This is my first attempt to post material that may be of use to forum members. I hope I'm doing the right things and that this is appropriate - if not, I'm sure one of the Dev Team will correct me
In an attempt to encourage members to move away from tables for their page layouts, and instead to use "content only" HTML with CSS, I'm posting this very simple pseudo_frames theme. It replicates the sort of layout that was achieved in the "bad old days" using Frames.
The html template simply groups {tokens} into a Header division, a Menu division, or a Content division. The template structure is very simple and you will see that it contains
NO styling information.
The CSS style sheet then creates a fixed Header area, a fixed left-hand Menu area, and a fluid Content area - by "fixed" I mean that these areas are static in the browser window. To retain clarity I have separated the layout styling from the "cosmetic" styling. File "style.css" contains almost exclusively the styling needed for the layout; non-layout styling is achieved by "importing" a copy of the Classic theme stylesheet.
The required CSS would be much simpler if it were not for the very poor standards compliance of early versions of Internet Explorer. To get IE6 and earlier versions to render the layout correctly they have to be forced into "quirks mode" by the xml declaration at the very top of the html template, and a couple of "hacks" are needed in the CSS. The *html CSS commands are "hacks" that are ignored by compliant browsers but are followed by IE6 and its predecessors.
The layout rendering has been tested OK in IE6, IE7, IE8(Beta), and FF2 using a relatively simple set of Config options; but it may be that a different set of Config options "break" the layout in some way.
This is very much a "skeleton" theme for you to play with - I hope it gets you "hooked" on using CSS for layout and encourages you to experiment!