Working with framesets in the Document window

Dreamweaver enables you to view and edit all of the documents associated with a set of frames in one Document window. This approach enables you to see approximately how the framed pages will appear in a browser as you edit them. However, some aspects of this approach can be confusing until you get used to them.

In particular, remember that each frame displays a separate HTML document. Even if the documents are empty, you must save them all before you can preview them (because the frameset can be accurately previewed only if it contains the URL of a document to display in each frame).

To ensure that your frameset appears correctly in browsers:

1. Create your frameset and specify a document to appear in each frame (see Creating frames and framesets).
2. Save every file that’s going to appear in a frame (see Saving frame and frameset files).

   Remember that each frame displays a separate HTML document, and you must save each document, along with the frameset file.

3. Set the properties for each frame and for the frameset (see Viewing and setting frame properties and attributes and Viewing and setting frameset properties).

   This includes naming each frame, setting scrolling and non-scrolling options, and more.

4. Make sure to set the Target property in the Property inspector for all your links so that the linked content appears in the correct area (see Controlling frame content with links).