Sliced template: To use in conjunction with Tables or Frames?

[drmaximus]

I am proud of myself for having learnt to draw the website using Photoshop, then slicing it up and importing to ImageReady. Within the latter, I saved "all slices and HTML" which created a HTML file that I used on DreamWeaver.

Right now I have a top panel, and a bottom right panel. The bottom left panel is to be used as the main text area, and as it is just black space in the picture, it is currently an empty gif (automatically generated).

Question: Am I supposed to create further pages by simply replicating this template, and replacing the empty gif on each page with my content? If so, wouldn't it be formidable to incorporate a large picture gallery or forum into this square? Or do I simply treat that table square as a normal page and stick the HTML codes within?

Or am I supposed to use the frames technique which I learnt 5 years ago?
ie. top frame, bottom left frame and bottom right frame; when I click a link on the navigation, the content page shows up on the bottom left frame?

If so, how then do I convert the empty gif into a frame, and name it, so that I can use it as the destination frame? Right now, my links only have destinations such as _new, _parent, etc

I hope somebody understands my newbie question!
I read that designers are phasing out frames in favor of tables, is that true?
Thanks a lot!

DM

 

[shadow_boi]

personally, i dont like to use iframe, since it really slows down the speed.
I dont think your forum will fit in that square, so i suggest you to treat that table square as a normal page and stick the HTML codes within

 

[netzilla]

IFRAMES = bad not supported by all browsers. Stick with tables or DIV'S/CSS.

 

[DylanButler]

Instead of frames, you want to use the <DIV ID="_____"> and then define that ID in your style.css.

Inside that ID, you want to list width, height, and set overflow: scroll; (This makes a scrollbar if the text overlaps, acting like an Iframe).

Hope this helps.

 

[drmaximus]

Thank you all for the comments. I have been searching on the internet for relevant articles and the feeling I get is negativity towards frames, so I shall be employing tables.

So shabow_boi, I should just replicate the template for each page I have, and stick the content within the empty table square?

DylanButlet, unfortunately I have not yet advanced beyond HTML and tables... CSS is a huge step forward!

 

[netzilla]

Actually, IMO CSS is as easy to learn as basic html. Its pretty much standard words like border-width, border-size etc. All you need is a good reference to help you remeber all the attributes.

 

[LeetPCUser]

Neither, implement CSS and use Div's and Class's.