A short while ago, I was surfing around, wasting time, when I came upon a site with links like, paraphrased, “Rotate content in an IFRAME” and “Display different content every day in an IFRAME.”
It gave rise to a surge of ideas about ways to use the IFRAME tag.
For example, a comment/feedback form could be in an IFRAME. When submitted, the thank you page would be displayed in the same IFRAME on the same page where the form was submitted. No “click here to continue” or “click your back button twice to get back to where you were” messages would be necessary on the thank you page.
The IFRAME tag is rather simple to implement. It’s a window of sorts embedded in your web page. The window can contain content from other URLs.
First, decide how big you want the window to be. Then, put the IFRAME tag where you want the window to be on your page. Give it the URL of the web page (or script) that will be displayed in the window. Example:
-==-
When you put the above IFRAME tag on your web page, it will create an area 200 pixels high and 300 pixels wide and display the WillMaster.com home page in that area. To put a comment/feedback form in an IFRAME, simply change the URL so the web page of your feedback form displays. Change the dimensions of the IFRAME as necessary. When someone submits the feedback form, the regular thank you page then displays within that IFRAME area.
You’re beginning to have ideas of your own, right?
Before getting too far ahead of ourselves, let me mention a drawback; Netscape 4.# doesn’t recognize the IFRAME tag. When that browser encounters an IFRAME tag, the tag is ignored.
Therefore, you won’t want to use the IFRAME tag for anything that is critical for all site visitors — a membership area log-in page, for example.
Let’s address the two concepts that gave rise to this pile of ideas, rotating content and daily content. For rotating content, Master Merry-Go-Round from http://willmaster.com/a/19/pl.pl?msmmgr can be used. Install the script and give it some content to rotate. The content can be banners, testimonials, poems, anything a web page could have. Then, put this tag into your web page where you want the rotating content to appear (adjusting dimensions and URL as necessary):
-==-
(The “?page=complete” part of the URL tells the program to generate the content as a complete web page.) For daily content, Master Daily Content from http://willmaster.com/a/19/pl.pl?mdc can be used. Install the script and give it a month or more of content. Then, put this tag into your web page where you want the rotating content to appear (adjusting dimensions and URL as necessary):
-==-
(Again, the “?page=complete” part of the URL tells this particular program to generate the content as a complete web page.)
Other ideas:
Similar to the contact/recommend form idea, a “recommend this site” form could be put in an IFRAME so the site visitor isn’t required to navigate back to the page s/he started from.
Surveys can be put into an IFRAME tag, with the results displaying in the same spot.
Recommend and Survey programs are available at the Master Series site. Use the search box or scan the list of available programs at http://willmaster.com/a/19/pl.pl?cgilist
A site news IFRAME could be used to display content of importance, changing it as needed. Master Site News from http://willmaster.com/a/19/pl.pl?msitenews makes changing such content easy via a control panel.
An index with photos could be put into an IFRAME. Create several regular web pages, one with an index to the others. The others contain the photos, along with a link back to the index. The IFRAME then contains the URL of the index page, which allows visitors to click on a photo link, view the photo, and click back to the index.
The IFRAME has scrollbars when the content exceeds the allotted area. Thus, it can be used to display a large amount of text, yet require only a small amount of space on the web page. For example, you could display the current WillMaster Possibilities article, automatically updated every week, by creating a page like
-==-
and then using an IFRAME with the newly created page’s URL to insert the entire article into a small space.
When you have a lot of content to display in an IFRAME, the content can be made to scroll. Try the Master Scrolling Presentation Generator V1 demonstration at http://willmaster.com/a/19/pl.pl?mspg to see how easy it is to generate a scrolling text area.
The IFRAME tag can be used to display anything a regular web page can display, and put it into a small area on another web page.
“WillMaster Possibilities” ezine
http://willmaster.com/possibilities/
mailto:possibilities@willmaster.com
