We can alter the border thickness...

<frameset cols="148,*" border="20">
  <frameset rows="164,*">
    <frame src="world.gif" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0">
    <frame src="lisa.html">
  </frameset>
  <frame src="terri.html">
</frameset>

VIEW IT

We can make them zero if we'd like.

<frameset cols="148,*" border="0">
  <frameset rows="164,*">
    <frame src="world.gif" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0">
    <frame src="lisa.html">
  </frameset>
  <frame src="terri.html">
</frameset>

VIEW IT

Now let me stop here and explain something. The only border attribute recognized by the W3C HTML 4.0 specification is the frameborder attribute in the <frame> tag. Unfortunately, it's implementation in web browsers is inconsistent at best.

The good news however, is that the border attribute in the <frameset> tag as shown in the above examples is pretty well universally recognized by modern major browsers.

We can also set the borders of a child frameset to zero.

<frameset cols="148,*">
  <frameset rows="164,*" border="0">
    <frame src="world.gif" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0">
    <frame src="lisa.html">
  </frameset>
  <frame src="terri.html">
</frameset>

VIEW IT

In a situation such as this where we're dealing with only one child frameset, the results seem to be fairly uniform and attractive between browsers. Unfortunately, as we get into multiple framesets, setting one of the child frameset borders to "0" can cause some of the other frameset borders to be rendered a little funky. Again, this depends on the browser. Some browsers render it perfectly, some not so perfectly. Here is an example...

<frameset rows="60,*">
  <frame src="lisa.html" name="top">
  <frameset cols="160,*,360">
    <frame src="terri.html" name="left">
    <frame src="beth.html" name="main">
    <frameset rows="160,*" border="0">
      <frame src="kim.html" name="left2">
      <frame src="tina.html" name="main2">
    </frameset>
  </frameset>
</frameset>

VIEW IT

One last titbit, then we'll wrap up this lesson.

We can prevent the viewer from resizing a frame. But, unless you have a VERY unusual circumstance, there really is no reason to use this attribute.

<frameset cols="148,*">
  <frameset rows="164,*" border="0">
    <frame src="world.gif" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0">
    <frame src="lisa.html">
  </frameset>
  <frame src="terri.html" noresize>
</frameset>

VIEW IT

Something to keep in mind... setting the borders to zero also prevents the user from resizing the frame.

Frames Tutor

Lessons: Intro 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Frames Templates      HTML 4.0 Reference      Barebones HTML Guide