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A MasterBorder is an area you can define to extend in from the edge of a Web page, just as you would set a top, bottom, left, or right margin for a page to be printed by a word processor. However, a MasterBorder is a much more powerful tool than a margin on a printed page, which in most cases only frames the page body with white space. With MasterBorders you can easily give your site a consistent look and feel because they give you centralized control over elements that appear on many pages, such as navigational elements, your company logo, contact information, calls-to-action and so on. With a single click, you can convert a MasterBorder margin to an AutoFrame, which lets your site visitor scroll the body of your page while elements in the AutoFrame, such as navigation buttons, remain in view for easy access.
MasterBorders make it easy to add elements that repeat on a number of pages. MasterBorders, which are a new feature in NetObjects Fusion 2.0, are a big step forward in the evolution of Web page production tools.
For example, if you were creating Web pages in a simple HTML editor and you wanted corporate information to repeat on a range of pages, you would have to cut and paste the HTML code for that information into each HTML file. And, if your corporate information changed, you would have to go back and make the change in each HTML file.
If you were using a word processor to produce a printed document, you would put your corporate information in a header or footer, which repeat information in the top and bottom margins of a range of pages. Like most word processors, NetObjects Fusion 1.0 supported headers and footers, but because all you can count on a browser to initially display is your Web pages upper-left corner, headers and footers were not a complete solution.
In NetObjects Fusion 2.0, you can place elements in a top, bottom, left or right MasterBorder margin, and by default those elements will appear on every page in your site. When you make a change in a MasterBorderfor example, if you update corporate information NetObjects Fusion 2.0 automatically makes that change on every page. In effect, left and right MasterBorders are like vertical headers and footers. Top and bottom MasterBorders replace the header and footer functions available in NetObjects Fusion 1.0.
But MasterBorders have even more power to offer. In a word processor, you typically apply headers and footers by specifying the range of pages on which they should appear. In NetObjects Fusion 2.0, you can give a set of top, bottom, left, and right MasterBorder margins a name, and then apply them to individual pages much as you would apply a named style to a paragraph. These MasterBorder styles make it easy to give a consistent look and feel to any number of pages in your site, whether they reside contiguously in a branch of your site or are sprinkled widely throughout your site structure.
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