I’ve been updating my website and I want the navigation bar floating in the middle of the screen on the left. One way to hold the navigation bar in one place is to use frames, which I don’t want to do because it would break up the background.
My website guy has managed to get the bar to float, but it flutters as you scroll. He’s looking for a way of holding it steady as the viewer scrolls but hasn’t found it yet.
Do any contributors know how this can be done without frames? If so can you point me to a source of information I can pass on to my website guy? Thanks for any help. Slainte.
Replies
I'm not very familiar with Javascript -- have used it in the past for a couple of functions, but nothing at present. One thing that comes to mind is to make the background stationary, as in including "bgproperties=FIXED" in the <BODY> tag. However, I noticed in your index.html file that the background is not defined in the <BODY> tag -- perhaps it's part of the Javascript?
Frames are the way I've dealt with the stationary navigation bar issue. Click on my name at the bottom of this message to see the website I'm building. I use three frames: one to define the header space; one to define the navbar space on the left; the third is the content area. As you will see, I use different backgrounds for contrast.
Your background could be cropped into three segments: one at the dimensions required for the header, one for the navbar and the remainder for the content area. Look at the attachments for an example. Adding these images as the background via the <BODY> tag to html files and using my index.html as a model, you will find that the background appears to be one graphic. Making "bgproperties=FIXED" in the <BODY> in the content html file will keep all three matched up.
As to some of the "issues" with frames, I've done a bit of research and have concluded there is no reason not to use frames. Including the following: <meta name="ROBOTS" content="index,follow"> tells search engine robots to index this page and follow all links on this page. Other options for the command are "noindex" and "nofollow".
I trust this will get you headed in the right direction. Let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Bill Arnold
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Addition to my earlier post to you:
I played around with your backgorund graphic and some page formatting with frames and yielded the following which is much like your current page. Take a look via my website at:
http://www.bbarnold.com/index_rj.html
I'll leave this up for a few days for your review.
Bill Arnold
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Those are interesting suggestions Bill. I'll pass them on to my webmaster as I have no website building skills myself.
Many thanks for your help. Slainte.RJFurniture
As a site designer, I would stay away from frames. They are too unpredictable. It's better to use embedded tables or layers. Most browsers support layers now so it should be no problem.
Michael
Michael, thanks for the comments.
It seems to be the general concensus that using frames is perhaps less than ideal-- I say that as if I know what I'm talking about, but I don't know at all really. I'm reasonably good at whacking wood, and useless at websites, which is my choice-- I don't want to learn how to do websites.
I hand over responsibility for building and maintaining my website to a subcontractor. I tell him how I want it to look, supply all the images including background images, the text that's to be used, and so on, and he gets on and does it. If there's a problem we discuss it until a practical solution can be found.
The fixed navigation bar on the left was something I wanted, and he said he could do it easily if we were using frames. He wanted to avoid frames too, so he hunted about for a bit of Java script (I think it's called) to allow this to happen.
The navigation bar can be a bit 'fluttery' which is why I asked the question. I wanted to find out if people were having trouble using my website, as well as perhaps finding a way of making the navigation bar not flutter.
Bill, who responded prior to you is doing some work on his website. He's using frames and experimenting, and the results he comes up with should be instructive.
Every day, learning just a little bit more, ha, ha. Slainte. RJFurniture
Let me know if you'd like me to do a quick test with one page and the nav buttons on the left side. I can quickly build one for you.
I'm the reverse, better at websites than making sawdust, but I'm learning.
Michael
Michael, feel free to have a wee fiddle about with it, but please don't spend much time on it unless you're interested just for fun.
I'm going out of town for a bit over a week so I won't be able to check my email, forums, etc.. Well, I could if I really wanted to, but I want to get away from everything for a few days and wind down. I'm sure you know what I mean. Slainte.RJFurniture
I'll give it a whirl in a few days.
Michael
One issue I have w/ frames is that if you load a frame from a nav bar in another frame, the URL doesn't change. That makes the back button pretty useless. Is there some simple fix for this other than a custom "back" button?
Also, if you try and print, it will only print the "active" frame.
As far as the back button, the person making the site has to specify which frame is the "dominant" one. You can also just right click in the frame and choose the back selection.
Michael
Hmmmm.....
Well, I just re-checked it on my site and I can click a button on my navbar, click a link on a subsequent page and return to a previous page by using the "Back" button or hitting the 'Backspace' button on the keyboard.
It's true the URL doesn't change but does that really make a difference? When I visit a site and decide to mark it as a favorite, I prefer to navigate to the startup page anyway.
Bill Arnold
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Edited 8/19/2004 4:14 pm ET by BArnold
Badoyn,
How do you keep the navbar in one place using tables? I've wondered of that would be possible, but haven't pursued it yet.
Bill Arnold
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
You mean from having it spread apart and look all nasty? Use embedded tables. For example, make a table that has a cell for nav, cell for content. Put another table within the nav cell that houses the buttons. Set the alignment for top.
Sounds harder than it is. It's really pretty easy.
Michael
Tried that and the navbar still moves off screen as the content is scrolled. Maybe I'm missing something here.....
Bill Arnold
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Can you tell me where the page is so I can take a peek?
Michael
I created a test page with tables -- it's attached below. I tried a couple of variations as well.
Bill Arnold
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
BADOYN,
Any luck with the embedded table solution yet???
Bill Arnold
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
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