Inline Skating with FrontPage Scrolls Within Scrolls Helen Bradley
Thu 7/25/02 -- Inline frames have been around as part of the HTML specifications for years, but Netscape Navigator versions 4.x and earlier couldn't render them, so their usage was severely curtailed. Today, with support from browsers like Netscape 6 and Opera, inline frames are no longer an Internet Explorer-only feature. Let's look at how they work, what you can use them for, and how to create them in Microsoft FrontPage.
What is an inline frame? Think of an inline frame as being like a small window in a Web page, into which you can load another page or image. You can put hyperlinks within the frame, so your site visitors can click a link and alter the frame content, or add hyperlinks on the page surrounding the frame that do the same thing.
Why use one? Because an inline frame window can have its own scroll bars, letting users browse a document too big to fit in the window itself, it's ideal for fitting a text-heavy document -- such as a product's technical specifications or README file, or a license agreement or legal statement -- into a small space. Inline frames can also be used for photo albums, product catalogs, or anywhere you want to display a lot of information in a single Web page without making the page too big or unwieldy.
Can't get started? If the inline frames option seems to be missing from your copy of FrontPage's menus, you can restore it by altering the browser support options. Choose Navigation view, Tools/Page Options, and the Compatibility tab; from the "Browsers" list, choose "Both Internet Explorer and Navigator"; and from the "Browser versions" list, choose "5.0 browsers and later." This will enable the Frames checkbox, so you can click OK to finish.
Creating an inline frame. Begin by opening the page into which you want to insert the frame in FrontPage's editing area. Choose Insert/Inline Frame and you'll see a shaded object appear in the page displaying two buttons -- Set Initial Page and New Page.
If you choose the former, you can specify an existing page as the one that will appear in the inline frame when the page is loaded. If you'd rather create a new page to display by default in the frame, click the New Page button, and a new blank page appears in the inline frame window. To display this page at full screen size, choose Frames/Open Page in New Window. This allows you to work on the page contents in either full-screen view or as they'll appear in the inline frame.
Formatting the frame. Change the properties of the inline frame by clicking the frame's edge to select it, right-clicking, and choosing Inline Frame Properties. In this dialog, you can change the frame's name to something more appropriate; alter its size; make its scrollbars visible or invisible as required; and even remove its border so its outline doesn't show.
The Margins settings let you specify the distance (in pixels) between the border of the frame and its contents. Use the Alignment setting to place the inline frame on the page -- choosing Right or Left allows text to wrap around the frame on the page in the same way you scroll text around an image.
Hyperlinking to the frame. As mentioned, one key feature of an inline frame is that you can change the page displayed therein, using a hyperlink either in the frame or on the surrounding page. To do the latter, type the text describing some alternate content for the frame on the page nearby; choose Insert/Hyperlink, click to select the page containing the new content, and choose Target Frame. From the list, choose the inline frame's name and click OK twice. Now, when your visitor clicks the link on the page, the frame's contents will change.
You can hyperlink from inside the frame itself by adding a hyperlink to the page that displays inside the frame (say, a link to a "Next" page to show more information). This time, from the Target Frame dialog, choose Same Frame to replace the contents of the inline frame with the new page.
Using images. You can use an inline frame to display photos instead of Web pages. Simply select the image to use instead of a Web page when you create your hyperlink, or when selecting the initial page to display in the frame.
