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Chapter 12. Testing Your Site

Lots of companies dedicate entire departments to quality control. For instance, when you buy a new pair of boxer shorts, you have to peel off that sticker that says "Inspected by Number 5." That way, if there's a problem with the product, everyone knows who to blame. OK, you won't have a sticker like that on your Web site. But you still want to do everything in your power to ensure that your pages look great, and that all your links work correctly and lead to the right destinations. You also want to double-check that any interactive features, like animations or forms (which you'll read about in Chapter 15), are all working without a hitchand doing so in the wide variety of browsers that your visitors are sure to be using.

Ensuring you've got a no-kinks site boils down to this: test your pages frequently as you create them, so you can catch problems before you bury them deep within your HTML. You should also test your pages after you publish your site (Chapter 13) to make sure your site works in its new environment, too.

This chapter covers the fundamentals of testing and proofing. The good news is that you're not alone in this endeavor. FrontPage can help you out. The program offers a variety of special tools to help you check for and correct errors on your pages. You can also get help preparing for all the different types of browsers that you expect to visit your site. In addition, you'll learn about FrontPage reports , which are great for tracking problems and getting the big picture of what's going on with your site.