frames, iframes VS. divs + AJAX

[kaaposc]

Hello!

This is not question, I was just wondering, why people continue using
frames and iframes when we have handy AJAX approach to fill needed divs
with content. Is it because of some user's paranoia about javascript?
But if they make pages without javascript, they would not need to
bother, how to access other frame's content, would they?

kaaposc

 

[-Lost]

Hello!

This is not question, I was just wondering, why people continue using
frames and iframes when we have handy AJAX approach to fill needed divs
with content. Is it because of some user's paranoia about javascript?
But if they make pages without javascript, they would not need to
bother, how to access other frame's content, would they?

I imagine because there are still browsers that exist that don't
properly support XMLHttpRequests. Bear in mind IFRAMEs were being used
long before XHRs.

Not to mention, new information never propagates as fast as we would like.

 

[Tim Streater]

Hello!

This is not question, I was just wondering, why people continue using
frames and iframes when we have handy AJAX approach to fill needed divs
with content. Is it because of some user's paranoia about javascript?
But if they make pages without javascript, they would not need to
bother, how to access other frame's content, would they?

Having loaded the page, I then reload contents of iframes based on some
user selections. Can I do this with AJAX any easier than I do it now?

 

[Moyzes]

We have the web searches indexing problem too. If the page open in a
iframe or frame, the search bots open it and index it. On XHR nothing
happens. The bot pass throw the page and don't fire the javascript
functions, so the content will never indexed. I had to rewrite an
entire website because of this. So XHR its good for web applications,
that don't need indexing.

 

[kaaposc]

http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/html4-differences/Overview.html

hmm.. interesting facts. and - woo! - they dropped "target" attribute
from anchor tag

 

[dd]

hmm.. interesting facts. and - woo! - they dropped "target" attribute
from anchor tag

Actually it's the other way round. They didn't drop
it, they UNdeprecated it.

 

[dd]

Not sure, but FRAME, FRAMESET and NOFRAMES are dropped from the HTML 5
spec:

http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/~checkout~/html5/html4-differences/Overview....

They maybe dropped from the currently proposed but
not yet final spec, but it's not going to affect
browsers significantly. It'll be a good while
before we get browsers that are HTML5 compliant
and just because they support the new tags that
HTML5 brings, it doesn't mean they won't still
support the old ones. Remember, browsers want to
show you as much of the web as they can (except
for Safari of course, that goes without saying),
so they'll continue to support old HTML.

 

[dmark]

They maybe dropped from the currently proposed but
not yet final spec, but it's not going to affect
browsers significantly. It'll be a good while
before we get browsers that are HTML5 compliant
and just because they support the new tags that
HTML5 brings, it doesn't mean they won't still
support the old ones. Remember, browsers want to
show you as much of the web as they can (except
for Safari of course, that goes without saying),
so they'll continue to support old HTML.

Yes, IFrames are deprecated and the target attribute has never been
part of the standard HTML DTD (only the frameset version.) For this
and other reasons, frames of any sort are a bad idea at this point.
There was a time when the only good IFrame was a hidden one, but AJAX
has rendered those needless as well.

As for indexing AJAX sites, that isn't a problem unless the site is
poorly designed. A site should be designed from the start without
scripting of any kind. That is the version that the search engines
(and users without JS) will see. AJAX and other JS tricks can then be
layered on to enhance the user experience, but should never replace or
break the static content.