This is FrameJammer Version 3.2.2
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What it does | Usage
notes Site navigation Using with templates Using with anchors Passing values |
| (You may want to print this file - there's a lot here.) | |
FrameJammed pages opened "naked" in a browser window or in the wrong frame will find their parent frameset and position themselves in the correct frame (tested with Netscape and Internet Explorer versions 3+ in Windows, NS 3+ and IE 4+ on the Mac).
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DREAMWEAVER 4 and higher: Use the Extension Manager.
DREAMWEAVER 3 and lower: Drop 'FrameJammer.htm' and 'FrameJammer.js' into your CONFIGURATION>COMMANDS directory. Drop 'frameJammerHelp.html' and 'fStuffer.gif' into a HELP directory in the CONFIGURATION directory (if it doesn't exist, you should create one as you'll need it to use the Help button).
Reload extensions if Dreamweaver is open.
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1. Create a frameset and name all the frames.
2. Close the frameset.
3. Open a page that should only be opened in this frameset.
4. Open FrameJammer from the COMMANDS > DABBLER menu to get this dialog
box:
5. Browse to the frameset in which your page belongs and select it.
6. The names of the frames in this frameset are now listedin the bottom pulldown.
Select the one you want your page to appear in.
7. Click OK, then save and close your page.
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Pages opened "naked" (in a browser directly, not in your frameset) will find their frameset and position themselves where they belong (if you follow the 'USAGE NOTES' below).
Your pages also check the name of the frame they're in to resist being "hijacked" by another site. If the frame name is wrong, the page "busts out" and positions itself in the correct frame in your frameset. This won't work if the foreign frame has the same name as yours, so you might want to avoid likely frame names such as "main" and "content". Instead, you might use names like "mainhp" or "hpcontent", using your own initials.
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The image on the right is a typical frameset ('index.html').
Your frameset code looks something like this:
<FRAMESET rows="62,*">
<FRAME name="ftop" src="topFrame.html">
<FRAMESET cols="160,*">
<FRAME name="findex" src="leftFrame.html">
<FRAME name="fright" src="home.html">
</FRAMESET>
</FRAMESET>
Now open any page on your site that you want to appear in the frameset, and select 'FrameJammer' from the COMMANDS > DABBLER menu. Initially, you see:
When you browse to and select the frameset, the display changes to:
The Frame menu lists all the frames in the chosen frameset, so select 'fright' then punch the "OK" button (not shown). This writes the handler code into the frameset ('index.html') and some short FrameJammer code into 'main.html'.
You should apply FrameJammer to your default pages, too, specifying the appropriate frames (e.g., 'findex' for the 'leftFrame.html' page), as well as other pages on your site that you should appear in this frameset.
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- FrameJammer works with pages that are in the same directory as the frameset
page, or in directories below the one containing the frameset page.
- Remove any "frame buster" code you may have in the pages, as
FrameJammer will handle it for you.
- When working in a new frameset, name the frames then save all the pages
and the frameset before applying FrameJammer.
- After selecting a target frameset, you are given a pick list of the frames
in the set. If the page you're working on is one of the default pages for
the frameset, the list consists of only the correct frame.
- If FrameJammer is already in a page, you are shown the names of the targeted
frame and frameset. To change the targets, use the 'Change' button. You
may also 'Remove' FrameJammer from the page.
- Double jamming doesn't work. I was able to confuse a browser by specifying
that one of the default pages in frameset A' actually belonged in 'Frameset
B', then trying to jam a different page into 'Frameset A'. You're not likely
to design a site this way, but if you do get strange behavior (or non-behavior)
check for conflicts in the frameset default pages.
- If you do want to use the same page as a default page in multiple framesets,
use the same frame name in the framesets. You'll only be able to jam the
page into one of the framesets, but it won't kick itself out of the others.
- Using JavaScript reserved words as frame names confuses JavaScript and
can cause Infinite Reload Cycles and/or crashes. 'top', for example, is
a no-no as a frame name, although it may work some of the time.
- Don't use tildes (~) or underscores (_) in your frame names.
- Do not use 'booker_' for any of your frame names. That's partly because
of the underscore, but also because I've rewritten the frame name test to
look for the frameBooker window so you can use both extensions in the same
page (a fairly likely scenario). There was no change to the handler function
in the parent frameset, so it will continue to work fine on a site with
mixed pages (created with this and earlier versions of FrameJammer).
- 'Remove' will remove FrameJammer from a page, but will not touch the
code handler written into the parent frameset because other pages may need
it. This may be removed manually to save a few bytes.
