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I have an existing application which uses html frames tag for page layout. I have a header, menu, left navigation and content area on the right. When the user selects an option from the left navigation the corresponding content is shown on the right area, using the frame src attribute.

I intent on redesigning the UI by eliminating the frames tag. So, my question is how I can go about achieving it without frames tag. can anyone suggest me an alternate mechanism which I can use. I have a feeling that frames helped me to avoid full page refresh as only the right content area got changed every time and the menu and left navigation was fixed. Now, I am not sure what is the way to replace it and help me avoid the menu and left navigation getting refreshed every time.

juser
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1 Answers1

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You have not provided any information about which framework you use to create your website. These days, almost every self-respecting framework (see below) has a templating engine that allows you to do just the thing you want. You will refresh the whole page though, but you only need to write the code for headers, footers, etc. once.

This will eliminate your frames and will bring you to the 21st century ;)

Just off the top of my head:

PHP

  • Symfony has Twig
  • Zend has Zend View
  • For plain PHP you can use Smarty if that still exists

.NET

  • MVC4 has Razor

Java

  • JSP has templating if I am not mistaking

HTML single page application

  • Definitely AngularJS

Or, you can just use a CMS like drupal, wordpress, ... where you can build on existing templates

mstaessen
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  • Thanks for your response. Yes, I am aware of frameworks which provide template engine to generate the page. But, as you said, my only concern is the entire page refreshing, which I do not want. Do I need to use jquery/ajax along with the a template engine like apache tiles to avoid page refresh or is there any other way. – juser Mar 29 '14 at 12:23
  • In that case, you should go for a Single Page Application. Angular Views/Routes are very, very good! – mstaessen Mar 29 '14 at 12:25
  • Yes, SPA seems to be a viable option. But, that would mean going for a full stack Client MVC from a server side MVC which I currently use. Not sure If I will just stick to frames itself since it works fine in all browsers though removed from HTML5. – juser Mar 29 '14 at 12:27
  • Using one does not imply you cannot using the other. You can have a combination of both. You can use your server side MVC to generate views and to provide an API for your front end. I have used this setup before and it is a very powerful combo. – mstaessen Mar 29 '14 at 13:14