Working with Frames

You should have a basic understanding of how frames are generated and what the tag attributes mean and do. It is beyond the scope of this help file to provide complete HTML frame tutoring.

When using WYSIWYG editors, you should be prompted for frame names when you generate the frameset (even when using a wizard). It is important that you remember these names as you will need to use them in 1 Cool Menu FX Tool. Note: some WYSIWYG editors will actually name the frames for you, as in FRAME1 and FRAME2 or similar.

Example HTML frameset:

This will create a two framed window, the example will use the top frame (header) for navigation links and the bottom frame (main) is the display frame. Where the links open into is referred to as the Target Frame.

<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/tr/rec-html40/loose.dtd">
<!-- Filename INDEX.HTML, created November 22, 1999 -->
<html>
<head>
<title>Sample Frameset</title>
<!-- Small nav frame at top called header, large view frame at bottom called main -->
</head>
<frameset rows="44,*" framespacing="0" border="0" frameborder="0">
<frame name="header" src="top.html" scrolling="no" noresize>
<frame name="main" src="body.html" scrolling="auto">
<noframes>
<body>
<p>This page uses frames, but your browser doesn't support them.</p>
</body>
</noframes>
</frameset>
</html>

Note the frame names defined as follows:
<frame name="header" src="top.html" scrolling="no" noresize>
<frame name="main" src="body.html" scrolling="auto">

1 Cool Menu FX Tool settings:

Notice that the Link and Target Frame fields are empty when designing a new applet.

Notice that one of the buttons is associated to a file named body2.html and that the Target Frame contains main (As per the above frameset example).

Remember, each frame has a frame name, this is the item that goes into the Target Frame field of the Applet Generating Program. DO NOT put quotes around the name when entering it into the Target Frame field. Simply type the name as in main and build the applet.

Note:
The SRC name of body.html should not be used in the Target Frame field.

Alternatively, you can add the following line in your navigation frame html file (top.html as in the above frameset example) between the <head> and </head> tags: This would be the page that has the applet code in it. This will set all link default target to the main Frame.
<head>
<base target="main">
</head>

Important Note:
Frame names are case-sensitive. That means that you must specify the capitalization consistently - if you refer to a frame named "Main" as "main" your project will not work as expected.

Changing multiple frames with multiple html files simultaneously:

Simply follow the procedure above, except that you separate each item in Link and in Target Frame by a comma-space ', ' as in 'top2.html, body2.html' and 'header, main' as in the example below.


Reserved Frame Names

Frames have four reserved names, which are available from the Target Frame drop-down menu.

Reserved Name Default Window Action
_blank
 Opens a new browser session with the reference page in it.
_self
 Opens the reference page in its calling frame name.
_top
 Opens the reference page in the top (Overwriting the frameset).
_parent
 Opens the reference page in the parent window.