Frames? Is there a better way?

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I apologize in advance if I cannot adequately explain my question. I’m not exactly sure how to explain this …

I am working off a virtual environment, using XMAPP at the moment, and I am struggling with a design element that I want to implement. So, I an working on a project, utilizing a forum (phpbb3), a wiki (doku wiki), and a blog (wordpress). I wish to tie these three elements together, via a portal. What I envision is, while accessing the site, the user will never really leave the “portal”, and each element will be accessed and displayed, within the portal itself. I’ve heard that this can be achieved through frames, and also that a CMS like Joomla could make this either easier, or at least provide a seamless and smooth experience. My question is, is there a better way? Additionally, could this concept be affected in a detrimental way, performance-wise using cookies, while making use of a URL that drops the www. prefix in place of something else … as I have seen with some forums that simply use forum. as the prefix to their url.

I hope my question makes sense, and again, I apologize if it didn’t.

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Hi Anthony, Welcome to Sitepoint:)

As far as ‘Frames’ go the answer is invariably [URL=“http://www.html-faq.com/htmlframes/?framesareevil”]no don’t do it. Just create a normal site and link in the normal way.

Cramming 3 disparate sites under one roof is not really a good design concept (unless its an intranet site where some of the issues with frames are not so relevant) and you should instead be creating some cohesive navigation between the sites if you want them linked in some way.

Just look around the web and you will see that frames are not used these days and google has millions of reasons why you shouldn’t use frames.

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Thank’s Paul, for the quick answer, and links.