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bookmarks

The problems with website frames

by Miraz on March 3, 2008

Some websites still use “frames” as a way to keep navigation and branding in front of visitors’ eyes all the time while fresh content loads. Frames create problems for visitors though. Find out why. [First published August 2005.]

I know! We’ll use frames!

You’re designing a website. Whichever page a visitor is on, you want them to see the name of your organisation and the navigation (links between pages). This is an excellent goal.

Then someone says: I know! We’ll use frames! We fix our organisation’s name in a frame at the top and we fix the links in a frame on the left. Then we put the individual pages in a frame on the right and that’s the part that will change when the visitor clicks on a link.

Why not frame?

It all sounds good, doesn’t it. Except that unless this is handled with a very high degree of skill and expertise you’ve now probably just made your website harder for people to use and to bookmark, and reduced the ability of search engines such as Google to catalogue your content. If your web designer is skillful enough to create frames correctly then s/he should also be skillful enough to achieve the ends you want without using them.

Bookmarks go awry

The first big problem is that your visitor can’t bookmark individual pages on your site. They spend half an hour finding a fantastic resource, add it to their Favorites and when they use that Bookmark to visit again they are taken to the front page instead of the page they thought they’d added to the Favorites. That builds bad will.

Links lose the frame around

Another organisation wants to link from their website directly to a fantastic resource on your site. If they link directly to the page and visitors click through to your site they will almost certainly not see the frames. This leaves the visitor stranded, not knowing who the site belongs to or how to navigate around. This breaks the web.

If they link to your front page then the visitor has to find their own way to the fantastic resource. This makes the web less useful.

Search engines get lost

Nearly everybody wants the search engines, such as Google, to list their site, and ideally, at the top of the list. Unfortunately search engines often have difficulty with frames, meaning your site may not be listed or it may be lower ranked than it could be.

Here’s what Google says:

Google supports frames to the extent that we can. Frames tend to cause problems with search engines, bookmarks, emailing links and so on, because frames don’t fit the conceptual model of the web (every page corresponds to a single URL).

Frames can’t be ’seen’ by visually impaired

Your website probably has valuable information about your organisation and its activities and services. By using frames you can almost guarantee that some people will be unable to access that information. Some newer technologies and most software used by blind people have a lot of problems with frames and the visitor may be unable to get at the information you’ve so painstakingly crafted.

How can we tell?

After reading this Tip you want to be sure your site doesn’t use frames. How can you tell?

Visit your website and click on a few links to other pages on your site. Does the address in the Address Bar change? If not, that’s your biggest clue. Talk to a web designer urgently about overhauling your website.

Written for and reproduced from CommunityNet Aotearoa Panui, August 2005. This article has been edited for use here.

Popularity: 23% [?]

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Make Page Titles count

by Miraz on February 25, 2008

If someone adds your web page to their Favourites or Bookmarks then the title is what goes in by default. It’s also what they see when they call up their list of Favorites next week or next month and it no longer has any context.

When you surf around every page you visit has a Title. It’s up there in the Title Bar. For Windows users that means the blue stripe at the top of the screen just above the Menu bar. For Mac users it’s the grey stripe at the top of the window and below the Menu bar.

If someone adds your page to their Favourites or Bookmarks then the title is what goes in by default. It’s also what they see when they call up their list of Favorites next week or next month and it no longer has any context.

When Google or another search engine visits your page then the title carries a lot of “weight” or importance in how your site is ranked. 13.5 million hits on Google are what you get if you search for “Untitled”, the default page title which appears when web designers don’t know enough to put in their own title.

By choosing a good title you can instantly get a better ranking than 13.5 million other websites.

A good title summarises your page in about six to ten key words.

Some References

Written for and reproduced from CommunityNet Aotearoa Panui, June 2004.

Popularity: 14% [?]

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Power Up to organised Bookmarks

by Miraz on February 13, 2008

In this Power Up, Miraz Jordan keeps track of all her favourite web pages. [First published April 2006. Some details may be a bit dated. Update February 2008: hmmm, Google's so efficient I seldom bother bookmarking anything any more. When I do use bookmarks, I generally do it via Delicious.]

