Petestack Frames Policy (Archived)

Now irrelevant to this site (or any of my designs, since my flirtation with framesets was both short-lived and long ago), but still here! The rest of my Web Design stuff has been moved (17 July 2007) to its own section to give it room to grow.

Policy for the thoughtful use of frames

From December 2000 to September 2001, it was possible to navigate my site through an optional framed side bar. Since then I’ve removed the frameset but kept my ‘policy for the thoughtful use of frames’ (now rewritten to refer to the past) for the benefit of anyone considering similar issues:

  1. My site had to accommodate both browsers that didn’t support frames and users who didn’t like them, so it had to be fully navigable without frames (including arrival at any individual page via an external link). Hence the inclusion of proper ‘noframes’ content and suitable page links (even where duplicated by the framed side bar).
  2. The user had to have an upfront choice of framed or frameless versions.
  3. Given that my side bar was supposed to be an aid to navigation, but one of the most common problems of framed documents lies in forcing the user to keep entering through the ‘front door’, it had to be possible to leave the frameset at any time to make use of any URL. Although there are various cunning ways of achieving this (like right-clicking things in most browsers for Windows PCs), a much more universal ‘no frames’ (target="_top") link on every page seemed like a good idea! (These have now been removed.)
  4. Links to other sites had to open in full browser windows to prevent other people’s content from appearing within my frames and to nip the build-up of nesting framesets in the bud! But I allowed a single exception to this rule for ‘Flypaper’ (my ‘sailing’ message board, which was running at an external URL at the time.).

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