|
Microsoft FrontPage 2002 is a software package
that allows you to easily create and maintain websites,
without requiring an in-depth knowledge of HTML or FTP.
This is made possible by the FrontPage system, which consists
of two parts:
- The FrontPage 2002 Client program that runs on your
personal computer, purchased through a software vendor.
- The FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions that reside on
a ISP hosting server and may be installed upon request.
Together, the two communicate with each other to formulate
a seamless 'behind the scenes' upload and publishing process.
All you need is a general understanding of FrontPage, which
is very similar to Word, Publisher and other Microsoft-based
applications.
Built for the designers not familiar with hand
coded HTML, FrontPage 2002 has a host of features. These
improvements include customizable themes, 360 code, improved
table editing, improved database access, an enhanced interactive
editor and more support for W3C standards and emerging technologies.
But to take advantage of these features a new user must
have a clue as to what they are and how to implement them.
FrontPage 2002 comes with basically no manual. A Discovering
Microsoft FrontPage pamphlet adapted from Microsoft FrontPage
Version 2002 Inside Out by Jim Buyens (85 pages) is included
as a promo to sell that Microsoft Press product. Providing
no manual does keep the price down on the product, but FrontPage
and its related integrated services are not simple concepts.
The Online Help within FrontPage is extensive, but to my
mind not as useful an a well written manual. But how does
it stack up against the competition?
Its got add-ons! FrontPage comes with themes and web bots.
Themes are example website designs that you can customize
to your specific needs. The idea is that a new designer
can choose one of the themes and then just add content relevant
to the designers requirements. Good idea, but the graphic
content of every theme provide with FrontPage 2002 is substandard.
If you can be content with a site that all will label as
"First Try", use those themes. Web bots are built
in interactive components like site search capabilities,
auto table of contents, and timestamps. These 'bots' also
enable you to process HTML forms without using CGI or VB
scripts. At publishing time, however, the public server
hosting the bot pages needs to have FrontPage extensions
installed. FrontPage works reliably with most popular web
servers, like Website and Apache and are most compatible
with IIS version 4 and above.
Similar to other WYSIWYG design programs,
FrontPage 2002 provides three windows for creating web
sites. The first is the 'Views.' This window gives access
to the most used resources in the web site, including
pages, folders, reports, navigation, hyperlinks and tasks.
The second is the 'Document Window' Where you create individual
web pages using a WYSIWYG editor (normal), access the
source code (HTML), and preview the page by bringing up
a browser within FrontPage. You create a web page by simply
dragging elements from the Office like toolbars onto the
page itself. These can be images, text boxes, tables,
form objects, web bots, and multimedia elements.
Once your web site has been built FrontPage
2002 can check it for link errors and missing files.
After these errors are resolved you can upload the site
using the traditional FTP program or the new Web publishing
extensions to the HTTP Protocol. FrontPage 2002 can
now import and edit HTML, ASP, JavaScript and even XML,
without the worry of FrontPage 2002 mangling the code.
FrontPage 2002 can validate HTML according to browser
compatibility and W3C standards. FrontPage 2002 can
connect to OLE DB and ODBC compliant databases. Building
a database query is as simple as creating a dialog box
and linking content to chosen database fields.
Other features include:
- Task Pane - The Task Pane enables users
to have easy access to frequently used commands
such as New Page or Web, Web Site Templates, Insert
Clip Art, Search, and Office Clipboard.
- Office Clip Board - Office Clip Board helps
users copy or cut content from Office applications
and quickly paste them into Web pages they are creating
with FrontPage. Users can visually see representations
of the content on the clipboard in the Task Pane,
and they have the option of preserving the source
or destination text, formatting, or pasting only
the text without the formatting.
- Link Bars - Users can build Custom Link
Bars to link to pages on or off their site. They
can create Link Bars via the Navigation View to
be applied site-wide, or create ad-hoc Link Bars
to apply them anywhere they want in their Web. Users
can place Link Bars in shared borders for site-wide
navigation, or they can insert them anywhere on
any page in their Web.
