hile there is a site design page around here somewhere, it's designed for short entries on actual changes. Not long pastes from blogs when the site design was discussed. 

And that's what you'll find archived on this page, with more recent updates on top.

September 30, 2003

Here's a reader email from Saturday, from Granitas, with a comment that I'm curious about.

Have you ever considered putting your nav bar in a frame so theres no empty space on the (left) side? I find it mildly annoying that I have to scroll the entire page to the top to click a different topic.

And on another note if adding text and font formating tags and background formating tags bothersome use an imported StyleSheet. And if you really want to get fancy use imbedded stylesheets to position elements (or divs) on your page instead of using a table. Its much cleaner.

Go here for an excelent tutorial on CSS (stylesheets) and other webpage stuff - http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/

I occasionally get emails about the site layout, and they are usually surprising, in that they say they like the layout.  I designed it and take some small measure of pride in it, but it's always surprising to me when anyone else approves of it, since it's so far from how I'd like my site to look.  I agree with him that the layout could be better and that I'd do well to put in some more technical stuff (I'd like a lot of stuff working in a big database with ratings and scores and sortable searches), but there is no way I'm going to take the time to learn them.  I hate programming with a passion. On top of that, even if I somehow magically knew CSS or ASP or something like that, I would not do much with it, since there's no way I'm ever going to take a month to update the thousands of site pages into the script, and it seems pointless to do a new script and layout and such without applying it to the entire site.

As for frames, does anyone have an opinion? I have always hated them with a passion that far outstrips my dislike for learning any programming language, and automatically brand any site with frames as noobish and geocities-esque.  I thought that was the general opinion of frames, since I so seldom see them on any sites any more, but maybe I'm just viewing the wrong sites, and they're making a comeback.

Anyway, I'm not going to implement frames on this site or any other site I ever have anything to do with the layout of, so my question about it is entirely out of curiosity.  But since I've come this far, does anyone have an opinion on frames?  Like them or dislike them?

I suppose an example is in order, since there are no doubt readers who don't know the web page design terms.  Frames are a design concept where the browser page is divided into multiple segments of various sizes.  The most common type is a long side scroll frame, where the navigation is housed, but you sometimes see them on top and/or bottom of the page as well.  It took me a while to think of a site with frames, since none I regularly visit have them anymore, but at last I remembered an odd chainmail fashion site.  Check it out. I think my main objection, besides the cheesy side scroll bar, is that you end up having to scroll around in two different parts of the page.

The initial concept of frames was to enable the webmaster to update one navigation page and have that appear on every page of the site, while also giving the reader the whole site navigation in a long bar, that they could see on every page.  I think that SSI, Server Side Includes, rendered frames obsolete, since with SSI you just update one main page for your navigation, and then put a line of code into all of the content pages that inserts the navigation page (and copyright page, frequently) into the content page.  That's how I do this site anyway, since I update the nav bar frequently, and I'm certainly not going to go back over 1000+ content pages and update one line of text in the nav bar every time I do a new mailbag or article or review or request for hosting expense assistance.

The main problem with SSI is that not every hosting server allows the script to function, and that you need to know more about page design to get it working properly, and in the correct format and size.  Basically you need to do the rest of the page long enough and narrow enough so that the SSI will have room to fit in neatly.  But that's hardly a chore, especially if you know how to use SSI and design the page in advance to work with it.

October 3, 2003

I asked a few days ago your opinions on the use of frames in website design. I don't use them and don't much like them, but when a visitor said he would prefer them, so he wouldn't have to scroll back up the page to my nav bar, I was curious enough to quote his mail and see what other visitors thought about frames.

Frames are Suxor:  Terrance, Donnie, EvilDigirat, Ewan, Anarchy.

Frames are Roxor: ReaperX90, Jeremy, Derek, James.

So say 5 against and 4 for, which is a lot closer than I thought the vote would be.  The first 4 mails on the subject were "suxor" and I figured the issue was dead at that point. Be very, very afraid.

Several readers had comments on the subject as well.  This one is from Donnie who has done a bunch of website design both with and without frames, and says:

I personally hate frames, for many reasons, but the fact that when I check my site statistics the frame pages are hit almost twice as often as the non frame ones is the reason that I continued to use them.

Now, the main reason that I really hate frames. Most of the people who program sites with the frames don't know how to use them properly. If you click any links on the content page you will end up at a brand new site, still stuck in the frames, with no indication in your address bar as to what the new site is. Or there will be links in the nav frame that are linked improperly and load in the nav frame. Or, they will program the frames in sizes with numbers based on a certain resolution that will either leave half the screen blank or make you scroll to the right every single line you read.

