Employ a Web Wizard


There are two kinds of wizards in FrontPage: Web wizards , which create entire sites, and single-page wizards .

As you learned when working with templates, wizards can be selected when you're creating a new Web or adding a new page to an existing Web. Click File, New, Web or File, New, Page and a dialog box will list the templates and wizards you can select.

Figure 34.6 shows the dialog box that appears when you're creating a new Web.

Figure 34.6. Selecting a wizard or template for a new Web.

graphics/34fig06.gif

When you select one of the magic-wand wizard icons, a dialog box opens, describing the wizard and its purpose.

Create a Corporate Web

The Corporate Presence Wizard can be used to quickly establish a company's official Web.

If you're developing a site for your own company or for a client that isn't on the Web yet, this wizard guides you through the process of developing a professional Web. You'll be able to choose products or services that should be spotlighted, solicit feedback from customers, incorporate the corporate logo into each page, and other business- related tasks .

The Corporate wizard has numerous features that make it easier to establish a company's Web. One example: The wizard asks for some common information that should be available about any company: its mailing address, phone number, fax number, email address for customer inquiries, and the like. These things can be automatically placed on different pages, and when something changes, FrontPage will update every page where it appears.

For example, if your company has to relocate because no one ever taught your original architect about flood plains, you can change the address by selecting Tools, Web Settings and opening the Parameters tabbed dialog box, as shown in Figure 34.7.

Figure 34.7. Changing information used throughout a corporate Web.

graphics/34fig07.gif

Once this change is made, it will be updated on every page where the parameter appears. You don't have to edit each of the pages individually. The Corporate Presence Wizard offers several shortcuts that make creating and maintaining a company's Web easier.

When you select this wizard, you'll answer a series of questions on 13 different dialog boxes. To make the most effective use of the wizard, you should know each of the following things about the Web:

  • The products or services that will be promoted on the Web

  • Whether feedback will be solicited from visitors , and how it should be saved

  • Whether the Web needs its own search engine

  • The company's mission statement, if one should be displayed on the Web

  • Other kinds of information, such as catalog requests , that will be collected

  • All contact information about the company along with the email address to use for the company and for Web-related inquiries

If you don't know some of these, you can add them later, after the wizard has created the Web. As a general rule, though, you'll be much closer to completing the Web if you gather all the necessary information before calling the wizard.

Figure 34.8 shows the first dialog box that's used to tell the wizard what kind of corporate Web to create.

Figure 34.8. Selecting the main pages of a corporate Web.

graphics/34fig08.gif

Like all FrontPage wizards, the Corporate Presence Wizard includes a lot of explanatory text that describes what it is capable of creating. If you're still in the wizard and you change your mind about a previous answer, you can use the Back button to return to the dialog box and revise it.

One of the dialog boxes will ask exactly how many products and services you will be describing on the Web. A page will be created for each of these, along with a main page connecting all of them with hyperlinks .

For each product, you can determine whether to display an image or pricing information. Each service can be described along with the relevant capabilities and account information. You'll also be able to associate information request forms for each product and service, so prospective customers can use the Web to ask for more details about the company's offerings.

These aspects of the new Web are determined with the dialog box shown in Figure 34.9.

Figure 34.9. Customizing the products and services pages.

graphics/34fig09.gif

After you answer the questions on all 13 dialog boxes, the Corporate Presence Wizard is finally ready to create the actual Web itself.

The wizard creates each of the main pages that you requested ”pages for products, services, and other features, and the start of a navigational structure for the Web.

Another thing it will do is add comments to each page offering tips on what you should add to that part of the Web.

These comments will show up in Page view, displayed in a lighter color than the body text of the page and preceded with the word "Comment." Comments are not displayed when the page is loaded by a Web browser, so you can leave them on the page while you're working on the Web.

graphics/lightbulb_icon.gif

To add your own comment to a page, click the menu command Insert, Comment. A dialog box will open , and the comment you enter into it will be added to the page at the current cursor location.


Import an Existing Web

One of the FrontPage wizards will bring an existing Web and all of its files into FrontPage. The Import Web Wizard enables you to take advantage of FrontPage's features on a site that wasn't originally created with the software.

This wizard can import a site from two different places:

  • A folder on a hard drive such as your own system or another system on a local network

  • The World Wide Web

Local Webs are retrieved using the standard Windows file open dialog box. The Web and all of its pages are copied to a new folder, leaving the original intact.

When you retrieve a site over the World Wide Web, you specify its URL address. FrontPage will download the pages of the site, all of its images, and other files that are part of the same Web. It will even re-create the folder structure of the site ”if the site stored all graphics files into an images subfolder that will be maintained when the site is re-created on your system.

FrontPage will also retrieve any other pages that are part of the same Web. If there is a main home page and 20 other pages, each of these will be downloaded along with all of their images and other files.

As you might expect, this can be a time-consuming process. After you specify a site's URL, a dialog box will open that enables you to limit the amount of the Web you retrieve, as shown in Figure 34.10.

Figure 34.10. Deciding how much of a Web to retrieve.

graphics/34fig10.gif

The download can be limited in three ways:

  • Reducing the number of levels that are downloaded

  • Limiting the Web to a maximum disk size

  • Limiting the retrieval to text and image files only

Restricting the number of levels prevents FrontPage from digging any deeper when it visits the pages of a Web. Each level represents a page ”if FrontPage goes from the main page to a "What's New?" page and then to a specific news item's page, it has traversed three levels into the site.

Limiting the disk size and the type of files downloaded may cause FrontPage to retrieve only a portion of the Web.

Once you retrieve a Web, you can begin working on it like any other FrontPage site that you create.

As with other retrieval features of FrontPage, the Import Web Wizard makes it easy to incorporate existing Web content into your work. One thing it doesn't do is ask permission before making use of the content of other Web publishers, so you'll have to be careful to secure permissions when using images, pages, and other material downloaded directly from the World Wide Web.



Sams Teach Yourself Office Productivity All in One
Sams Teach Yourself Office Productivity All in One (Sams Teach Yourself All in One)
ISBN: 0672325349
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 474
Authors: Greg Perry

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net