How to Create Frames with FrontPage

On this page you will learn how to create and organize web pages into frames. To see an example of a page with frames click here.

Create a Frameset

First of all you have to create a main frame page. This page specifies how many frames you want to use and how you want to organize them.

• Choose File => New from the menu.
• The New menu will appear on the right side of the screen. Under the New Page heading, click More Page Templates... to continue.

• In the dialog box that appears, click the Frames Pages tab.

• On the left side of this dialog box, you will see a list of templates prepared for you by the FrontPage developers. Clicking on a template name will show a preview of that template in the lower-right corner of the window. Choose the template you wish to use, and click the OK button.

• The frameset you have chosen will be created for you and displayed in the FrontPage editor window.  The example below shows the "Header, Footer and Contents" template as it would appear in the main window.

Your main page is divided into four sections.  The top section can be used for displaying a banner, title, or other identification information about your site.  The section on the left can be used for navigation.  The section on the bottom can contain disclaimers, copyright information, or secondary navigation links.  The primary contents of your page will be located in the largest frame on the right.

Left Frame and Hyperlinks

Let's start by creating contents for the left page.

• In the left page click New Page button.  A new blank page will be created in that frame.

Add contents to that frame as you would any other web page.  Since we will be using this for navigation, add links to the other pages on your site, or to other pages or documents of note.  Changing the contents of this frame will not change the contents of any of the other frames.

• Click the Insert Hyperlink icon to insert your first link.  Notice the Target Frame button on the right side of the window that appears.

• Click the button to open the Target Frame window.  By default, links will always open in the large, main frame.  If you want to change the target frame for a link, click the area under the Current Frames page heading, or choose the frame from the list under the Common Targets heading.

Right Frame and How to Save

Each frame needs an initial page to be loaded when the frameset is first loaded.

• If you have already created an initial page for the right frame, click the Set Initial Page button.  If you need to create an initial page, click the New Page button.

Saving pages in a frameset is slightly different than saving normal pages.  A separate file is created for each page in the frameset, and an additional file is created for the frameset itself.

• Choose File => Save from the menu.

For each page in the frameset, the Save as File dialog box will appear.  Give each page in the frameset a unique name, and click the Save button.

The frameset page is automatically generated by FrontPage, but you still have to give it a name.  In most cases, the frameset page will be the first page the user sees when visiting your site, so it is a good idea to name it "index.html".  Save it to your website's main directory, making sure not to overwrite any pages you have previously created.

Changing Frame Sizes and Properties

You can easily change the width and height of any frame by dragging its border with the mouse. If you want to specify the size of any frame more accurately or set other frame properties, right-click inside the frame and choose Frame Properties....

• Under the Options heading, the Resizable in browser check box sets whether or not the frames can be resized by the user.  Uncheck the box to leave the widths fixed at your chosen setting.
• The Show Scrollbars drop-down menu sets whether or not you want scrollbars to be visible inside the frames. There are three available options - If Needed, Always, or Never.  For frames that act as menus, If Needed or Never are the best settings.  For frames that display a lot of content, If Needed or Always are the best settings.  For headers and footers, Never is the recommended setting.
• Frame Size field can specify the size in two different ways. If you want the frame to have always the same width, no matter the size of browser window, select Pixels from the drop-down menu and then enter a number in pixels into the box Width. If you want the frame to be always some ratio of the browser window width, select Percent from the drop-down menu and enter the number in percents.
• Initial Page field shows the address of the first page that is going to be loaded to this frame when the browser opens the main frame page. You can change it by clicking the Browse button.
• If you want to change the dimensions of the frame borders, click the Frames Page button to open the Page Properties dialog box.

• If you want to hide all frame borders, uncheck the Show Borders box.
• The Frame Spacing field sets the width of a free space between frames in pixels.

Now you know all you need to know to start creating web pages with frames. You can look at this example page with frames that we have created for you.