Microsoft Front Page
Microsoft Front PageProprietary WebAuthoring environment by MicroSoft, originally created by VermeerTechnologies? in 1995. Extends the WebAuthoring environment by using a proprietary server-side extension called FrontPageServerExtensions?. Runs on MicrosoftWindows and some older versions of MacOs only.
It is often confused with another Microsoft product called FrontPageExpress (a free HTML editor for the masses, and substantially different from MicrosoftFrontPage).
Frontpage is very powerful when creating, maintaining and structuring/restructuring websites up to something around 100.000 objects, because of its unique SiteManagement? and LinkManagement? capabilities. Becomes slow on bigger sites and doesn't scale well on huge sites >100.000 objects. -- AgonBuchholz
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My experience with MS Front Page is that it is primitive compared with, say, NetObjects Fusion, though I understand that Front Page 2000 has corrected many of the problems that existed with the earlier product. -- jims
Well, not really. Or perhaps the original had that many problems, that after correcting some quota of them, there are still enough inconveniences.
Please say more about what Fusion offers and what you don't like about Front Page. I'll be thinking about what I don't like about it, and why I'm trying other tools. There are things I like, too ... the bots and wizards, for example. -- RonJeffries
The version of Front Page that I used (the one just prior to the release of 2000) did not allow precise positioning of graphics (or I couldn't get it to anyway), whereas NetObjects made it very simple. I have read that NetObjects uses nested tables, which results in bloated code, though it also has the option of using CascadingStyleSheets, which are not supported by some early browsers. The users of said early browsers are now down around 10% or less of the community, so CSS are becoming much more attractive. Front Page also seemed to mis-write its code rather often, forcing me to edit the code directly to straighten it out. NO is not perfect, but I sure like it better than what I have seen of FP. I have also heard some very good things about MacromediaDreamweaver.
I use Front Page because that's what we got, and as long as I don't push it into certain places and pretend that it should do everything, it's fine. But just fine. But, I wonder: what about HomeSite? HoTMetaL Pro? PageMill?? Trellix? -- Chris
WhichHtmlEditor should you use?
Notepad, of course.
"I am going to build a house, what tool should I use?" "A children's plastic hammer, of course!". I am all for using a TextEditor, but at least use a decent TextEditor. Notepad doesn't even have search and replace. So what, you can build a log cabin with your own two hands, stop bugging me while I build this skyscraper.
Most of the people I see commenting on MicrosoftFrontPage don't use it correctly (or at least effectively). While it can be used to create individual web pages, the value is in the site management tools it provides. That's what differentiates it from other packages, not the WYSIWYG HTML editor.
Site management is more than just having a button that does FTP for you or searching for dead links. Site management includes being able to create a structure for web pages, and have the web pages have navigational elements updated for you. That feature alone is worth the price for some people who want to just compose web pages and then (graphically) manipulate the structure and provide links automatically.
I like MicrosoftFrontPage and recommend it to people familiar with MicrosoftOffice's idioms. It works well for people expecting integration with the rest of Microsoft's Office suite. However, if you aren't a fan of Office and if your interest in creating web sites is to experiment with the latest cutting-edge design techniques, MicrosoftFrontPage probably won't do it for you. But that's not what it's for.
And if you code your own CommonGatewayInterface applications you probably won't be too impressed with what MicrosoftFrontPage comes with. You can probably do better yourself. But that again isn't the point - the applications are targeted toward people who may not have the technical ability or interest to set up their own applications.
As in all things, use the tool properly and you'll be happier. Try to use MicrosoftFrontPage as a Web page editor, and you'll get a pretty good Web page editor - but there are better ones if your focus is on pages. If your focus is on sites, MicrosoftFrontPage gets much higher marks.
An alternative html editor. EditPlus ( http://www.editplus.com/ ). I use to edit and so fast like notepad for my site. Also it is small and free program. But is not the WYSIWYG HTML editor.
Although I hate MicroSoft, here's what I love about Front Page: using the Front Page Explorer (not to be confused with the WindowsExplorer?) I can rename any file - after which, every page on which that page is referenced will be automatically updated. I can do the same by renaming a .gif or .jpg and all pages on which those images are used are automatically updated. I make liberal use of 'include' files. And when I update an include file, all of the files it's used on are automatically updated on the fly. FrontPage 'themes' allow me to use their GUI to drag & drop a page from one location to another. And once I do this, all of the menus are automatically updated, presto chango. I can change the look & feel of a Web site by changing the theme associated with it. Then the colors & images on the menu buttons & page titles are automatically updated on the fly. It goes on & on. You see, I never know where I'm going until I embark on the journey. I don't know about you, but I've come to depend on renaming files on the fly - and file names are important to me. I started out with FP97, FP98, & FP2000. But then Microsoft turned ugly. You see at Front Page 2000 SR1 (service release 1) they started demanding that users register via the web or phone them up. At that point the program would only run 50 times if you didn't get their 'permission' to install it on a different PC. So long Bill, I said to myself. This is where I get off. So I'm looking for an alternative. Maybe the alternative is a wiki.
I have used many different versions of Front Page - the good thing is that it has similar commands to MS Office. The bad news is its HTML sometimes gets confused and you have to look at the HTML to clean things up - particularly when you are undoing formats. If you want to edit the files that set the styles - then there is a really annoying file with very long line lengths. I would recommend turning on the ability to see hidden files if you are a person who likes to know what's beneath the hood.
As earlier folk have said the navigation menus are easy to set up. One problem is there are fairly large buttons and thick borders so you may want to replace banners and button images with your own or download some cascading menus to make the edges of your page a bit slicker. Also links tend to be underlined and look old-fashioned - so it's worth editing the fonts and graphics in the style - I always link image editing to Adobe PhotoShop - anything less may not give you sophisticated and precise results. I've tried NetObjects and MacromediaDreamweaver - but being an MS Office user and user of HTML I am reasonably satisfied with Front Page for simple websites. You will enjoy Dreamweaver if you are good at Adobe PhotoShop and AdobeIllustrator? - but if you get Front Page bundled in your version of Office it will be nearly as good.
-- Angela Hey
Frontpage is there for amateurs to hack up "My name is Mary, and I have a dog called Binky" sites. Worth pointing out, sites that won't render properly in anything but Internet Explorer. AFAIK, MacromediaDreamweaver MX can do anything Frontpage can and a bag of chips to boot; in a standard way, and producing markup that you can actually read, without overkilling with proprietary techniques. And it does do the file renaming trick too via some Update Sitewide feature I've never used.
This should not be necessary anyways - if your page is simple, I can't imagine why'd you want to rename files any often. Having too many links pointing to one page is also a sign of badly structured site design. If the page is more complex, just separate content from the presentation, any script kiddy can do that on a LAMP setup (I made a mini-CMS in high school in a month's work), and I'm not going to start to enumerate the literally zillions of CMSs out there; no way any ingenious nomenclature ruling system will beat that.
As far as navigation bars go, if you really need Frontpage to make those, forget the whole issue and ask your FriendlyNeighbourhoodGeek? to code the page properly for you. Shared Borders are proprietary MS evil. Same goes for themes; CSS allows you to do literally everything you might ever imagine to need wor [wrt?] website design, and a tiny bit of scripting will let you switch "themes" while viewing the page. I'm not your everyday Microsoft basher, but proprietary techniques don't have a place on the web, period. Amen. -- David Vallner
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