# FrontPage and NavBars and FrameSets: Oh My!

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frontpage-and-navbars-and-framesets-oh-my/102559
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 8, 2002, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frontpage-and-navbars-and-framesets-oh-my/102559 "2002-04-08T21:24:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![sdimbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sdimbert/32/20204_2.png) [@sdimbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sdimbert)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2002, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frontpage-and-navbars-and-framesets-oh-my/102559/1 "2002-04-08T21:24:21Z")

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I’m building a company website. I use a Shared Border NavBar to let users move from one section of the site to the next. One of these sections (Travel Directions) is a Frameset. I need the NavBar to point to the FrameSet (not one of the pages displayed in the FrameSet) but I also need the NavBar to display _in_ the FrameSet.

Is this possible?

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### Author: ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2002, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frontpage-and-navbars-and-framesets-oh-my/102559/2 "2002-04-08T22:19:54Z")

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i’m not exactly sure what your goal is (maybe a link?) but here’s some tips:

the link to the frameset on your nav should go to \<a href=frameset.html target="\_top"\>

if you want one of the frames in your directions frameset to contain the nav bar, just make it a blank page with just the nav bar in it, and don’t include the nav on other pages in the frameset.

to get out of the frameset, you want all links within the frameset that need to get out of the frameset to point to target=\_top

also, and i don’t mean to flame, but web sites for businesses shouldn’t be made with FrontPage. It’s not exactly the professional standard. I won an award once for a Web site I made once for a magazine, and the guy who took over after me messed up the entire thing (and every single page of every issue before his) by using frontpage and whatever it does.

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### Author: ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2002, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frontpage-and-navbars-and-framesets-oh-my/102559/3 "2002-04-08T22:24:12Z")

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To link to the FrameSet, link to the “FrameSet” page–the one that contains the frameset with the appropriate page framed in–and add target="\_top" to the href. To add in the NavBar:

> [@](#):
>
> To edit the HTML of a shared border in FrontPage 2000:  
> On the Tools menu, click Web Settings, and then click the Advanced tab.  
> Select the Show documents in hidden directories check box to show or hide files in hidden folders. Click OK to continue.
> 
> Now, if you use shared borders in your Web, when you look at the Folder List, you’ll see a new directory called \_borders. Inside this directory, you’ll find an HTML page that corresponds to the shared borders you’ve used in your Web: top.htm, bottom.htm, left.htm, and/or right.htm. You can open these files in FrontPage Editor. And when you save the file, the shared borders on every page are updated automatically.

I am assuming the navbar will be in left.htm. Open left.htm, append “target=\_top” to every link, and save as left2.htm. What you do to make it work as a framed page is make your frameset page like so (my notes in red):

\<frameset cols=“120(this is the width of your left.htm file),\*” border=“0” framespacing=“0” frameborder=“NO”\>  
\<frame src="/nameof the directory this files is in/left2.htm" name=“navbar” marginwidth=“0” marginheight=“0” scrolling=“NO” noresize frameborder=“NO”\>  
\<frame src=“URL of page you’re framing in” marginwidth=“0” marginheight=“0” name=“mainr”\>  
\</frameset\>

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### Author: ![sdimbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sdimbert/32/20204_2.png) [@sdimbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sdimbert)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2002, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frontpage-and-navbars-and-framesets-oh-my/102559/4 "2002-04-09T15:07:14Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Gaudere \*  
> \*\*To link to the FrameSet, link to the “FrameSet” page–the one that contains the frameset with the appropriate page framed in–and add target="\_top" to the href. \*\*

Let me stop you there. Here is my problem: I’m not getting to the Frameset from an \<A HREF\>… I’m getting there using the NavBar. So, thanks to the way FrontPage builds NavBars, I need the page which I want the NavBar to point to (the frameset itself) to appear in the Navigation View.

But, I can’t place the frameset in the Navigation View, the best I can do is place one of the framed pages in there. But, when I do that, the NavBar Link points to _that page_, and not the Frame Set.

Is that clearer?

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### Author: ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2002, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frontpage-and-navbars-and-framesets-oh-my/102559/5 "2002-04-09T15:42:03Z")

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Can you possibly post a link for us to look at?

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### Author: ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2002, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frontpage-and-navbars-and-framesets-oh-my/102559/6 "2002-04-09T16:38:45Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Let me stop you there. Here is my problem: I’m not getting to the Frameset from an \<A HREF\>… I’m getting there using the NavBar. So, thanks to the way FrontPage builds NavBars, I need the page which I want the NavBar to point to (the frameset itself) to appear in the Navigation View.

Since I’m a _real_ web designer and so don’t use Frontpage ;), I can’t tell you how to link it the page in the WYSIWYG manner FrontPage would want you to. But I _can_ get the link to work, if you open the navbar file and edit the HTML directly.

The navbar _is_ an HTML page and so it must have standard links in it somewhere. If you know the name of the frameset page and how to set up a link, you can open the navbar (as to where to find the navbar, see what I quoted above) in HTML view and edit the code there directly. Just make the appropriate link \<a href=“directory structure here/NameOfLink.html” target="\_top"\>\<!-- navbar button code goes here —\>\</a\>