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Frames Free!

Ribbon Campaign and WebRing (Official Site)

• Frames Free! Ribbon Campaign
  • I just saw a Frames Free! ribbon. What does that ribbon mean?
  • What are frames?
  • Why should I avoid frames in my Web site?
  • How can I get a Frames Free! ribbon?
  • Do you have any small buttons I can use instead of the large ribbon?
  • Who can use the Frames Free! ribbon?
  • Where can I find other ribbon campaigns on the Web?
• Frames Free! WebRing
  • What is the Frames Free! WebRing, and how does it relate to the ribbon?
  • Why should I join the Frames Free! WebRing?
  • Who can join the Frames Free! WebRing?
  • How do I join the Frames Free! WebRing?
  • Where can I find other WebRings on the Web?
• What are the alternatives to frames?
• Other Anti-Frame Techniques
• More Resources
• Why is this the "Official" Frames Free! site?

Frames Free! Ribbon Campaign

The Frames Free! ribbon is a mark of quality. Sites containing it are taking their visitors' needs into account by excluding frames.

Some Web browsers have the ability to split a window into multiple panes. These panes are called 'frames'. Frames allow a single browser window to display multiple URL's at the same time. (See Frames: An Introduction for more details.)

• Some Web browsers don't support frames. For this reason, if you do decide to use frames, you should at least provide an additional non-frames version of your Web site.
• Badly designed (i.e., most) sites with frames allow the documents inside a page's frames to change, while the URL for the page stays the same. Thus, documents inside frames are not properly bookmarkable, and search engines cannot properly index them. Bookmarking or indexing will either point to a page which contains the wrong (framed) documents, or point to a document without the surrounding frames to give it a context. Why waste all of these valuable visits to your site?
• Frames are dependent on screen size, so your page will sometimes look terrible on a differently sized screen.
• There is no reliable way for Web surfers to predict the behavior of a site which has frames. Clicking on something in frame A can cause frame B to update, or could cause frame C to update.
• Frames waste valuable screen space. Once a document is constrained inside a frame, it is practically impossible for most Web surfers to pop that document out to use the entire window.
• Frames are #1 in the Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design.
• Frames are #1 in The Top Fifteen Mistakes of First Time Web Design.
• There are many more reasons to avoid frames.

If you don't use frames on your Web site, announce it proudly by placing a Frames Free! ribbon on your site. To insert a Frames Free! ribbon into your Web page, simply insert the following HTML code. (Note that there is no need to save the graphic to your Web page, just keep the graphic at www.webgurus.com. This is not leeching, it is the procedure recommended by webgurus.com.)

Sure! Check out the Frames Free! Ribbon Campaign Buttons page. (Note that these buttons are actually ribbons, too!)

There is only one requirement in order to use the Frames Free ribbon: In order to use the official Frames Free! ribbon (or button), you must include the <A HREF="http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=noframes;home" TARGET="_top"> element inside the ribbon code. (If you don't want to include the link, then I recommend you create a ribbon campaign of your own.) If your site has frames, you can still use the Frames Free! ribbon on any non-frames page. Even sites which don't have a non-frames version can use the ribbon if they are sympathetic to the cause.

Carolyn Gargaro's Ribbon Campaigns page is "The most comprehensive ribbon list on the 'Net".

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Frames Free! WebRing

The Frames Free! WebRing is a way for advocates of Frames Free! Web design to gain recognition and increase the traffic through their sites. The Frames Free! WebRing code includes the Frames Free! Ribbon Campaign graphic! Therefore, every WebRing member is a Ribbon Campaign member. The concept is as easy as 1,2,3!:

1. Each member inserts a special WebRing HTML code into the appropriate Web page.
2. Viewers of that page sees the special WebRing code.
3. This WebRing code allows the viewers to easily access the pages of other WebRing members. Give it a try!

The Frames Free! WebRing is a way for advocates of Frames Free! Web design to gain recognition and increase the traffic through their sites. It has all of the advantages of the Ribbon Campaign, plus one more: The WebRing brings visitors from the sites of other Frames Free! WebRing members to your site. This increases the Web traffic (number of hits) to everyone in the WebRing. (It's a way to pool resources.)

