Ok I've been doing so work on my companies website because the guy how made it originally failed miserably. I've been teaching myself html as I go and I've been doing ok so far. But I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions for me on how to improve it in any way. right now I have fixed it so it uses the whole screen instead of just a small section and I have touched up a few of the images. right now I'm adding some content which is taking up most of the time spent on it but I hope to be doing more work on the layout as I go. I would like to rewrite it so it doesn't use frames but I'm not sure on how I should go about that. anyways just let me know what you think and I'll go from there

p.s. I may be able to use some of their hosting space to put up my own webpage which would rock.

So you want suggestions on improving something that none of us can see as you didn't provide a link or screen cap of the site in question? Riiiight.....

Translation of the above into PSE (Polite Society English):

There, now that wasn't so difficult, was it?

To answer your question about frame alternatives, I like to use php to include headers, sidebars, and footers on each page. If you'd like an example of how to do this, just ask and I'll show you. It's quite simple, even if you don't know php.

No, but my version wasn't boring for me to write.

Oops my bad I posted the link in the photshop thread and forgot about this one... http://totalpoolcarewi.com

For starters, the text heading and body on the homepage is disgusting. The "sale" text should be in some kind of container, maybe a div floated out to the right? If you insist on having the store locations there, at least put them next to each other and pull that store image on the right further to the left and closer to the store addresses. The footer seems to contain more options than the links in the header; see if you can resolve that.

Ok I was thinking about putting a section on the right but first I need to rewrite the page to use SSI + < include > in place of frames. W3schools hasn't been much help in the area of SSI so that might take a while but yeah. as for the navigation I plan to simplify both of them and use bars at the left and right(not there yet) to have sales and ads. I also need some help with using div since w3schools appears to be lacking in that area also and my googleing hasn't been very successful to date.

Use PHP for your SSI's, that's going to be your smartest options. Divs are quite trivial unless you're trying to do complex layout with them; what do you need to know?

Well I almost have it worked out but I want to know how to have a float div take up all of the available space no matter how much content is in it. http://new.totalpoolcarewi.com/ is what I have so far but I want the side bar to take up the entire left side not just the small bit it does now.

Google for the CSS attribute "min-height" and associated hacks to make it cross-browser (ie, IE) compatible.

But what if the min height isn't a set height but it is equal to the height of another div?

If there's no way to do that with CSS, you can certainly pull it off with Javascript. Anyone know? I'd recommend giving it a JFGI and see what you can find.

I got it to work finally but thanks for the help. I ended up using tables to make it work but in the end it was worth it I'm still debating weather I should just use a table for the whole thing since I'm already using one to get it to look right but I'll just have to wait and see.

Ugh, try to avoid tables if possible, that's the completely incorrect use of tables. Tables are for tabular data, as it says on the tin, not for structuring. I know I don't always hold to that myself, but to be a good web developer you need to learn to use div structure instead of tabular structure.

No, in the end divs are worth it, NOT tables. Go back to divs. Stick to the standards or rot in hell.

Having a div take up all the available space is extremely easy. height: 100%;

It is a floating div and there are divs above and below it or I would have done that a while ago. I have an Idea on how I will do it using a container div that I'll try out tomorrow when I'm at work. Now that I think about it a container div would be the best solution since then I won't need to worry about embedded tables at all.
Yeah a container div with and background that only repeats vertically would be a lot easier than what I'm doing with tables now anyway.
Edit: Well it worked but now there is a gap between the top div and the contents on the container that I'll have to figure out how to get rid of. I have no clue why it is there and it is really annoying since it isn't there in IE only Opera and FF.

Some issues I see:

1) You still have tables in the content area where there isn't even the slightest need for one.

2) You are specifying width/height as attributes on the divs - wtf? Specify that in CSS you dolt.

3) Your CSS isn't even valid. What the hell dude? You've got two syntax errors for crying out loud (oh, and dump the non-standard tags. I don't care if IE knows what to do with them, REMOVE THEM)! http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fnew.totalpoolcarewi.com%2Fstyle.css&profile=css21&usermedium=all&warning=1&lang=en

4) Your DIV tags are misplaced. Your "content" tag ends halfway through the content.

Anyway, I messed around with your code a bit, and this is what I came up with. First, get rid of the container div - that is nothing but trouble. Second, fix the "content" div so that it surrounds *all* of your content (not just part of it). Finally, move "background: url('images/left3.jpg') repeat-y;" to the content's style. That fixes everything.

Finally, move ALL STYLE ATTRIBUTES TO CSS!!! Seriously, you are mixing inline style with tag attributes (huge no no) with external CSS - get it ALL into the external CSS file.

I used in line style attributes just for testing they should be gone now. As for the IE specific tags I'll remove those, I just left them since the original site had them. As for the tables in the content area blame M$ Frontpage I just haven't gotten around to fixing all the shit it put in there when the guy originally made the site. I also plan to rename the divs so they fit what is actually in them, when that's done it will make more sense.

Edit: About the content div I just realized that is because the "content" below the closing div statement is actually part of another div that I forgot to include. I am working on fixing that. I didn't realive that I never included that div statement

Edit2: Is PHP includes > SSI includes or the other way around because right now I'm using SSI includes for the repeated page content.

PHP includes ARE server side includes (SSI). Also, please don't say SSI includes - that is the same as saying server side includes includes. It just sounds stupid.

What I meant was should I use php include statements (ex. <?php include("header.htm"); ?>) or use the comment style <!--#include virtual="header.htm"--> statements to include other html files.

And yes I did know they both fell under the category of SSI's I just didn't know what to call the comment style include.