When frames first came out, everyone was using them. Frames were the internet equivelant to smoking. If you weren't doing it, you were uncool. Then came a period of massive revolt. Everyone hated frames. Sites would take over your screen with frames everywhere, and it would be impossible to get anything done. When you went from one site to another, the original site's navigation stayed, cluttering your window. For a long time web designers were afraid to use frames. We are here to tell you that frames, if used right, are an invaluable tool.

Here is an example: This site uses frames. You probably don't know it. Our domain name is terraco.base.org. Why the base.org? Well, here is our little secret: We, as a promising startup, don't have a lot of money to throw around. We chose a round-about way of getting a domain. We are using a sub-domain. Someone else has the domain base.org. When you type in our address, it automatically redirects you to where our site is actually hosted. You probably don't know what our actual address is. That is where frames come in. Base.org is using an ingenious technology they call masking. They create a 0 point, or, invisible frame at the top of your browser window. When you go to terraco.base.org, this frameset opens and the bottom frame, the one that takes up 100% of your screen, displays our actual web page, which is at a different address. However, your browser still says terraco.base.org. Now, we recognize that this is not the reason most people use frames. They are most commonly used to keep (you guessed it!) navigation seperate from normal content. For example, we could have made a seperate frame, a browser window within this window, which held only our top navigation graphic. This would help you because as you scrolled down the page, the top navigation would stay visable. There are also little tricks for frames which make their borders invisble so that they seem to blend with the pages around them. Frames, used conservatively, especially on sites with lots of links which need to be seperated from the main text, are okay. Just don't use them ecsessively, and no one will bug you.