On 3/14/06, Wade Preston Shearer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > That's a pain. Why force the user to have to right click and copy-n- > paste simply to bookmark the site or to retrieve the URL to send to > someone? Also, my browser history only shows one URL for all of the > pages that I have visited on that site. > > What are the benefits that you feel frames give that cannot be > accomplished with scrollable divs?
The benefit imparted by frames here is that you're able to browse the thread list at the same time as you're reading any particular thread. phpBB makes you go into a thread, read through it, back out of the thread to the list, etc. I feel like a mole crawling down the tunnel of a thread, blind to what's behind me. Clicking the link (or the back button) to return to the thread list feels like walking backwards. I want to jump instantly from one thread to another - and I want to do it *without* waiting for a huge page to load. I also want to be able to refresh the list of threads (to see if there are any new posts to me, of high interest, etc.) quickly and without moving away from the thread I'm on. Often times I'll be reading a thread that's moderately interesting while waiting for someone to respond to a question I posted in another thread. With the thread list in a separate frame I can refresh it occasionally without leaving my spot in the current thread. I suppose you could do all that with Ajax, but then what happens when the person has javascript turned off? Maybe Ajax is a lesser sin than frames, but it seems like it's 50/50 to me. AND, like I said before, Beehive provides a way to browse it with no frames or javascript. As far as it's being annoying to have to copy and paste the URL - you're going to have to copy and paste it out of the address bar if you're sending it to someone anyway, aren't you? I have never run into an instance when I wanted to bookmark a particular thread. Occasionally I've thought "Oh, this is interesting but I don't have time to read it now, I will when I get home." When that happens, I'll mark the thread as "high interest". Then when I get home I log back into the forum, call up the list of "high interest with posts today" threads, and find the one I was reading. Maybe this is just a workaround for the unable-to-bookmark-easily problem, but I've never really thought of it that way. Anyway - I recognize that using frames has drawbacks. But I feel that in this case their use is justified. If there's another way to enable browsing the thread list without reloading the entire page (and prefferably without using ajax, but whatever) then by all means suggest it. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