Locating good websites can easily fill many hours. If you’ve invested precious time into finding the best camera review website or that crucial manual for your classic motorcycle then the last thing you want is the intense frustration of looking for it again next week or next month.

Are you still using Internet Explorer for web browsing? It was pretty good in its day, but that day was about 5 years ago and it can’t keep up with modern web pages. It’s time to use a modern browser such as Safari, Firefox, Opera or OmniWeb.

Advice columns will cheerfully tell you to Bookmark a web page, and of course you should, but with dozens or hundreds of bookmarks the list is unwieldy and hard to use. Banish frustration and temper tantrums with some organisation. This article shows you how to manage Safari’s bookmarks, but it’s pretty much the same even if you’re using a different web browser.

Tip: Visit Safari’s File Menu and choose Export Bookmarks … before you start messing about with your Bookmarks. Save the html file in a safe place. If you mess everything up you can import this file again. This is also a good way to back up your Bookmarks.

Show all Bookmarks

The bookmarks in my digicam folder.

Screenshot 1: I’m looking at the bookmarks in my digicam folder.

First make sure the Bookmarks Bar is visible by visiting the View menu and checking it. You can Show all Bookmarks from the Bookmarks menu, or by clicking the open book icon at the left end of the Bookmarks Bar. Once the Bookmarks window is open select any folder in the Collections list on the left to see all the individual Bookmarks it contains.

Delete and re-order Bookmarks

Drag the most important bookmark to the top of the list.

Screenshot 2: I drag the most important bookmark for my camera to the top of the list.

Delete a bookmark by selecting it and pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. Be careful with this as the bookmark is simply deleted with no additional warnings. If you accidentally delete a bookmark you intended to keep immediately choose Command Z to restore it. You could also choose Undo from the Edit menu.

Change the order of bookmarks by dragging them around in the list. A bookmark appears to stay where it is until you finish the move by dropping it in its new location. A black line with a circle at the left end shows where the bookmark will go when you drop it.

Tip: you can duplicate a bookmark by holding down a modifier key while dragging. The Option key is the normal choice for this, but the Command key seems to work too.

Work with collections

Create a collection and drag bookmarks into it.

Screenshot 3: I created a Personal collection, move it near the top of the list and drag bookmarks into it.

The Collections list may already have some default folders of bookmarks. If you don’t want the bookmarks Safari came with you can delete a folder by selecting it and pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. The folder (and its contents) is simply deleted with no additional warnings. You can Undo this (see above) if you don’t do anything else in the meantime.

Add a new Collection by pressing the + icon below the Collection list. It will appear as an Untitled Folder. Type a suitable name and press the Return key to complete the action.

Drag the new folder within the list to change the sequence of Collection folders. Drag a bookmark from one Collection folder to another to move it.

Find a bookmark

Find a bookmark by using the Search box.

Screenshot 4: I find the Macguide bookmark by using the Search box at the bottom of the Bookmarks window.

Macguide — now where was that bookmark? In the latest version of Safari (and possibly earlier versions) there’s a search box at the bottom of the Bookmarks window. Click the icon of the magnifying glass to choose whether to search in the currently selected Collection or all Collections. Then type your search term.

It’s a Live Search so each letter you type filters out bookmarks, leaving only possible matches. The column called Parent tells you which Collection contains the bookmark.

Use the Bookmarks Bar

A folder whose contents will open with one click.

Screenshot 5: Create a folder whose contents will open with one click.

I keep a handful of my most commonly used bookmarks in the Bookmarks Bar. Group related bookmarks into a folder. You’ll see the Bookmarks Bar collection at the top of the Collections list. Seleect the Bookmarks Bar collection and click on the + icon below the Bookmarks list to create a new folder.

I check the box in the Autoclick column for my new Astronomy folder so I can call up several pages showing me the night sky with just one click.

Marked with a small square on the Bookmarks Bar.

Screenshot 6: The folder whose contents will open with one click is marked with a small square on the Bookmarks Bar.

Backing up and organising your Bookmarks can save a lot of hair-pulling. Try it and see.

First published in Macguide magazine Issue #26 March / April 2006 and republished with permission. This article may have been modified from the original.

Popularity: 30% [?]

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