Using <OBJECT> instead of <IFRAME> and Internet Explorer

Question

So my problem is NOT with getting the objects to work with IE. I have a way to get rid of the borders and scrollbars (I think). The real problem is having links inside an object which target the whole screen frame. Even with target="_top" and _parent it just keeps targeting itself in IE... even in IE8.

Here is a demonstration of it on a site I just started working on. Try it with IE and any other browser. http://thestoryf.webs.com/trip/news.htm

The whole thing at the top is an an object frame. The 6 buttons are the links that should be targeting the entire page and not just itself.

Is there a way to fix it, or do I just go for iframes and have invalid XHTML?

Answer 1

Go for iframes. Fiddling with object embeds for HTML is absolutely not worth it. It is in any case not well-defined what ‘target’ does for embedded objects (the standard only talks about frames).

iframes are just as valid in XHTML as they are in HTML: the two are just different serialisations of the same content model. Use XHTML 1.0 Transitional or HTML 4.01 Transitional.

(Having said that, I don't see what exactly on your site needs iframes at all. You are just making your site less SEO-friendly for no obvious reason. If you're just trying to improve code organisation, use server-side includes rather than burdening the client side with the problem.)

Answer 2

Firstly when validating with the W3 validator, it will come up as invalid... It may be valid in using the Transitional DTD however..

About making it client side, this is an old project really and with Freewebs' no support for PHP or Perl; I haven't bothered running the scripts on my computer and then uploading them so I'll stick with iframes for this project.

So for now anyway... I'll have to go with iframes. Thanks for your help anyway.