Controlling a scrolling portion of a UI

[mottwsc]

I'm trying to determine the best way to design a UI for a PHP application.  Please see the attached file.  There is a header portion with menu choices and a footer portion.  There is also a background image picture frame that sits in between the header menu and footer and gets loaded depending on the user's preferences.  None of these three scroll.  Within that picture frame, there is a center screen with a scrolling application.  This portion would load different screens based on what was picked as a menu choice, and the user would scroll in the application if the particular screen were longer.

 

Is the best way to do this using frames, or is there a better choice in terms of speed, browser compatibility, etc.?

 

Thanks for your suggestions.

 

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