Frames are a clever way of manipulating pages that I was originally a big fan of. There are certainly advantages, but there are also many disadvantages.

Basically, using frames means that you create a "master page" which doesn`t actually have anything to display. This page is split into pieces. In each of these pieces there is another page. So for example, you could have a page on the left that contains navigation links, and then a page on the right which shows the main content of the page.

The advantage is that the navigation won`t have to load each time, so you can just keep clicking away to reach what you want, all the time making new stuff appear on the right in the main section.

The disadvantage is that, firstly, there will be a link to the page you are already on. Secondly, using a bookmark always sends the user back to the starting page, and not always the one they had selected. Also, with masks, such as the .tk I use, or even .com and .co.uk masks there can be problems, leading to the pages reverting to their original state. For this page, it would revert to geocities.com/ma0pnt and leave the .tk mask whenever frames were encountered. Lastly, if you are using a free webspace provider, there are often adverts, banners and other obstacles that appear on screen. Using frames means that several of these could appear at a time, one in each section, which certainly isn`t good.

Anyway, if I haven`t already put you off, then here's some code to get started on a framed webpage:

Coming Soon.

To get round one of the problems mentioned above, you could simply make a new framed webpage for each link, i.e. every time you click a link in the navigation bar, it loads not only the main page on the right, but also a new navigation bar. This would mean the new navigation bar has all the relevant links, but no unnecessary ones, and also means there is a unique web address at the top of the screen. However, if you're going to load them both up, then why bother with frames in the first place?

Move onto the next tutorial to view some finishing touches for a website.