CSS probably a brain fade issue!

I'm working with a buddy of mine to create a new site but she's stuck on using frames. Strange thing is old site with frames works ok. New blank site created with dreamweaver MX doesn't function. Frame content is always loaded in a new window not the current window even when created with dreamweaver which you'd think would get it right. I've tried messing with the doctype and all sorts and the dreamweaver made frames system just doesn't work how you'd expect.

To get round this I was going to make/steal a css menu and do the same kind of thing. But I'm having the same issue with the content of a link appearing in a fresh tab rather than as content within the current page. Target of link is set to being _self so I expected it to open in the current content window. Which it doesn't. It opens in a new tab!

Ideally what I want to do is to have a menu file with all the menu links for the site in. This will import the menu css file for the style related wotsits. The content pages I'd assume would import the menu contents like a frame site would along with the menu style sheet too.

The vital bit that seems to be missing is what the html source code for the linked in files look like. Does it have all the normal headers, what import statements does it have and does it just have something like a body or div tag with the content in rather than a full blown page structure? The css tutorials I have found seem to miss this out altogether and assume I'd want to copy the menu list into every page rather than having one menu content file, one menu css and multiple content pages which all open up inside a content area kind of frames style.

I'm obviously missing something really dumb here

Can anyone point me to an idiots guide to creating menus and content for a css driven site? I could do it with a cms but I could do with understanding all this stuff at some point

In reply to a post by teabelly:

I'm working with a buddy of mine to create a new site but she's stuck on using frames. Strange thing is old site with frames works ok. New blank site created with dreamweaver MX doesn't function. Frame content is always loaded in a new window not the current window even when created with dreamweaver which you'd think would get it right. I've tried messing with the doctype and all sorts and the dreamweaver made frames system just doesn't work how you'd expect.

To get round this I was going to make/steal a css menu and do the same kind of thing. But I'm having the same issue with the content of a link appearing in a fresh tab rather than as content within the current page. Target of link is set to being _self so I expected it to open in the current content window. Which it doesn't. It opens in a new tab!

Ideally what I want to do is to have a menu file with all the menu links for the site in. This will import the menu css file for the style related wotsits. The content pages I'd assume would import the menu contents like a frame site would along with the menu style sheet too.

The vital bit that seems to be missing is what the html source code for the linked in files look like. Does it have all the normal headers, what import statements does it have and does it just have something like a body or div tag with the content in rather than a full blown page structure? The css tutorials I have found seem to miss this out altogether and assume I'd want to copy the menu list into every page rather than having one menu content file, one menu css and multiple content pages which all open up inside a content area kind of frames style.

I'm obviously missing something really dumb here

Can anyone point me to an idiots guide to creating menus and content for a css driven site? I could do it with a cms but I could do with understanding all this stuff at some point

Haven't touched frames for donkey years ...

But from memory when you specify the frames in the index.html you should be giving each frame a name and thus target to that frame!!!

attach a single css file via


<link rel="stylesheet" href="cssmenu.css" type="text/css" />


Two ways of getting rid of the frames hassle - use templates (later dreamweaver templating got alot better from the mx version).

or create the html for menu in a seperate file and use a php include to insert it into every file ..

or use dreamweaver snippet function to create a menu snippet and use that to insert into each file.

Ta for that. I was thinking of using a php include but I think that would be beyond my friend really as it is supposed to be a job she's doing....

Frame set seems to be defined properly and with the right areas defined so I'm at a loss. Dreamweaver was also sticking in an extra / on the links so I think that MX version isn't much cop or the settings she has don't work in sub folders. I haven't used it in years and didn't use it much so I have no idea what needs changing.

Only thing I can think of is that somehow the browser is choosing to follow the <no frames> content for some reason on every page rather than the frame content. That's in there for compatibility (not that anyone switches off frame support do they??)

On the upside I've found an editor called Aptana studio which is free, cross platform and has plugins for all sorts of different coding

<html>
<head>
<title>Your Site</title>
</head>
<frameset cols="210,*">
<frame name="site_menu" src="/toc.htm">
<frame name="site_content" src="/welcome.htm">
<noframes>
<body>
Sorry.
<br> You need a Frames enabled browser to view this site.
</body>
</noframes>
</frameset>
</html>



and then, for the Menu Frame:-


<html>
<head>
<title>Navigation Links</title>
<link href="/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
</head>
<body>
<p class="navigationBold"><a title href="page1.htm" target="site_content">Page 1</a>
<p class="navigationBold"><a title href="page2.htm" target="site_content">Page 2</a>
</body>
</html>

Ta for that. I'll have a mess around and see what I can do