What s New with FrontPage 2003 Themes?

What's New with FrontPage 2003 Themes?

There is really only one change in the way FrontPage 2003 handles themes over previous version of FrontPage, but it is a big one: FrontPage 2003 uses CSS instead of HTML to apply themes. As a result, the process is faster, smaller, and easier to control and modify.

Other than that, themes are the same product as in FrontPage 2000 and 2002. This "thinning" of the theme process is significant and needs to be understood.

NOTE

Pages with themes from previous versions of FrontPage will still work in FrontPage 2003, but you might want to consider reinstalling the themes with FrontPage 2003 so that you can take advantage of CSS application over the previous approach.

At one point, themes slowed down both the Web development process with FrontPage and the loading of the page in the Web browser. The cumbersome method that the content was integrated into a Web site slowed down anything that it worked with. Now that the content is applied via CSS, it is retrieved and edited easily.

In theory, integration with other Web design products (through the CSS application) is somewhat more plausible because of an industry standard of implementation. However, FrontPage 2003 themes still use FrontPage specific elements, so sharing the development of a site with themes isn't recommended when working with other users on sites not using FrontPage. In short, if you are going to use FrontPage in conjunction with a number of other programmers who are using other Web development tools such as Dreamweaver, it would a best practice to shy away from the use of themes.

Themes Versus CSS

There is a technology called CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, that provides many of the same features provided by FrontPage themes. They are described in detail later in this book. FrontPage themes are applied with CSS, but the two technologies are not completely interchangeable with each other.

For more information on styles in the Web design process, see "Using Style Sheets to Format Web Pages," p. 385.

It is important to point out that themes in FrontPage closely mimic what other Web development programs usually call "design templates." Design templates contain graphics and CSS for the most common parts of a Web site. This gives developers the freedom to focus on their content instead of worrying about their design. This is the same goal as the FrontPage template; the implementation is the same.

TIP

Because style sheets are a universal standard and are easily integrated into a FrontPage Web site, it is my opinion that in most cases, style sheets should be the technology of choice.