help with frames....

[sing2trees]

Hi,

I am creating a website in dreamweaver mx, on windows, and am adding two extras like oscommerce, and phpBB.

I would ideally like to build frames into the design, so for example:

I have a top running navigation bar, when someone clicks on 'forum' I want my logo and navigation bar to remain at the top, and the forum loads within a seperate frame below.

I have two questions:

1 - Is this a good idea?
2 - Is it fairly easy to do within dreamweaver?

Thanks

Ben

[Corey Bryant]

Frames are fairly easy - once you start to understand how they work but for search engine purposes I have always heard they are not that great of an idea.

If you are trying to maintain navigation, you might consider server side includes or php includes

[herkalees]

No it is not a good idea. I'm not sure if it's easy, because it's a bad idea. Look into either skinning osCommerce and phpBB, or as Corey mentioned, use PHP includes, like this:

<?php require("http://www.website.com/directory/file-containing-code.html"); ?>

Just stick that in every page, in the location you want the "included" content to appear, and the rest is magic.

I'm sure you'll have to experiment a bit, but give it a go and you'll be doing it the right way.