[whatwg] framesets

[Eduard Pascual]

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Peter Brawley <pb at artfulsoftware.com> wrote:
> Eduard,
>
>>Everything that can be achieved with <frameset> can be done through
>><table>+<iframe>.
>
> If that's so, someone ought to be able to point at some examples.
I just got something even better [1]: it doesn't even use <iframe>: it
goes away with <div>s, CSS, and scripting.
<table>+<iframe> would make things simpler, since the page would only
need to add a bit of script to handle the resizing.

> Supposing that someone can produce examples, the argument for removing
> frames from HTML5 becomes: "frameset has been in HTML till now, but is being
> removed because we do not like it. If you insist on such use cases,
> re-architect them." That's a misuse of standards.
That's not the argument. It would be something more like "frameset has
arisen several issues and doesn't solve anything that can't be solved
in a different way. If you insist on using frameset, just forget about
HTML5 validation."
After all, the only purpose of validation is to have a hint of
potential interoperability and accessibility issues. If you are using
<frameset>, you should already be aware of the issues you might face,
so you don't need a validator to hint them to you.

>>What'd be the point of keeping two sources of issues when one can be
>>enough to cover all use-cases?
>
> If your premiss is correct, backward compatibility.
Backward compatibility is not handled at the language level, but at
the application level. <frameset> will not stop working: browsers will
keep handling it as they have until now. Leaving <frameset> out of the
spec only affects validation.
Furthermore, AFAIK it's entirely valid to have an HTML4 Frameset
doctype for a .html file, and refer from the <frameset> to files that
use the HTML5 doctype and new features. Since <frameset> has always
been intended to be used only from a "frameset page" or "master page",
what purpose would serve allowing them on a non-frameset doctype?
Furthermore, since HTML5 adds no features at all to <frameset>, would
it make any sense to define a "HTML5 Frameset doctype"?

In summary: you can still use <frameset> as much as you want; and
trigger either "quirks" or "standard" mode on the client side. In
addition, if you manage properly your files and doctypes, you can even
have everything validating. What are you exactly asking for?

Regards,
Eduard Pascual

[1]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.htmldocument.aspx