Is it possible to use Frames with CMS Made Simple?

[mbvdk]

I have a project where I would like use a layout with frames, mainly to keep the menu fixed while scroling the contents.

Is this possible with CMS Made Simple? if so, where do I start?

[nils73]

It's just a matter of templates. You will need at least three templates if I am not mistaken.

1. one that holds the frameset
2. one that holds the menu
3. one that holds the content

Then you need to specify the target with bulletmenu for example and assign the name of the content frame so that the new contents will be opened in the content frame. That is all you need to do. Maybe you'd like to add

4. a noframes-content-template which would make your frameset accessible to all clients that can not use frames (mobile phones, etc.)

Give it a shot!

Nils

[lauren4521]

I'm a complete noob here winging my way around but can't you use a CSS layout to get the same results?  I've seen nice 3 col center scroll box templates out there. 

Lauren

[nils73]

lauren,

I am afraid you can do the same thing. There are several problems with position:fixed in CSS which would do the same thing as frames (keeping the navigation fixed where you have put it --- no scrolling needed. I don't like frames but there might be one website out of a million where frames could be a solution.

Nils

[mbvdk]

Hi again

Well I ended up doing it with css, this turned out to be much simpler than doing it with frames, but it was far from simple.
First IE does not hadle "position" tags correctly (as specified by w3c) so I had to write some compensation code in js.
Second the position-code for phplayers (in java script) does not work well with menues placed using css positioning, so I had to edit that.
Finally I had to change a few bits and pieces in various plugins to make them work correctly.

I'll try to figure out what I did and what I have changed and document it at some point, but right now I have to get the project finished.

Using Frames posed one problem that I was unwilling to solve: drop-down menues based on layers canot cross frame-borders, so I would have had to use a java-aplet menu, and I know that some of my client's usesrs use computers where this might pose a problem.

Apart from that using frames with cmsms is quite simple:
1: as nils said you have to have a template for each frame,
2: then you make a frameset-file with a higher index-priority than "index.php" in my case "index.htm".
This
3: For each frame that needs cms-content, you create a copy of index.php, with an apropriate name.
4: Create a content for each frame.
5: Open the .php-files for each frame, except index.php, and add the following code

Code: Select all

$page = "content";

where content is the name of the content from step 4 right after the line:

Code: Select all

$gCms->smarty = &$smarty;

If you have a menu that opens content in another frame you have to use the BASE tag to specify a default location for the menues links.

[nils73]

Just went through my bookmarks and found the link for "emulating frames" again. A good way of creating a CSS-layout that works on almost every browser. But still there might be problems with layermenu as explained above.

http://www.fu2k.org/alex/css/frames/

Regards,
Nils

[mbvdk]

thanks, nils73, that solved the js-dependency for the height.

[nils73]

I guess even frame-handling might be easier ... will have to think it over again. The documentation project keeps me busy right now. Sorry for that.

Regards,
Nils