About The "Tour"The power of FrontPage 2003 is in how the product covers the entire process of Web design. Although the different elements of FrontPage are as powerful as their competitive counterparts, the combination of the elements through a simple paradigm is what makes FrontPage so exciting, so powerful, and so easy to use. Based on the experience of this book's authors, we've found that very few people understand completely how the different FrontPage elements work together. It is also our belief that many don't realize how simple it is to use all the elements in any Web design product no matter what your skill or programming knowledge level. In this chapter, we are going to take you on a "tour" of FrontPage 2003 and show you how these different elements work together to provide a complete Web design product. We cross reference each part of our tour with the more complete chapters dedicated to these elements and present numerous screenshots that add the visual component to providing a solid understanding of what this product offers to anyone who picks it up. We recommend that you read this chapter in its entirety, even if you are familiar with previous versions of FrontPage. The new tools provided in this release and a solid understanding of how they all fit together will place you in a position of competitive advantage. The ElementsAll the elements of any Web design program can be found in FrontPage 2003:
The InterfaceWeb design doesn't have to be a complicated effort. Many companies and products have made the process of building Web content considerably more complex than it needs to be. You can see this in popular Internet design products that have complicated interfaces and terminology either all their own or industry specific. Because FrontPage 2003 comes from Microsoft, it utilizes the Office and Windows interface and paradigms understood by anyone using the Office products. As a result, considerable elements of the product don't need to be learned. The Office InterfaceAs seen in Figure 2.1, the basic Design view of FrontPage looks almost identical to other Office products and most Windows programs. Not only are these elements provided to enable most users the chance to quickly jump in and work on the product, but also they use the exact same code as seen in the other Microsoft Office products in most cases. Figure 2.1. The blank FrontPage design screen resembles a blank Microsoft Word 2003 screen and offers the same interface for quickly entering and modifying content.In short, if you are familiar with the interface of any other Office product, you are familiar with the FrontPage 2003 interface. The Windows InterfaceWhen FrontPage doesn't mimic the Office interface, it often mimics the Windows interface. As seen in Figure 2.2, the Folders view in FrontPage 2003 looks a lot like Windows Explorer and offers the user the chance to navigate (and manage) site content through the same toolset he uses to navigate (and manage) his hard drive or corporate network. Figure 2.2. The FrontPage 2003 Folders view mimics closely many elements of Windows Explorer allowing another familiar interface.In addition to the familiar Folders view, FrontPage 2003 takes many other elements of Windows into consideration when assisting in the Web design process. Elements as standard as Find and Replace are part of FrontPage. Sites can be sent to your Web server as easily and as quickly as you send a Word document to your printer, as seen in Figure 2.3. Figure 2.3. The File menu in FrontPage 2003 offers a Publish Site option in addition to the Print option.NOTE If you are familiar and comfortable with Web publishing concepts and terminology and will always prefer FTPing to publishing, don't worry. FrontPage 2003 provides for all the Internet standards but also provides a Windows interface and paradigm because it is considerably less complicated and enables a considerably larger audience the ability to make use of the tool. You can drag and drop files between folders in the Folders view. If you move content linked elsewhere in the site, FrontPage will rewrite the HTML to prevent broken files. TIP Make sure that you understand the power of site organization through drag and drop. A site with thousands of pieces of content can quickly be organized with FrontPage instantly editing the appropriate HTML that most coders would take weeks to clean up. |