to frame or not to frame?

[ShuckyD]

Hey guys, this has been an on and off project for the past couple months for me. What im trying to do is revamp a club i am affiliated with's website. Anyway the site that is currently up there is absolutely horrendous, IMHO. But i cant complain since i was the one that got them started on the web thing a year ago and then wasnt able to find enough time to do more than a couple pages

Well im back .... Since it will probably be easier to manage between me and maybe 2 other people i plan on using Macromedia Dreamweaver's site bullding tools/options. I hear from others that its really nice how it has its own built in FTP stuff and you can change a file and only sync the changed files etc.. I think thats what would work best and simplest for me dealing with two others who arent so techinically inclined. The existing site is at this address if you would like to see what im working with, actually what im "saving" a copy of and then clearing off the FTP site. www.propbustersrc.org

What i want to do is have the same sort of idea as the current page, with the way links and the browsing features go. I want a top and a left side bar with a decent amount of space for the content. Currently the left bar is awfully big, which i have better buttons and a style I would like for the site made up. What would be the best way to do this site (in Dreamweaver) where i can have my navigation on the left and the top bar always be the same. So i wont have to go through each page and change links to new pages, etc. Im not sure if i should use frames, ive heard many bad things about them and im not a huge fan of them myself. Or use framsets, not sure if they are the same thing as a frame, just multiple frames, but i read about them in this Dreamweaver MX2004 book i have here, although im using Dreamweaver 8.

The other option i have is to just not use either. I want to know a way to set up a sample page that i can copy multiple times and just change the title and the content or something. How would CSS play into this, would that be the way to do it best and have everything work out? Any suggestions on how/what to do from the web guru's on here. Im sure everyone has messed with some bit of webdesign so I just want to collect your opinions on how i should tackle this as well as advice on using Dreamweaver to do some of this stuff.

http://www.rc-airplane-world.com/
Heres a site i came by, i sorta like how they did some of their navigation and loading of things, not sure if i want to do this quite yet, but its a nice thing if we were a site that would have more information, as of now the site im doing will have media and information.. the media is what catches people tho

Thanks

[sr71000]

whelp...if you want the pages to all look basically the same your best bet is with external style sheets (that way u change the color of text or something in the external css file and it automatically updates on all the sites! ) Then each page you do in html linking to the css pages If you really wanted you could also use a little bit of php to include stuff like the nav bars and such content that won't be changing at all! (css is JUST styles....no content at all!)

[ShuckyD]

would dreamweaver be my best bet for making an external style sheet? Ohh and i know CSS can be used to do type and stuff, but can it also be used to adjust my nav bars and things the way i want them.... like your talking about? how....