The web site created by this framework is a multi-frame document. This section describes what the frames are intended to do, and what they are called. Refer to the following example.

The web site is designed to provide a consistent look and feel for an organization's mapping web sites, and contains a title area, and tabs in various formats that should be able to closely match your corporate look. The title area can contain any title and graphics, and the height can be set to the height of your alternative title.

In the main body of the web site, there is a map area, a set of mapping tools, and a status area to display the current mode of the map cursor. The area on the right is intended to be a communication area to display information and receive user input.

The communication area is configurable to any fixed width, and has a scroll bar on the right if there is more information than can be displayed in the frame. The map frame expands to fill the available space not used by the communication area.

The site can be customized to display reports in separate browser window.

The following is a description of each frame in the web site. You may need to refer to these frames by name in the XML configuration files or any custom documents that you create, so the names are included in this description.

titleFrame
Contains the organization's banner and title. A title document script is available for BC Government sites that can be called with different title arguments for use without creating custom title documents for each site. Other organizations can create their own title documents and put it in this frame. This frame fills the width of the web site, and can be set to any height.

tabFrame
Displays tab buttons with commands appropriate to the particular application. The tabs are configured using the techniques described in a later section. The number of tabs used is up to the site designer. This frame fills the width of the web site, and the height is set to the height of the tallest tab.

toolFrame
Displays map tool buttons appropriate to the particular application. The map tools are configured using the techniques described in a later section. The number of map tools used is up to the site designer. The tool frame contains JavaScript functions that can be called from other frames. This frame fills the width of the web site and the height is set to the height of the tallest tool.

hiddenFrame
This frame is very thin or invisible, and is used for dispatching JavaScript commands to other frames. The site developer shouldn't need to work with this frame. It is initially filled with a blank white document so it matches the color of the frame beside it (if it is seen at all, browser dependent). This frame is designed to be 0 pixels wide and 26 pixels tall.

mapFrame
Displays the map image. The map image generated from the map server is sized to fit the size of this frame automatically. If the browser is resized, the next map requested will be the correct size. The map frame communicates to other frames and contains JavaScript functions that can be called from other frames. This frame fills the available space left after the other frames are created.

dataFrame
This frame is multi-use. It is used to display information about the web site, show reports, accept input from the user to set visible themes, and many other things. The index map and map legend are also displayed here. This frame scrolls if necessary. The width of this frame is fixed, but can be set by the site developer.

statusFrame
The currently active map tool is displayed in this frame, as well as the name of the active layer if the identify tool is active. This helps the user remember what's going to happen when they click the map.

The configuration capability of the IMF framework allows the web site to be customized to display different documents in the frames listed above, but most of the documents contained in the framework don't need to be replaced. This makes development of new mapping sites very quick and easy.