- A user found that FrameJammed pages would not print
from Netscape 4.x and that is now fixed. Earlier versions wrote a frame
name test into the page like this:
if (window.name!='<frame>')
if (window.name!='<frame>' && window.name!='booker_')
if (window.name!='<frame>' && window.name!='booker_'
&& !((self.innerHeight == 0) && (self.innerWidth == 0)))
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USING FRAMEJAMMER FOR SITE NAVIGATION
Building an index page for a framed site can be a problem. Assume a site structure like this:
frameSet.html
siteIndex.html
pages ----------\------ pageA.html
\-----
pageB.html
The frameset and site index pages are in the same directory, with framed pages in a sub-directory called 'pages'. After applying FrameJammer, you could make a direct link to the pages, like
href="pages/pageB.html"
This works, but pageB.html will first start to load before going on to find frameSet.html and positioning itself in the correct frame. This is okay if it only happens once, as from a search engine link, but becomes annoying if it keeps happening. An improvement is to link to the frameset page and specify which page you want loaded ('fright' is the name of the frame for the page) like this:
href="frameSet.html?pages/pageB.html~fright
Almost there. The pageB.html doesn't show, but the frameset default page still starts loading before pageB.html replaces it. This is okay if it only happens once, as from a search engine link, but becomes annoying if it keeps happening.
To stop that, you can use FrameStuffer rather than FrameJammer. With FrameStuffer, there is no default page flash, and you provide a better user experience for navigation.
If you've already applied FrameJammer to any pages, you won't need to change them, but will need to modify your frameset. Details are in the FrameStuffer Help file.
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USING FRAMEJAMMER IN DREAMWEAVER TEMPLATES:
There's no simple way to use frameJammer in Dreamweaver templates. FrameJammer writes a line like this on each page to be jammed:
top.location.replace('../framesetpage.html?path/page.htm~frame');
The page being jammed and the path to it from the frameset directory ('path/page.htm') are "hard coded" so this won't work in a template. For a while, I had frameJammer write code that does work in a template:
top.location.replace('../framesetpage.html?'+location.href+'~frame');
The problem with that is that it does not work in Netscape 4.08, and I received notes about it from a number of people, so I changed it back. If you don't care about NS 4.08 surfers, you can apply FrameStuffer, then change the line as above before saving the page as a template.
NOTE: USE THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK.
If you do use the code above in a template, you also need to make a change to the FrameJammer code in your frameset page. Open the frameset page and find this line:
if (framedPage.length>1 && framedPage.indexOf("://")==-1){
Change it to read:
if (framedPage.length>1){
Now save the frameset page and close it.
NOTE: This creates a potential security hole that might allow someone to insert one of their pages into your frameset. The inserted page would then have access to information in the frameset such as cookies and variables, or could be a form that asks the visitor for data then submits it to the dastardly person inserting the page. While the visitor would have to arrive from a special link on the dastard's site, it could happen. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
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USING ANCHORS WITH FRAMEJAMMER
You can now specify an anchor in the page you're stuffing, but you need to do it manually. First apply FrameStuffer to a page. In the code FrameStuffer wrote, find the line that looks something like:
top.location.replace('index.html?thepage.html~fright');
and insert the name of your anchor like this:
top.location.replace('index.html?thepage.html@theanchor~fright');
Note that you must use the '@' rather than '#' because of a JavaScript issue. Now open the frameset, and add the section of code as shown below in red:
if (framedPage.length>1 && framedPage.indexOf("://")==-1){
framedPage = framedPage.substring(1);
var theSplit = framedPage.lastIndexOf('~');
var thePage = framedPage.substring(0,theSplit);
// insert the anchor code here if required
if (thePage.indexOf('@') !=-1){
re=/(\S+)@(\S+)/
theArray = re.exec(thePage);
thePage=theArray[1]+'#'+theArray[2];
}
var theFrame
= framedPage.substring(theSplit+1);
eval("top.frames["'+theFrame+'"].location.replace('"+
thePage+"')");}
}
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A user needed to pass a query string to dynamic pages being stuffed, so came up with a modification to the code in the pages (thanks, Steph). To use it, you first apply FrameJammer to a page, then add this code:
<script>
var qstring = location.search;
if (qstring.length > 1)
qstring = qstring.substring();
</script>
And modify the line that reads something like:
top.location.replace('../framesetpage.html?path/page.asp~frame');
to include the variable that is determined above:
top.location.replace('../framesetpage.html?path/page.asp'+qstring+'~frame');
You'll have to apply it by hand, but it will do the job.
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As usual, use at your own risk. If you run into problems please print the Help file out, then try again. If that doesn't work, let me know and I'll see what I can do to help.
Enjoy
Hal
http://www.pawluk.com/public/