The viewer includes a left-hand pane that displays the Contents, Index, and Search tabs and a right-hand pane that displays the topic content. You can also design framesets and include them in your project to further customize navigation. When you work with this feature, you create both frames and a frameset:
Frames: Small, separate windows that divide the viewer into separate regions so that several topics can be displayed at the same time. The content of each frame is a separate topic (.HTM file).
Framesets: Group of frames that belong together. Framesets provide a way for topics in some frames to change while topics in other frames remain stationary. The stationary topics might display company logos, navigation controls, and banners that should always be visible.
The frameset tells the viewer how to display the frames and which topics to display inside each one. Topics that are displayed in the frames are the frame source topics. Microsoft’s HTML Help viewer, Internet Explorer 4.x (or later), Netscape Navigator 4.x (or later), and the JavaHelp viewer support frames.
Linking to frames involves linking to a frameset and to specific frames. Clicking a link to a frame opens the destination topic inside one of the frames, leaving the other frames unchanged. The frame in which the link opens is the target frame.
Once created, framesets can be used as a regular HTML topic in your project.
Printing is restricted to one frame at a time, although you can print the entire project from the HTML Help viewer.
You can have multiple frames in a frameset. Since screen space determines how many frames would be practical, keep in mind that too many frames will give the viewer a cluttered look and only parts of words might appear inside each frame.
Because each frame in a frameset requires another topic to be loaded, numerous frames can cause increased load times, resulting in out-of-memory errors on some users' systems.
For frames to be effective, spend time planning the frame layout and content.
Target hyperlinks to specific frames.
If the hyperlink is for an external (remote) topic or URL, the content might not be optimally displayed in the frame.