Even if frames are well programmed, they are still one of the most monumentally annoying things on the internet. If you are trying to read the new content page that just loaded, your mouse cursor will likely still have the nav frame highlighted, so that if you try to use a roller to scroll you are scrolling the nav screen. I am sure there are other bitches that I have but can't remember right now.

Frames are the Dark Side, don't give in to their temptation. If you do I am sure a dancing baby on every single page is very sure to follow.

In addition to what Donnie says, I've always disliked frames for the linking handicap. If the frame page doesn't have a direct link in the text, you have to try to reverse engineer it by copying the hover link on a previous page, or opening the frame in a new window (a great feature in NS4x with I miss in MIE 6x) or even viewing the page source code. 

Another suxor mail, this one from Ewan.

Don't know what the opinion is these days but when I was first doing anything on the web frames definately were suxor. I will always refuse to use them but on the other hand actually enjoy programming with PHP/ASP/etc. In fact recently made a (simple and unbalanced) game along the lines of all those browser strategy games just because I was bored.

Jeremy mailed in with a ton to say on this and other issues, but I'll just quote the frames-related part.

At the risk of appearing motivated purely by self-aggrandisement here's some frames that I've used:

http://www.originalism.com/
http://www.originalism.co.uk/

The former being an example of standard frames and the latter being an example of the infinitely more promising iframes. This isn't to say that frames don't cause problems and there are various criticisms that can fairly be laid at their feet, were they to have them:

• They're not supported in all browsers; or at best they're badly supported in some browsers. On the other hand, nowadays, there's no real excuse for using a browser that struggles in this department.
• They defeat bookmarking a bit.
• Frames don't print. Sometimes.

I don't mind the look of his frames, either type, since they're done well and his site design works well with them. Of course he's got a ton of other scripty stuff galore going on there as well. Basically, I'd say that a short nav bar is good with frames, since then you get a fixed display there, and only the text part of the page scrolls down.  The old style ugly frames (done by people with HTML skills more like mine than Jeremy's) where you get big gray side scroll boxes, are what give frames a bad name.

Another bit of his mail, since it's amusing.

BTW what does " roxor" mean? I'm English and it doesn't feature in my colloquial vocab, but I infer that it's the equivalent of "the dog's bollocks"?

Ahh yes, dog's bollocks.  Um...

It's funny since I've worked with an Englishwoman (on the D2 site) for upwards of 5 years, and we've talked a great deal, mostly online but some in person as well, and I still don't know what half the common English slang means.  I have come to understand and almost appreciate the mind-bending Cockney Rhyming Slang, something very few non-English can boast (as far as I've seen).  Elly seems to use "bollocks" mostly as a synonym for "bullshit", but then at times it seems to be a humorous and almost affectionate term.

If anyone else is wondering, roxor and suxor are explained in some detail on my Internet Slang page, and they are pretty simple; just change the "x" for "cks" and realize that the "or" suffix is essentially ornamental in l33t sp33k, which leaves you with "rocks" vs "sucks."

A mail from Derek:

I've had my own website before, (college, work, and football got in the way) and I would applaud CSS bigtime... gives a nice polished look, and gives you some things to play with.

As for frames... I dislike them but find they are a necessary evil. My site includes them but in an invisible way... You can use frames without the scroll bar or the ugly grey resize bar... it can be done.

And I suppose it goes without saying that payin someone is out of the question.

For now, paying someone is out of the question.  I enjoy updating the content on this site, but I do not like doing the tedious technical work, keeping up the archives, worrying about design, etc. My idea has always been that in the future when I'm like, big and famous and (ideally) rich, this would be my official website and I'd have a webmaster or two keeping it up to date.  I would still do blogs, but much less frequently due to time constraints.  Plus if I was actually writing for movies or a published author, I probably couldn't continue to rip various crappy movies and books a new a-hole, at least not unless I wanted to have a lot of drinks thrown in my face at parties.  But I could comment on the ridiculous lies some tabloid was telling about me or people I knew, and I could post updates on my travels or book tours or post ideas for stories or excerpts for fan feedback, and bonus features for fans to enjoy online. I'd also like to have forums and such, to create a sort of fan community.

Since I wouldn't have the time to coordinate all of that, much less the technical know how, I would hire someone to do it and to make the daily news post updates if I had projects in the news, etc.  I'd email in updates and such and they'd post them for me, keep all of the scripts and such working smoothly, coordinate the volunteer forum moderators, etc.

So yes, paying someone is out of the question now, and unnecessary for my current site needs, but in the future it may be practical/essential.

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.