Originally posted to the Side Bar by Chris, following the response from "Gary" (a manager at his former company) about a question importing Word-HTML into their template system.

Hi Chris,

I looked at your code. Here is the problem. You are not using frames or CSS to mimic frames. This is not your fault. You were taught not to use frames in your class.

There is a lot of misinformation in the information industry. This common idea that frames are bad is a perfect example. With the WWW, from here on out and especially in multimedia WWW applications, frames are your friend. Use them always. Get good at framing. That is wisdom from Gary.

The problem most website designer have is that they do not recognize that the WWW, at its core, is framed. Pages are frames. As we want to better link pages, then we must frame these pages. Since you are not framing pages, then my pages, or anybody else's pages will interfere with your code (even when the people tell you that it can be locked - that is a lie). Sections in a single html page cannot be locked. Pages read in frames can be.

Therefore, the solution to this specific technical problem, and every technical problem that you will have in the future with multimedia, is framing.

Again, Chris, you have done nothing wrong. You were just taught a lie. Frames are the answer, by explicit design.

What I would do is open MS Word and create the frame page, testing it in Word, because it's very easy to do (high level of productivity - once you know how). Then I'd use Word to export the frame page called Index.html to HTML, to strip out all of the not needed code. That does the framing part. Then I'd use my existing multimedia development tools to create the pages that are called within my fixed structured frames. These pages can be developed by anyone, using anything, from anywhere. My frame controls their access, use, and display.

In this way, you can have your cake and eat it too. In this way, you can sub-page, via frames, a single screen display. In this way you can introduce multimedia without difficulty. In this way, your pages can be social (they can work with other peoples pages). In this way you can secure some pages, with true security, and not others.

In short, the entire industry is wrong on the framing issue and Gary is right. This happens a lot to me. Framing solves this problem and every other multi-page, multi-page source, and multi-media WWW development job. That is why frames are your friend.

Hope this helps. Let me know what you decide to do. I will help, if you frame, because it's the only solution; now and into the future. –gary