Also Worth Noting

As hinted at already, FrontPage is no longer just a product for simply creating Web sites. It integrates so tightly with other products and services (Microsoft and otherwise) that it should no longer be viewed as a standalone tool. Tight integration with SharePoint and XML bring FrontPage to the next level of Web publishing and integration. In addition, new Web Site Management capabilities make the product even more solid.

Web Site Management

FrontPage has always excelled as a Web site management tool, and the new features brought with 2003 only strengthen the product's position as such.

In addition to the management offerings traditionally provided by FrontPage, its new publishing features provide additional powerful management functionality.

The Remote Site view supports a two directional publishing process that allows for different users to edit the same master site while syncing their version with whatever changes have been made. By supporting file locking through WebDAV and the use of .lck files (made popular by Dreamweaver), you'll be able to work with other users on the same Web server without accidentally stepping on each others changes.

What Happened to FrontPage Extensions?

With the new publishing options and the tight integration with SharePoint, there is a great deal of confusion about what "happened" to FrontPage Extensions.

Historically, FrontPage Extensions were both friend and foe to the Web developer (and the greater Web development community). While they added great functionality to the Web site and the Web design experience, they were often perceived as unstable and insecure and frustrated many users in the process. Many Web hosts opted out of the provision of FrontPage Extensions as a result. This resulted in FrontPage users having to limit their choices for hosting providers.

In short, FrontPage Extensions are not dead they are simply no longer a focus by Microsoft. Microsoft decided to "create a new and radically more powerful server story" with SharePoint and eliminate the need for FrontPage Extensions with 2003.

FrontPage Server Extensions 2002 will still be supported by Microsoft, but no new growth in this product should be expected.

TIP

Despite the buzz surrounding the "death" of FrontPage Extensions, a great deal of power is still afforded by servers with this option (be they UNIX or Microsoft at the core).

The ability to directly edit content at a remote site is the functionality that simply can't be replicated through any technology other than FrontPage Extensions. Quick site-wide changes at the click of a button without the need to re-publish a site still requires FrontPage Extensions.

What does this "really" mean? If your single purpose for using FrontPage Extensions was to make the publishing process easier, don't worry about that anymore. If you've been shying away from using FrontPage Extensions because of the server issue, don't.

If you used the non-publishing tools provided by FrontPage Extensions, stay with a server that provides them. You won't see any new functionality from Microsoft, but FrontPage Server Extensions certainly aren't dead.

For more a basic examination of how the different server options and tools work in to the Web development process, see "Creating a Web Site," p. 251.

For more detailed information on the administration of these different server technologies, see "Security and Administration of a Web Site," p. 323.

Comparisons to Dreamweaver MX

Some of the new functionality introduced in FrontPage 2003 certainly resembles some of the functionality found in Macromedia's Dreamweaver MX product. There are different ways to approach these similarities, and we'll suggest the least political of them here.

TIP

Frank Johnson of ExtremeFrontPage.com does a great job of following the "politics" of the Web design world that we won't discuss here. You can find his site at http://extremefrontpage.frontpagelink.com.

It is my opinion that these new features should be standard to any professional Web development product, and I am thrilled to see FrontPage embrace them in this latest release. Developers are now free to choose their development package based on both functionality and overall approach to the Web design process.

In the second area, FrontPage and Dreamweaver still remain considerably different. It is up to the developer to choose which product he wants to use to accomplish the task at hand.

But now, and perhaps most importantly, FrontPage and Dreamweaver play nicely with each other, and any Web development project can (if and when necessary) integrate both tools side by side.