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FrontPage 2002 is a popular Web-editing application, particularly among users who are partial to Microsoft Office-like applications and those who are creating Web pages specifically for Microsoft's Internet servers. FrontPage 2002 is designed specifically to work well with Microsoft Word, Excel, and the rest of the Office package, while at the same time integrating Web-application creation with Microsoft's languages, proprietary scripting, and interface hooks.
FrontPage isn't available as a downloadable demo, presumably because it's too big for the download. It's available in a trial version, but only via CD-ROM. Check your local computer store to see if they have the demo in stock. If not, you can order it directly from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/evaluation/trial.htm. Unlike all the other tools discussed in this chapter, FrontPage 2002 is only available for Windows—there is no Mac version (or Unix or Linux versions, which Netscape Composer does offer). FrontPage 2002 is packaged in a number of Microsoft Office bundles, or it can be purchased separately at a retail price of $169.
The obvious strength of FrontPage 2002 is its integration with Microsoft Office. It looks very much like a Microsoft application, with a toolbar very similar to Word's, the ability to directly import Word documents, and even that ubiquitous little paperclip for getting help. It includes wizards to help you create and manage pages, as well as wizards to help you create a particular type of page or site.
FrontPage 2002 has been reworked to place many more tools on the main interface, including tools that enable you to look at your Web site in different ways. For instance, the Hyperlinks tool can show you the different ways that each page is linked to the main page, while the Navigation view can be used to quickly see the navigational structure of your site.
FrontPage focuses its ease-of-use on the beginning user by making it easy to pull off some complex tasks. For instance, adding a DHTML mouseover event is something you can accomplish simply by displaying the DHTML formatting toolbar (Format, Dynamic HTML Effects) and then highlighting an item for which you'd like to create the effect.
FrontPage integrates well with Microsoft's servers, allowing you to manage your Web site closely. You can check statistics such as page hits, the operating systems being used, and the referring URLs, essentially enabling you to monitor Web log stats from within the FrontPage interface. FrontPage also allows you to integrate content and technology from Microsoft Web sites, such as bCentral.com (for Web site revenue and traffic), Expedia (for online travel links), and even MSNBC (for placing news headlines on your page).
One of FrontPage's real strengths is making tedious things simple to do. For instance, one special Web component (Insert, Web Component) is a photo gallery (also via Insert, Picture, New Photo Gallery), which is really a wizard to help you create a thumbnail gallery of images that can be clicked and enlarged for viewing. Using templates provided by FrontPage, you can create a montage, a slide show, or a page of images and descriptive text (see Figure 10) .
Figure 10 The Photo Gallery Properties window helps you put together a quick page of thumbnails.
Likewise, FrontPage includes a number of templates, both for Web pages and for entire Web sites, that can make setting up a basic Web presence fairly simple and quick. In fact, you can even use FrontPage to create more complicated sites—such as a guest book, discussion forums, feedback pages, or HTML forms—as long your Web server is running FrontPage Extensions.
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FrontPage Extensions is a set of applications that run server-side on capable servers. (That's mostly Microsoft servers, although they can be added to Unix-based servers as well.) FrontPage can then use those server extensions to add interesting interactive items to pages, such as hit counters, bulletin boards, and form submissions. Those same pages won't work on a server that doesn't support FrontPage Extensions, however.
FrontPage's interface is something you'll either love or hate. If you're not a fan of other Microsoft Office components, you may find that FrontPage suffers from similar "featuritis"—it's filled with commands and features, which you might feel get in the way of actually editing pages. It offers a lot of templates and wizards and helpers that can sometimes seem to keep you separated from your XHTML code instead of intimately familiar with it.
It can also rely a bit heavily on proprietary features, such as FrontPage Extensions or Internet Explorer-specific codes and elements. It often makes these items available to you without making it terribly clear that they are proprietary. If you develop a page in FrontPage and you don't have a FrontPage Extensions-enabled Web server, you may find that the particularly cool add-ons don't work correctly or at all.
Finally, this Windows- and Office-centric approach means FrontPage is great for Windows users who are used to Office, but less interesting for Macintosh users, Unix users, and those wild-hair creative types who want to use different graphics and animation tools. Although FrontPage has its collaborative features, it's probably best characterized as a "pro-sumer" tool—one that can make personal and small business Web sites look great.
The highlights begin at the beginning, particularly if you're creating a new Web site that will be hosted on a server that supports FrontPage Extensions. If that's the case, you can launch FrontPage and immediately dig into some of the templates it offers. Whenever you select File, New, Page or File, New, Web, you'll see a column on the far-right side of the FrontPage interface. There you can choose to create a blank page or an empty Web site, or you can work from templates. To explore the template options, choose Page Templates or Web Site Templates from the column.
In the Templates window, you can select one of the templates for a small preview (when applicable). If it looks like the type of page you want to work with, you can click the OK button. In some cases, a wizard will launch. In other cases, you'll be presented immediately with the page template, which you can begin to fill out.
With the page up in the FrontPage interface (whether or not you're working with a template), the next step is to begin editing. If you're familiar with Microsoft Word at all, you'll notice that some of the formatting options in FrontPage are made to look like those in Word. You can select the Bold, Italic, and Underline buttons in the toolbar as you type and edit, for instance, or you can select Format, Font to see more extensive options for changing font appearances.
Want to really change the look of the page? Go for a theme. Choose Format, Theme and a dialog box appears, enabling you to choose from some predesigned themes that Microsoft has thrown in with FrontPage. The themes can look professional, artistic, or just wacky. Select one, and then make a few other choices below the list of themes. The options include Apply Using CSS, which will create the theme using a style sheet instead of using <font> elements and other attributes. Click OK and the new theme is applied to your page—instant design!
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Note also that the Themes dialog box gives you the choice of applying a theme to the selected page or to all pages. Choose the latter only if your pages are simple in design. Generally, complex table-based layouts get messed up by the Themes option, and it can be tough to restore your site after applying a theme.
Another fun way to create your site is to use the Web components. Choose Insert, Web Component and the Insert Web Component Wizard appears. Then you can select from among many different types of components, such as dynamic effects, tables of contents, a hit counter, and so on. You can also add components that access content from Microsoft's other Web sites and services.
Although many of these elements require FrontPage Extensions, you'll find that some of them simply make it easier to create navigation aids for your pages, such as Back and Forward links on the pages or hyperlinks to all the pages that comprise your Web site. Once you've made a selection, walk through the remaining steps of the wizard and your Web component will be added to the page.
When you're done adding themes and components to your pages (along with some good old-fashioned text and photos), you're ready to publish your Web site by selecting File, Publish Web. The Publish Destination dialog box appears—enter the URL for your server. (Use http:// if the server supports FrontPage Extensions, and ftp:// if it doesn't.) Once the server is contacted, verified, and you're logged in, the publishing process should go smoothly. Your site will be uploaded, and then you'll be ready to view it on the Web.
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