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Characteristics of a Frame

The web site illustrated below is organized through the use of frames. Notice that there are two scroll bars in the image below. One in the standard location on the far right, and one to the right of a set of green buttons. The set of green buttons provide a navigation menu, assisting the user with getting around on the web site

From the set of green navigation buttons, I selected which carried me to the screen shown below. Notice that the logo and green buttons are in the same place. They did not move because this web site actually consists of three separate web pages.

1. The frame set web page which controls the operation and appearance of the entire page
2. The navigation button web page which remains in that place as long as you are in the frame set
3. The target or featured web page that is selected from the navigation buttons

Look closely at the location block of each of the two screens displayed above. The Uniform Resource Locators (URL's) are identical. If I book marked the second window so that I could return to the Teaching and Learning Academy from my bookmarks menu later, I would be out of luck. The bookmark would carry me to the first screen instead.

Getting out of a Frame

To create bookmarks it is first necessary to get out of the frame set Instructions for doing this are slightly different for Macintosh and IBM users.

• IBM - Put your cursor on the link you want to follow. Using the right button on your mouse, click on the link. You get a pop-up menu.
• Macintosh - Put your cursor on the link you want to follow. Click on the link and hold the mouse button down. You get a pop-up menu.

Select "New Window with this Link."

• IBM - with the left mouse button, click on the "New Window with this Link" choice
• Macintosh - move the cursor to the "New Window with this Link" choice and release the mouse button

You are now out of the frame. Notice the location block. A bookmark created to the web page in this window would return you to this site later, not the original frame set

Webmasters: Helping users to get out of a Frame

If a page you have written is displayed within a frame and users may want to bookmark that specific page rather than the frame set, you can help them.

Near the top of the web page displayed above you will find the phrase shown immediately above this line. If a user clicks on the link "here," they are transported out of the frame to the Teaching and Learning Academy web page. The link does the same thing as the steps above. If you visit the Teaching and Learning Academy web page and view the page source you will find how this is done.

In Netscape 3 and earlier, go to the View menu and select Document Source. You see the HTML document used to create the page. On that page you will find the following command:

To use this on your web page insert the URL of your page between the quotation marks, leaving everything else the same. If you do not want the line to be bold, do not use the <STRONG> tag.  

Thanks to Seth Agranov from Gordon Elementary in Memphis, TN for discovering a more simple code. Copy the 4 lines below and put them in the head of your web page. Your page will leap out of whatever frame it was stuck in before.

<script LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT">
<!C-
if (top.frames.length!=0)
</script>

If you have questions about using a Netscape browser you might go to this index to lists of technical articles for various Netscape browsers, current and older versions. You can select a link below to view all of the technical articles that apply to the product you've selected, or use the search engine to look for a specific topic.

Downloading other versions of Netscape

Netscape Communicator 4.5 - available for Mac 7.6 or higher or Windows 95/98/NT

Netscape Communicator 4.0 - available for Mac or Windows 3.1/95/98/NT

Archived versions including:

• Communicator and Navigator Standalone 4.05
• Communicator and Navigator Standalone 4.03
• Navigator and Navigator Gold 3.04
• Navigator and Navigator Gold 3.01
• Navigator and Navigator Gold 2.02

Other Netscape tutorials

• Finding Information on the Internet - Teaching Library Internet Workshops from the University of California, Berkeley. A Netscape Basics lesson is available.
• Internet Guide and Web Tutorial - Since this is a Microsoft site it obviously does not feature Netscape. However, there is good information on searching and using a browser.
• Internet Guides, Tutorials, and Training Information - A Library of Congress Internet Resource page
• WebTeacher's Web Tutorial is designed for use by K-12 teachers and students. This project is a joint effort of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) and TECH CORPS.

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Internet4Classrooms is a collaborative project developed by Susan Brooks and Bill Byles