need be.

You must remember that the I-frame will display with in the window starting from top-left extending to the right and only with in the size of the I-frame.

Hope that helps some,

Andy

Another great use of frames (and I-frames) is that of dedicating part of the screen for displaying the content of another site. This way news, anouncements, weather broadcast etc can be taken from another site (upon authorisation) and displayed in your pages.

I'm also not a fan of using I-frames for most of the pages - they have their place. However the choice is up to the designer - I've found that my pages with iframes didn't get the same attention and traffic from some of the se's (Google, in particular) as without. But that's not a scientific survey.

Thanks everyone for your input and ideas! It is a great help. I've been looking at websites most of the day trying to identify the i-frames and whether they were necessary or not! LOL I find myself looking at some places and thinking, "boy, that would have looked great with an i frame! LOL

Acutally, one site in particular,a very big gift shop....not a BV site...every page had the same header and left column, but everytime you clicked on a menu button, it took you to a new page/reloaded the same info.. It really wasted alot of my viewing time (dial up) and I really did wonder, "why didn't they use an i-frame?" LOL

I sure am learning alot! Hope I will be able to make it work for me.