Bilingual (French and English) Site Design

Hi guys,

I need pointers on how to develop a bilingual site using either html, CSS, Javascript, or a combination of the three.

Here's what I have done so far:

1- I have an index files which contains an iframe. The purpose of the index file is to provide a static template, a frame, for a title bar, navigation and footer. One index file is in French, the other in English (index-e, and index-f).

2- I created several html files (in connection with the menu topics in the navigation bar) to be loaded and targeted at the iframe within the index file.

I need to be able to switch the iframe content from topic to topic (which is easy) AND from french to English for the same topic, at the push of a button.

The issue I have is this: if I put that button on the navigation bar, it will only switch language at navigation bar level (i.e the index file). If I put that button within each html file fed to the iframe, content will switch language but the navigation bar in the index will not follow.

In other words, if I switch topic within the same language, it works fine, but if I switch language for a specific topic, I cannot get the index file to switch language too. Do you understand?

I am looking for a way to let the index file know that a topic is now in a different language and the content must be loaded in that new language`s index file. Any pointers? It seems I will need some programming to achieve the result I want and I am a beginner programmer. Any simpler workaround or code I could find somewhere to help?

I dug the the internet and that site for a while but cannot find anything really useful.

Thanks a million in advance.