Modifying the No Frames View of a Frames Page in Expression Web for Browsers without Frames Capability
The “No Frames” View in Expression Web
As we first mentioned in Part 2 of this series on working with frames in Expression Web, any frames page will have a fourth viewing option in addition to the standard Design, Split, and Code views available for standard web pages. This No Frames view allows you to control what is seen by visitors who are using a web browser that doesn’t support frames.
If you don’t modify the No Frames view, Expression Web provides a default message of “This page uses frames, but your browser doesn’t support them.” In general, though, this message isn’t very helpful to viewers so Expression Web also allows you to edit this page to give a more useful message or even to create a parallel version of your web page that does not include frames.
Modifying the “No Frames” View
To modify the view, first click on No Frames. This will bring up a standard web page with Expression Web’s default message. You can make changes to this page just as you would with any other standard web page in Expression Web.
Though it is possible to create an entirely new web page that duplicates your content from the frames page so that visitors to your site don’t have to do any extra work, I don’t see a lot of benefit in that for most cases. If you plan on creating a parallel site, why use frames in the first place? It would be easier to just use a layout table or a dynamic web template if that was your intention. However, there may be times when this is a plausible option so it’s nice to have that choice available.
On the other hand, I do recommend modifying the default message to include links where viewers can download a browser that does support frames. This provides your visitors with an easy means to obtain a browser that will allow them to view your web site along with any other that uses frames.
After you’ve made changes here, be sure to save the information that you’ve added for this view. As this view is part of the main frames page, there’s a little more to this than there is with just saving a standard page. We’ll look more into that function in the next part of this series.
For more tips and tricks, be sure to take a look at the other Expression Web tutorials and user guides available here at Bright Hub.
This post is part of the series: Frames in Expression Web
This series starts out with a general overview of frames in Expression Web and continues with several tips and tricks you can use to incorporate the use of frames in your web site design.
