As we've said before, sadly Composer doesn't directly support frames but you can get round this
To create frames you must create the page that contains the frames (i.e. is the frameset and will control the frames that the other pages will load into. This will be the page you want to open to see your frames).
Lets begin by creating a frameset with 2 frames divided vertically like this example
left.htm
right.htm
Create the 2 pages that will load into the 2 frames (we've called them left.htm and right.htm here but you can use what ever name you want.
Now open a new normal page. This will be the Frameset
Now you need to alter the HTML of the page
Use the HTML editing feature of Composer (accessible by clicking Tools -> Html tools-> Edit html source.. - for more on this click here)
Type the following code before a HTML element written as </head>. It sets the left frame window with a width of 150 pixels
<frameset cols="150,*"> <frame src="left.htm" name="left"> <frame src="right.htm" name="right"> </frameset> <noframe> sorry your browser does not support frames <a href="noframes.htm">Click here for no frames version</a> </noframe>
Change the areas in red to the values you want. The first line sets the width of each frame. Here the left frame is set at 150 pixels. The * is simply indicates the right frame will take up the rest of the browser window (you can do it the otherway round if you like (i.e. 150,*). You can use percentages (e.g. 25%,*) but bear in mind this might make your frame see odd on wider or smaller screens.
The next 2 lines determine the name of each of the frame (here left and right) which you need to use for targeting links (see our other frames page for more on this) and the name of the first page that will load into them (we used "left.htm" and "right.htm" but you can simply change the name as needed
The 2nd and 3rd last lines are displayed in a noframes browser window. We'll discuss this below.
When you've done your HTML changes and close the HTML editing box, you won't see your frames !!!!
Why ? Well Composer isn't just incapable of editing frames directly, it can't display them either!!!
All you'll see is the message for no frames browsers.(Edit this as you choose but please edit the "Click here for no frames version" link - it is currently targeted at a file called noframe.htm)
To check your frames out you'll need to save your page and view it in a browser.
Commonest error is that you' haven't targeted the correct page to open up in each frame. Check you have a page for each part of the frame and that this tallies with the value in each of the <frame src=... .
Making a vertical divided frame is easy too like this
top.htm
bottom.htm
As before, create the 2 pages that will load into the 2 frames (we've called them top.htm and bottom.htm here but you can use what ever name you want.
Now open a new normal page Type in the following code. It sets the top frame window with a height of 150 pixels
<frameset rows="150,*"> <frame src="top.htm" name="top"> <frame src="bottom.htm" name="bottom"> </frameset> <noframe> sorry your browser does not support frames <a href="noframes.htm">Click here for no frames version</a> </noframe>
Just change the values in red as described in the vertical example above (except left & right are replaced by top & bottom)
Here is the code for a 3 frame frameset with a 200 pixel top frame and a lower left frame with a width of 150 pixels
top.htm
left. htm
right.htm
As before, create the 3 pages that will load into each of the 3 frames of the frame set (we've called them top.htm, left.htm and right.htm here but you can use what ever name you want.)
Now open a new normal page Type in the following code. It sets the left frame window with a width of 150 pixels
<frameset rows="200,*"> <frame src="top.htm" name="top"> <frameset cols="150,*"> <frame src="left.htm" name="left"> <frame src="right.htm" name="right"> </frameset> </frameset> <noframe> sorry your browser does not support frames <a href="noframes.htm">Click here for no frames version</a> </noframe>
Change the areas in red to the values you want as before.
There are lots more to know about using frames.
If you've not done so check out our page describing how frames operate and how to link between them
For the more adventurous, to make more tweaks to your frameset check out our HTML frames guide