HTML Frames

With frames, you can display more than one Web page in the same browser window.

Frames

With frames, you can display more than one HTML document in the same browser window. Each HTML document is called a frame, and each frame is independent of the others.

The disadvantages of using frames are:

• The web developer must keep track of more HTML documents
• It is difficult to print the entire page

The Frameset Tag

• The <frameset> tag defines how to divide the window into frames
• Each frameset defines a set of rows or columns
• The values of the rows/columns indicate the amount of screen area each row/column will occupy

The Frame Tag

• The <frame> tag defines what HTML document to put into each frame

In the example below we have a frameset with two columns. The first column is set to 25% of the width of the browser window. The second column is set to 75% of the width of the browser window. The HTML document "frame_a.htm" is put into the first column, and the HTML document "frame_b.htm" is put into the second column:

<frameset cols="25%,75%">
   <frame src="frame_a.htm">
   <frame src="frame_b.htm">
</frameset>

Basic Notes - Useful Tips

If the frames have visible borders, the user can resize the frames by dragging the border. To prevent the user from doing this, you can add the attribute noresize to the <frame> tags.

Add the <noframes> tag for browsers that do not support frames.

Frame Tags:

NN: Netscape, IE: Internet Explorer

HTML Tables 

Tables are defined with the <table> tag. A table is divided into rows (with the <tr> tag), and each row is divided into data cells (with the <td> tag). The letters td stands for "table data," which is the content of a data cell. A data cell can contain text, images, lists, paragraphs, forms, horizontal rules, tables, etc.

<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>row 1, cell 1</td>
<td>row 1, cell 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 2, cell 1</td>
<td>row 2, cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>

How it looks in a browser:

Tables and the Border Attribute

If you do not specify a border attribute the table will be displayed without any borders. Sometimes this can be useful, but most of the time, you want the borders to show.

To display a table with borders, you will have to use the border attribute:

<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>Row 1, cell 1</td>
<td>Row 1, cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>

Headings in a Table

Headings in a table are defined with the <th> tag.

<table border="1">
<tr>
<th>Heading</th>
<th>Another Heading</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 1, cell 1</td>
<td>row 1, cell 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 2, cell 1</td>
<td>row 2, cell 2</td>
</tr>
</table>

How it looks in a browser:

Empty Cells in a Table

Table cells with no content are not displayed very well in most browsers.

<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>row 1, cell 1</td>
<td>row 1, cell 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 2, cell 1</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
</table>

How it looks in a browser:

Note that the borders around the empty table cell are missing.

To avoid this, add a non-breaking space (&nbsp;) to empty data cells, to make the borders visible: 

<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>row 1, cell 1</td>
<td>row 1, cell 2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>row 2, cell 1</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</table>

How it looks in a browser:

Basic Notes - Useful Tips

The <thead>,<tbody> and <tfoot> elements are seldom used, because of bad browser support. Expect this to change in future versions of XHTML. If you have Internet Explorer 5.0 or newer.

Table Tags:

NN: Netscape, IE: Internet Explorer