Shared Borders for Common Elements

Shared Borders are a feature unique to FrontPage, although they work just fine in all recent browsers. They are a good way to place common elements on every page in a site. You can also select which pages to include them on, if you want some of them to be special. These common elements may include such things as banners like the one at the top of this page, navigation elements that appear throughout this Web site, and the copyright notice you see at the bottom of each page. In general, shared borders seem to have usability advantages over frames in many Web sites.

Putting the Shared Borders onto your pages (and removing them from specific pages) is easy. If you want navigation elements, then you will also have to learn to use Navigation View. Finally, if you want to use common navigation buttons on all or most pages, then you will need to learn about Themes as well.

To place a Shared Border:

  1. Use the Format.... Shared Borders... menu choice.
  2. Choose whether to apply the Shared Borders to the entire Web or to just the current page. The first time, you should apply the to the entire Web. After that, you may want to remove one or more borders from individual pages.
  3. Choose which borders you want on the pages-- Left, Right, Top, or Bottom--s well as which ones (Left and Top) will include Link Bars.
  4. Click OK.

You may have to go on from there to determine what is in each border and how the Navigation Bars are set up.

 

© 2001-2007 Albert L. Ingram, Ph.D.