Any site which uses the correct HTML code is free to display the Frames Free! Campaign Ribbon. However, only Web sites which are Frames Free! are able to join the Frames Free! WebRing. This includes sites which have no frames. Sites which include frames must meet all of the following minimum conditions in order to join the WebRing:

• Offer a prominent (i.e., visibly linked to, not hidden) non-frames version of the site. Place the WebRing code on this version, not the frames version. (Note: The non-frames version of the site must contain the full information content of the frames version.)
• Offer a "Remove Frames" method in the frames version for viewing any external sites which are linked to.

1. Fill out the simple Frames Free! WebRing application form.
2. After filling out the application, you will immediately receive on-screen instructions on how to insert the WebRing code into your Web site's HTML. A copy of these instructions will also be E-mailed to you.
3. Your site will be checked for compliance with the standards of the Frames Free! WebRing. After you have inserted the WebRing code, and if you meet all appropriate qualifications, your site will be added to the ring. You can E-mail the Web RingMaster in order to have your site checked sooner.
4. Once you are a member of the WebRing, you can Login to edit your listing at any time.

WebRing.org hosts virtually all WebRings in existence. Check it out!

What are the alternatives to frames?

Server Side Includes

Simply insert <!--#include file="filename.htm" --> into your HTML, and the entire filename.htm file will be inserted there when the page displays! This feature works differently on different Web servers, and does not work on all Web servers. Check with your ISP for details if this technique doesn't work.

Image Maps

Make a single, clickable image map as a navigational toolbar. (Most frames seem to be used to implement toolbars, anyway.) Client side image maps are easiest to design, but separate client side image maps are not widely implemented. Server side image maps can use separate server side image maps, so one image map file can be referenced on many pages. However, server side image maps require complex coding based on the Web server, and are not widely available.

Tables

Simulate frames by using tables. This works very well, but requires the content of all simulated frames to be manually included in the file. Also, purists recommend that tables not be used for document formatting, but document structure. Warning: If your page is large and/or complex, a table will take longer to display than a frames version. Therefore, place the most important (introductory) information of your page outside of large tables, so that it loads quickly.

Multiple Windows

Using multiple windows instead of frames works, but users are sometimes irked by having to deal with multiple windows. (They have to resize windows and/or switch between windows.) To implement multiple windows is simple: Insert a TARGET="windowname" attribute in your <A> elements. When Web surfers click on the link, the result is displayed in the window named "windowname".

IFRAME's

The <IFRAME> tag allows an embedded rectangular area of a page to act as a frame. (This is visually similar to the standard practice of embedding a rectangular image into a page, but is flexible enough to handle any document type.) This removes most of the problems which plague frames. The <IFRAME> tag is not widely implemented, and it will be usurped by the <OBJECT> tag.

OBJECT's

The <OBJECT> tag is slowly gaining prominence. Currently, it cannot be used effectively for including one HTML document inside another. However, it will some day have all of the functionality <IFRAME> tag and more. It will then be the method of choice, and we can finally discard frames altogether.

Other Anti-Frame Techniques

• One effective, easy technique for WebMasters is to place <BASE TARGET="_top"> in the <HEAD> of all of your Web pages. If your page is "trapped" inside someone's frames, all frames will be immediately removed when Web surfers click on any link inside your page. Frames Free!
• If you really want to take the offensive against frames, check out the FrameFree techniques offered by Paul Haeberli.

More Resources

• Why Frames Suck (Most of the Time)
• What's wrong with frames?
• A Case for Frames discusses the potential advantages of frames in the corporate world. This opposing viewpoint, pro-frames, is worth considering. The document also includes a great bibliography of anti-frames resources.
• Using frames and accessible Web sites explains how to use frames correctly if you have to use them. I must admit that there are sometimes good reasons to use frames. This is the best resource I've found so far in doing frames correctly. If you follow the guidelines contained here, you can join the Frames Free! WebRing even though you use the dreaded frames.

Why is this the "Official" Frames Free! site?

• This is the only anti-frames ribbon campaign. Some other anti-frames campaigns exist, but they don't have a ribbon.
• This is the one and only "Frames Free!" campaign because no other campaign uses that exact punctuation. (This campaign uses capitalized words and ends in an exclamation mark.)
• This is the only anti-frames WebRing to be associated with a ribbon.
• The Frames Free! Ribbon Campaign and WebRing entered full operation in 1998.
• In conclusion, this is the Official Frames Free! Ribbon Campaign and WebRing.

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URL: http://www.noframes.org/
Title: Frames Free! Ribbon Campaign and WebRing (Official Site)
Page last updated 02 November 1999 by MrData@mail.com (Mr Israel Steinmetz).

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