Trying to implement a system feedback area for a web based application

Question

This is a bit long, but I have tried to keep it as succinct as possible. Current setup so far… Intermediate programmer (newish to ASP.Net) using c# and ASP.Net - I have a web based application that comprises of two frames. The left hand frame contains a menu system the right hand frame is the main application area. When a user selects a menu item from the left hand frame the right hand frame loads the associated part of the application. Very similar to MSDN Library site (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/) or the Infragistics sample expense application (http://www.infragistics.com/expense). I have opted for frames because this is a web based intranet type of solution that does not need search engine compatibility, I do not want users book marking parts of the application, etc. There will be no scroll bars or frame border in the left hand frame. The right hand frame may on some pages require scroll bars. System feedback idea/requirements What I would like to do is add another area to the application that will output system feedback. For example; if the user does something in the application that causes a large stored procedure to run I want the system to feedback a message and a progress bar (I could either use animated gif progress bar or something like http://www.myblogroll.com/Articles/progressbar/index.htm). I would like the system feedback area to appear at the bottom of the main frame and it should always be visible on the screen! Way forward? I think the easiest way to do this is to add another (borderless) frame to the bottom of the main area. For example it could use 10% of the screen whilst the main frame uses 90% of the screen. This makes it easy to ensure that the feedback area is always visible at the bottom of the page. If some application pages that are loaded into the main area are slightly bigger than the screen then the user will have a scroll bar in the main area but the feedback frame is still visible. If I don’t use frames I could try and make a custom control for the feedback area and place the custom control at the bottom of the aspx pages that are used in the main area. But not sure how I make sure the control is always visible and is not scrolled of the bottom of the screen. Questions 1. Any general thoughts about using an additional frame for the feedback area? 2. Is there a way to make the custom control always appear at the bottom of the screen? I thought of having the pages that are loaded into main area contain two panel type areas (distinct scrollable areas) one could be 90% of the screen the other 10% for feedback area. Not sure if this is possible in ASP.Net. 3. Any other ideas or ways to implement a system feedback area. 4. Lastly a more code specific question, if I go down the frames route. When a user triggers an event in the main area application, for example presses a button to start the long stored procedure. The c# code-behind calls the necessary business logic methods. I will then also need it to call a helper class method to update the system feedback area. In ASP.Net how would this feedback method tell the feedback page to update itself (for example update a label based on a message that is passed across) and then refresh itself - any ideas? Thanks for reading through this any of your thoughts would be much appreciated.