- Web Components - FrontPage Web Components
(Web bots) such as hit counter, banner ad manager,
marquees, hover buttons, link bars, and Web-wide
search make inserting sophisticated technology into
Web sites fast and easy. New components in FrontPage
2002 include Photo Gallery, Link Bars, Top 10 Lists,
List Views from Microsoft SharePoint, Save to Database,
and Automatic Web Content such as headline news
and maps.
- Inline Frames via HTML 4 based Support
- FrontPage 2002 offers support for features enabled
by advanced technology such as HTML 4, including
Inline Frames, language attributes, and button and
fieldsets in forms.
- Usage Analysis - Usage Analysis Reports
can help users better understand who visits their
site. This feature enables users to quickly find
what pages are getting the most hits and how customers
find their site with referring URLs in daily, weekly,
or monthly reports. These reports can be exported
to HTML or Microsoft Excel and can be filtered and
charted to show the exact information users want.
- Top 10 Lists - Users can quickly insert
Top 10 Lists that link to the Top 10 pages on their
site. The Top 10 pages can be determined by the
number page hits, referring domains, referring URLs,
search strings, visiting users, and more. These
lists are automatically refreshed when the user
comes to the page. This feature can be used on Internet
or intranet sites.
- Paste the Way You Want - When users paste
content into their FrontPage-based Web site from
other applications, they can now decide whether
they want to preserve the formatting from the document
they copied (Keep Source Formatting) or let the
page’s Theme or style change the formatting
(Use Destination Styles), or strip out all of the
formatting and simply paste in the text (Keep Text
Only).
- Sharepoints - Microsoft SharePoint technology
enables custom Web pages and collaboration capabilities
to be truly accessible to whole teams or organizations.
It is possible to edit Microsoft SharePoint sites
straight from a browser, making it simple and accessible
for everyone to participate in discussions, surveys,
announcements, and more. For more information see
the Microsoft SharePoint Product Guide.
- Auctions via bCentral Commerce Manager
- Once users subscribe to the bCentral Commerce
Manager service, they can take their e-commerce
functionality one step further by promoting their
products across Internet auction sites like MSN
eShop Auctions and Fair Market Auctions with an
optional upgrade package. Users can access this
functionality via the bCentral Commerce Manager
Add-in for FrontPage.
- bCentral Commerce Manager Add-in for FrontPage
- Users can now easily add e-commerce functionality
to their FrontPage-based site via bCentral’s
Commerce Manager service. The Commerce Manager service
and the Commerce Manager Add-in for FrontPage allow
users to quickly build a catalog of items to sell
online. Users can subscribe to the Microsoft bCentral
Commerce Manager service and then easily insert
“buy” buttons and a shopping cart into
their Web site.
- Database Interface Wizard - Users can display
the contents of a database on their page by using
the Database Interface Wizard. This Wizard comprehensively
generates the forms and pages needed to create a
Web site front-end for data.
- And more
Conclusion
Compared to other WYSIWYG web editors like
Dreamweaver and GoLive, FrontPage 2002 is less expensive
and you can design just about anything you can dream
up using Microsoft's value added resources. FrontPage’s
use of add-on components is impressive - if you know
what you are doing and are happy to go down the proprietary
route.
Unlike Macromedia Dreamweaver and Adobe
GoLive which offers a free, fully functional 30-day
trial version, Microsoft FrontPage does not. So, what's
the final verdict? That depends. If you are using the
latest Microsoft products, FrontPage 2002 make sense.
It's main advances all come from closer integration
with the rest of the Office suite. This includes shared
features such as the new options for controlling formatting
when pasteing and the new search and clipboard task
panes. Microsoft's FrontPage has advantages when database
integration involves ASP. Macromedia's Dreamweaver is
still the most robust regarding handling html code,
and third party technologies like Cold Fusion, PHP,
etc.
|
