HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
11.8. XFrames
Frames are a rags-to-riches success story. From a nonstandard extension
in the Netscape browser to a standard component of HTML and XHTML,
frames have proven themselves as a core element of the HTML world.
Nonetheless, there are problems with frames that have never been fully
resolved:
•
Navigation with a browser's Back button can be unpredictable.
•
You cannot directly reference a document within a frameset.
•
You cannot reference a particular collection of frames with a single
URL.
•
Search engines often do not follow framed content.
To correct these deficiencies while retaining the power of frames, the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has proposed a slightly different
model for framed content. This model is still a working document, and
has not yet been implemented in any browser. Still, we briefly describe
it here to make authors aware of what they might expect from frames in
the near future.
11.8.1. An XFrames Document
Within HTML and XHTML, frames replace the
<body>
of a document, leav-
ing the
<html>
and
<head>
tags intact. In the XFrames model, an XFrames
document replaces the entire
<html>
document, carrying with it its own
<head>
and framed content. Within the
<head>
tag, authors can provide
a
<title>
and
<style>
tags; the framed content is then denoted within
<group>
and
<frame>
tags. A short XFrames document might look like this:
<frames xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2002/06/xframes/">
<head>
<title>Kumquat Lore</title>
<style type="text/css">
