OT: html help

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Could someone take a look at my website source and tell me what I'm doing wrong with the frames thing? Link's in my sig.

Man, reading Batman:Gothic twice is definitally a mistake. *Shudder*

[ May 25, 2004, 02:49: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Jack Simth]

For one, keep your style consistent; don't specify a pixel size for the first frame and a percent size for the second - possibly a non-issue, but could be a problem.

For two, you can't bury regular HTML into a standard framing page and have it work right - everything below the /framset tag is going to be ignored (barring the extremely rare browser that doesn't support frames), so none of it will show up - you need to build a different web page to bury that stuff in, and have your framing page refer to it.

For three, is it my imagination, or is that second frame recursive (points to the main frame page)? That could cause some serious problems for any browser that doesn't notice - it could just keep subdividing the frame, caught in an infinite loop.

[dogscoff]

Everything he said.
Try cutting everything after (and including) the body tag in test[1].html and pasting it into test.html - that should give you some results you can work with.

Alternately, google for html tutorials & beginner's guides. Web tutorials are great, they've taught me everything I know about html, css and javascript. (although you've ever seen my javascript, you wouldn't consider that much of an endorsement.)

Even alternativelier, get yourself a web-design package. You can get some great pointy-clicky wysiwyg web design things that will build all the html for you.

never really used 'em myself (notepad man myself) but I know many ppl who swear by them, and their sites usually look better than mine. I've heard great things about Dreamweaver, but I have a feeling that's quite expensive. There are probably some decent freeware ones available.

[ May 25, 2004, 08:45: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ok, I got it half-way there when I load it from the desktop as it puts the menu on the left, but loads over the whole page when I switch to two, but when I load it as a webpage it does the same thing as before. I don't understand, as I'm using the same browser for both.

[ May 25, 2004, 09:30: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Ruatha]

I like the title of this topic!, I'll hijack this thread when your problem is solved, as I need help creating HTML help files

[dogscoff]

Narf: You need to use the TARGET attribute in your A tags. To take an example from your own code, you created a frame with the name "nav". You can use this name to direct links to that frame, for instance:

code:

---

<A HREF="new_nav_menu.htm" TARGET="nav">click here to see the other navigation menu</A>

---

You can also use the special target called "_top" to replace the entire frameset, like this:

code:

---

<A HREF="full_page.htm" TARGET="_top">click here to see a full page document with no frames.</A>

---

Of course, you could include FRAMESET tags in full_page.htm if you wanted, and create a brand new frameset.

You should always use target= when you're dealing with frames, otherwise all sorts of unexpected things can happen.

Oh, and I've just looked again at your source and it seems you are only creating one frame, the one called "nav". That is probably part of the problem- less than two kind of defeats the object. (Probably best to start with just two until you get used to it.)

Ruatha, what's the trouble?

[ May 25, 2004, 09:48: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

[minipol]

And if you *really* want to do the right thing, you should drop frames alltogether and use divs.
A lot of people use tables but it's not the recommended way of handling layout.
Anyway, divs can be tricky and it takes time to learn how to work with them so in case you don't have time to learn it just stick with what you already know and use frames.
Other tips regarding style/html correctness:
* limit the number of fonts
* limit the number of colors used
* use a tool to check your html code
http://validator.w3.org/
* use htmltidy to tidy up your code
* use a second browser besides IE to see how HTML compliant your code is. For instance firefox:
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
* if you want to use a free html editor, check out 1st page 2000:
http://www.evrsoft.com/

Keeping this in mind, you'll design pages that won't make people barf on sight. Maybe they'll barf if they read the content bu that's entirely up to you

Oh and your main page, you forgot to close the html and body tag

[Ruatha]

Dogscoff>
I was about to write the help files for the SE4 companion, when I see that most help files today are made of HTML? files instead of .HLP files.
Seems to be something about CHM and Rich Text Format???

Looked at some freeware help writing programs but I don't have a clue as to what to do...Honestly though, I've only looked at it for about 2-3 minutes so I guess I shouldn't be shouting for help already...
It's just that I thought it'd be easy, sigh, nothing ever is....

[Gandalf Parker]

Definetly html help files are a good idea. But dont look for a fancy writer then try to insert the help. Write the help files then insert the html. I think the effect is better. My personal preference for writing web pages is using Paint and Notepad

[Fyron]

I suggest a real text editor, such as Metapad or Editplus, over Notepad. Syntax highlighting works wonders.