Setting the initial contents of a frame

The src attribute specifies the initial document the frame will contain.

The following example HTML document:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Frameset//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/frameset.dtd">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>A frameset document</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<FRAMESET cols="33%,33%,33%">
  <FRAMESET rows="*,200">
      <FRAME src="contents_of_frame1.html">
      <FRAME src="contents_of_frame2.gif">
  </FRAMESET>
  <FRAME src="contents_of_frame3.html">
  <FRAME src="contents_of_frame4.html">
</FRAMESET>
</HTML>

should create a frame layout something like this:

 ------------------------------------------
|Frame 1     |Frame 3       |Frame 4       |
|            |              |              |
|            |              |              |
|            |              |              |
|            |              |              |
|            |              |              |
|            |              |              |
|            |              |              |
-------------|              |              |
|Frame 2     |              |              |
|            |              |              |
|            |              |              |
 ------------------------------------------

and cause the user agent to load each file into a separate view.

The contents of a frame must not be in the same document as the frame's definition.

ILLEGAL EXAMPLE:
The following frameset definition is not legal HTML since the contents of the second frame are in the same document as the frameset.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Frameset//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/frameset.dtd">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>A frameset document</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<FRAMESET cols="50%,50%">
  <FRAME src="contents_of_frame1.html">
  <FRAME src="#anchor_in_same_document">
  <NOFRAMES>
  ...some text...
  <H2><A name="anchor_in_same_document">Important section</A></H2>
  ...some text...
  </NOFRAMES>
</FRAMESET>
</HTML>

Visual rendering of a frame 

The following example illustrates the usage of the decorative FRAME attributes. We specify that frame 1 will allow no scroll bars. Frame 2 will leave white space around its contents (initially, an image file) and the frame will not be resizeable. No border will be drawn between frames 3 and 4. Borders will be drawn (by default) between frames 1, 2, and 3.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Frameset//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/frameset.dtd">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>A frameset document</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<FRAMESET cols="33%,33%,33%">
  <FRAMESET rows="*,200">
      <FRAME src="contents_of_frame1.html" scrolling="no">
      <FRAME src="contents_of_frame2.gif" 
                marginwidth="10" marginheight="15"
                noresize>
  </FRAMESET>
  <FRAME src="contents_of_frame3.html" frameborder="0">
  <FRAME src="contents_of_frame4.html" frameborder="0">
</FRAMESET>
</HTML>