In Memory of the HTML Frameset, 1996 - 2011
Posted by tbx on Wednesday, Mar 30, 2011
HTML, or Hyper Text Markup Language, is the basic code structure that create websites, and it consists of elements called tags. For example “<p>” defines a new paragraph or “<img src=“image.jpg“>” will show a picture. As HTML is steadily improved by a committee, the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, and as the web prepares for a linguistic upgrade to HTML5, some features are destined for the dustbin.
Among the newly obsolete, few features are as hard to lose as the one known as “<frameset>”. Invented in the 1990s to allow web designers to mix-up several HTML pages, the frameset technology heavily influenced web design and net.art projects throughout that decade.
But despite its love by millions of amateurs and hot-linkers over the years, the frameset became a subject of serious fear by usability designers. The HTML5 work-group decided to pull the plug and exclude the <frameset><frame> from future specs. Let it rest in peace forever in quirks mode among its siblings, the <marquee> and <blink> tag. (The frameset leaves behind one child, the <iframe>.)
I knew the frameset personally; we were good friends back in the late ‘90s, when I designed my first HTML pages. I met it and was very impressed by it’s powers. I used it for my 1999 Star Wars fan page to hotlink/steal/incorporate a Queen Amidala gallery into my layout. The frameset with the pretty Comic-Sans buttons is still standing, but the Amidala fan page (under Star Wars) is long gone.
Speaking for the ones that still remember you, from back when you were high-tech: we will very much miss you. And before you’re whisked away to the graveyard of “deprecated” html tags , let’s all remember you by looking at two beautiful art pieces that made history – with your help of course:
Olia Lialina, My Boyfriend came back from the war
Dragan Espenschied, GRAVITY
yours,
TBX
Read more:
Jakob Nielsen – Why Frames Suck, 1996
Official HTML specs dropping the Frameset
Olia Lialina – An observation on frames
Jason Teaque – How-to program HTML frames
Jason Teaque – Frames are dead. Long live frames
Inventor of blink tag, it was a Schnapps Idea
MCLI – Dont use marquee!
Long live quirks mode!
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About the author
Tobias Leingruber (@tbx) is an artist and communication designer, researching pop culture, viral media, open source code and aesthetics on the web. As an advocate for freedom online he has collabor...
