Microsoft Frontpage

FrontPage Words of Wisdom; Help for the beginner:

First off: Get FrontPage 2000, don't try to do anything with the express version that comes with Windows.

FrontPage is less than half of what you need to create a web site: You need a web hosting service, this is where your web pages will be located on the Internet and made available on the World Wide Web. Not just any web site host will do. You can't use free home page services, or the space web page space you get with AOL or the cheapest Unix server hosting deals. The web hosting service that you use must support FrontPage with the FrontPage Server Extensions. Ok, so you can use FrontPage without the extensions, but you won't be having any fun with forms and a bunch of other cool time saving features.

Not all web servers that support FrontPage are created equal: If you want to use all of the features of FrontPage you need to get a web host that not only will install and support the server extensions, but is running a Microsoft 2000 Windows server with a recent version of MS Information Server like 4.x or 5.x. You can get the extensions on other types of servers but, FrontPage is best on a Microsoft server.

Publish, publish, publish: Never, ever FTP to a FrontPage web, it can cause the FrontPage server extensions to stop working. When you use FrontPage you use File, Publish, and then give your full web address as the destination that you want to publish to: http://www.mydomain.com FrontPage will then prompt you for your user name and password. Watch out! If for some reason it doesn't work FrontPage will default to FTP publishing. You must change the web address back to http:// every time you try to publish until you are successful. After that FrontPage will remember the address.

You can 'steal' and convert a web site to a FrontPage' web: You can import non-FrontPage web sites with the File, Import command. These can be converted to FrontPage Webs on your computer, edited, and then published to a FrontPage sever. Pages that don't end in HTM or HTML can not be expected to work on the new FrontPage server, forms and the like will have to be redone the FrontPage way. But, don't worry the FrontPage way is a breeze compared to the headaches of creating a form with a old fashion CGI script.

How to get a copy of a FrontPage web on your computer:  To make a copy of a FrontPage web on your computer: First connect directly to the web site using FrontPage, File, Open Web, (Open web dialog, click on the Web Folders icon on the bottom left) type in the URL of the web page http://www.etc.com, You will be prompted for the user name and password. You are now connected directly to the web site and you can even edit and save changes using FrontPage. To make a copy to your hard drive, choose File, Publish and give the decimation as your hard drive: C:\mywebs\thewebsite this will place a copy on your hard drive that you may edit. CAUTION: FrontPage may change the name of files that end in ASP. 

Different browsers will display the same web page in their own way: You must decide on what browser(s you wish your web page to support. Netscape doesn't display or support some features that IE does. Go to:  Tools, page options, compatibility and make your choices. If you don't have both Netscape and IE you need to get both to check how your pages look. AOL is now Netscape so if you cover IE and Netscape you get most of the market.

No software is perfect but the 'shared borders' is a great time saver: The FrontPage tutorial starts you off with Themes and Navigation bars, these are the two most useless features of the program. Don't bother with them. Use the shared borders features to help give your pages a consistent look and save time editing. Shared borders: Right click with your cursor on web page screen you are editing in FrontPage. Choose: 'Shared borders'. Try turning on the top and bottom borders first. You can create headers and menus in these borders. The advantage is that for every page that needs the same header or menu you can just turn them on! When you edit them and save them in one page, they are automatically changed for every page that uses them. As for the Themes; they don't look professional in spite of what Microsoft says.

Tables: Just about everything goes in a table. Tables are not just for numbers. If you don't use tables you will not be able to place anything on your pages where you want them. Tables can be invisible just set the border thickness to 0. All good web sites use tables, try this as a learning experience. Open up web sites with FrontPage to see how they are made, you will see that all the good ones use tables for everything. Just choose: FILE, OPEN, and then type in a web address like: www.yahoo.com the FrontPage editor will 'show' you how the page is laid out with invisible tables.

Remember you have two audiences when you create your web pages: The other one is a robot web crawler or spider. If you want people to find your pages through search engines you need to create your page with that in mind. How may times have I seen a page where brand name logo pictures are pasted all over the page. But nowhere is there any text that contains the brand name! Search engines can't read pictures! So anyone searching for information by brand name will never see that page. Also, hover buttons and the like look cool, but search engines can't read the links. If you use hover buttons; make sure you put regular links on all the pages in your web too. Otherwise search engines won't be able to find all of your pages.