Microsoft FrontPage is one the most complete tools for
Web site development that is available. Not only can you create Web sites, but
you can publish and manage them as well. Sites can be designed for an intranet
as well as the Internet. FrontPage can work in conjunction with the Microsoft
Office Suite which makes it possible for you to learn FrontPage much faster if
you are already familiar with Microsoft Office. Many of the menus and toolbars
in FrontPage are the same as in Microsoft Office.
Starting a Web Site
All of the pages that you create in FrontPage are
contained in what are called "Webs". A Web in FrontPage not only contains the
pages of content that you create, but the directories in which they are found
and the HTML commands necessary for your pages to be displayed over
the Internet. The HTML is created for you as you insert content into your
pages and the HTML can be edited if you want to. When you launch FrontPage the
screen will look like this:
After FrontPage is opened, click File, then New, then
Web. This will bring up a window where you can choose the type of Web that you
want to work with. Choose from the following types of Web Sites:
- One Page Web - Choosing this will give you a single
blank page on a new Web.
- Corporate Presence Wizard - This will help you
create a professional looking site for your company.
- Customer Support Web - With this choice, you can
improve your customer support services by creating a Web geared toward that
goal.
- Discussion Web Wizard - This sets up a site for a
discussion group which includes a table of contents and text searching.
- Empty Web - This type of Web has nothing in it so
that you can start from scratch.
- Import Web Wizard - With this type of web you can
insert documents from files on your local computer rather than creating
everything from scratch.
- Personal Web - This creates a Web for you to insert
content for your own personal site.
- Project Web - Create a Web that is geared toward a
team of people working on the same project. The project could include
articles, project members, a calendar of events, archival information, a
knowledge base, etc.
These new sites act as a template for you to insert
content into pages that have already been formatted and have a basic layout.
If you select an empty Web, you create and name your own pages. After you
select a Web, a folder list will come up on the left side of the screen. The
right side of the screen, known as the Page View or Editing Window, is the
work area, where content is inserted. The folder window is the area where all
of the folders and files in your site are organized. The folder section is
arranged in an outline form, with main topics as folders and subtopics as
files within the folders. It also helps to have a separate folder for all of
your images to help keep track of them. You can hide the folders window by
clicking the folders icon on the top toolbar to the off position. You can also
click on "View" in the menu bar and then click the Folder List to the off
position. This makes your work area larger, but many people like to have the
folders list open so that it is more convenient to open other files and keep
tabs on how the site is organized.
The Page View has 3 tabs at the bottom of the window.
Normal is the tab most often used. The HTML tab brings up the HTML commands
that are related to the content on that page. Preview brings up a view of how
the page may look in a browser.
You can also bring up the HTML commands while still
looking at the page view. Just click View on the menu bar, and then click
Reveal Tags. This will put the tags next to their corresponding elements on
the page. If you put the mouse pointer over a tag, the complete HTML command
will be revealed. This can help you to learn HTML by seeing which tags are
associated with which type of elements on a page.
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