Understanding FrontPage Web Site Concepts

This section discusses the types of sites that can be developed with FrontPage and the system requirements that are necessary to take full advantage of the FrontPage 2003 development environment.

There are two kinds of Web sites: disk-based Web sites and server-based Web sites . A disk-based Web site can be run on any kind of computer, or even from a floppy disk or CD-ROM. Disk-based Web sites support only basic HTML functionality. Many of the more interesting Web components that FrontPage supplies wont work on a disk-based site.

Server-based Web sites run on a Web servera computer that is specifically configured to host Web sites. On a small scale, a Web server might be a local computer such as your own, or it might be an intranet server within your company. On a larger scale, Web servers that host corporate Internet sites are usually located at professional server farms run by an Internet service provider (ISP) or Web hosting company .

Most Web sites are initially developed as disk-based sites; that is, you develop them on your local computer. You then publish them to a Web server, either within your organization or at your hosted Web location.

• Some FrontPage Web components ready-made elements that provide capabilities such as link bars and tables of contentswork only when they are placed on a page that is part of a FrontPage-based Web site.

• Some components require that the Web page or site be located on a Web server running Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services.

• Other common Web components work only in a server-based Web site located on a Web server running FrontPage Server Extensions.

• Some components pull their content directly from other Web sites, so they require an Internet connection to be visible.

• Server administration features are available only for server-based Web sites stored on Web servers running Windows SharePoint Services or FrontPage Server Extensions.

• To display database information, your site must be hosted on a Web server that supports Active Server Pages (ASP) and ActiveX Data Objects (ADO).

FrontPage-based Web sites can run on any kind of Web server, but the full functionality of your Web site might not be available unless your site is hosted on a server with FrontPage Server Extensions installed. If you maintain your own Web server, installing the server extensions is a simple exercise; they are available on The Microsoft Office System 2003 installation CD-ROM. If you are looking for a company to host your Web site, or if you already have an ISP but you have never asked it to host a FrontPage based Web site before, be sure to ask whether its servers have FrontPage Server Extensions installed.