[DHTML] Menu on top of frameset

1) CODE TITLE: Menu on top of frameset

2) AUTHOR NAME/NOTES: Arie Molendijk

3) DESCRIPTION: Technique for showing an ordinary ('non-frameset') menu (or any layer for that matter) on top of the main frame of a frameset. If your navigation menu is very heavy (--> causing flicker on page transition), then you could use this technique. No specifications in the main frame pages required. Works also with 'foreign' pages.

4) URL TO CODE: http://molendijk.110mb.com/dynamic/

or, ATTACHED BELOW (see #3 in guidelines below):

I only noticed this thread because you pointed it out as a possible solution to an old thread I had posted in (where I said the Chrome CSS Drop Down Menu wasn't designed to drop across frames). I haven't really looked over your method in detail yet, but from reading the page you linked to in your above post, and trying out the demo on it, it looks very nice!

When I get more time, I will investigate it further. Also of interest to me are your claims/ideas about overcoming other limitations of framesets.

In any case - Congratulations on getting 'Anylink' to drop across frames!

You 'll notice that my coding is rather clumsy (I'm not an expert!), but I think the idea behind it is right.
Thanks for your comment.
(I added an ordinary div that shows in front of the frames).
Arie Molendijk.

Menu over frames: I noticed that In certain non-IE browsers, the submenus won't always hide on mouseout. See explanations / workaround in the URL TO CODE-link above.

Arie Molendijk

Question to jsscheuer1,
In an old post (see here), you explained how to force 'orphan pages' to appear within their frameset. You said that we have to put the following in the head of each pages:
<script type="text/javascript">
if (window == top) {
var url='window.location.replace("index.html?var1='+window.location.href+'")';
eval(url);
}
</script>
I tested it, and it works OK, even if we don't insert into the frameset page the scripts you gave for that page. Why do we need those other scripts?
Thanks in advance,
Arie Molendijk.

Without the additional code, the frameset won't know which page to load into its frame. If all you want is the default frameset, you don't need any of the other code.

OK, I see. Thanks for the prompt reply.
Arie.

Added some coding for help with bookmarking the framed pages and for not allowing framed pages to appear as 'orphans' (= without the frameset) + some other stuff. see sources of the files (ZIP included).

Arie M.

Hitting the bookmark button / the print button / the correct URL button produces a specific message now if the main frame's page is external.
(Doesn't always function correctly; probably a minor problem. I will come back to this as soon as I have time).

Arie M.

Problem signalled above has been corrected.
Arie M.