"Hey, do you have a home page on the Net yet?"
You probably hear this a lot. It seems that everyone wants a home page on the Internet. Today, having a home page is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It rates right up there with having your own pager as the status symbol of the decade.
If you are like me, you put it off for a long time. You look through all the shelves of books at your local computer store that focus on developing Web pages, and your eyes glaze over. "Good grief!", you think. "This stuff isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Look at all those tags and the syntax. How on earth am I going to remember all that? And when I look at my pages in my browser, they don't look at all how I thought they would. I think I'm going to give up."
Well, good news is in store. FrontPage is here. You don't have to worry about all the tags. You can say good-bye to the syntax, because you don't touch a bit of that code unless you really want to. You also work on your pages in an environment that shows you exactly how they will look in the most popular browsers. FrontPage is even kind enough to take you through the process of creating a home page. How lucky can you get?
The quickest way to create a home page is to use FrontPage's Personal Web template to generate a web that contains a single page. It is your home page. It is a lean and mean page, void of graphics and fancy multimedia. Don't let appearances fool you, though. By the time you finish this book, you will know how to make this simple page fancier. With the Personal Web template, you can put something on the Net and finally say, "Yes, I do have a home page."
To develop a home page with the Personal Web template, first open the FrontPage Explorer. Then follow these steps:
Is that it? It sure is. Once you complete these steps, the FrontPage Explorer transfers files from the \Program Files\Microsoft FrontPage\Webs\Homepage.tem directory into your web. While this occurs, messages in the status bar indicate that the Web server is busy. After you see the Web Server Idle message, the personal web appears in the FrontPage Explorer window.
One Web page is created in the personal web's root directory. This file, named index.htm, is titled My Home Page. It contains the following features:
| TIP |
Use caution when you place contact information other than your e-mail or Web addresses. You might get telephone calls and letters that you don't expect. |
When you create a web using the Personal Web template, the FrontPage Explorer also creates a subdirectory named /images, in which any images that you import into your web are stored. An Under Construction icon is placed in this directory for you.
Is there more in the personal web's home page than you care to share? Do you want to arrange the information differently? By using the Personal Home Page Wizard, you can customize your personal home page. For the most part, the home page contains the same content as in the Personal Web template, but the wizard enables you to display the information differently. You also can eliminate entire sections.
Most likely, you will start with a personal home page and add other pages to your Web site. To accomplish this, you can start with an empty web, to which you add your home page.
The Empty Web template creates a Web site that contains no documents. It is the best place to start when you want to design a Web site from the ground up. It is also a good web to start with if you want to import existing content into a FrontPage web.
To create an empty web, follow these steps:
The empty web appears in the FrontPage Explorer window after you see a Web Server Idle message in the status bar. At this point, you can use the FrontPage Editor to add pages to your web.
You use the Personal Home Page Wizard to create a customized home page for your Web site quickly and easily. The Personal Home Page Wizard guides you through several choices for your home page.
You are asked what types of sections you want on your page. Based on your choices, you are guided through several options to customize the appearance of your page.
To create a customized home page using the Personal Home Page Wizard, open the FrontPage Editor.
In the first screen of the Personal Home Page Wizard, you choose the sections that you want to appear in your home page. The section names are the same as those created with the Personal Web template. A progress bar, located beneath the options list, gives you an idea of how far along you are.
Navigation buttons appear at the bottom of the wizard screen. Click the Cancel button to exit the wizard at any time. Use the Back button to review or change the choices that you have already made. Click the Finish button from any wizard screen to generate a page with the choices that you have made so far. Click the Next button to proceed with the Personal Home Page Wizard.
In the second screen of the Personal Home Page Wizard, you assign a URL (filename) and title to your page.
Enter a filename for the page in the Page URL field. The name
index.htm is entered by default. Filenames are restricted
to eight characters plus three letters for the extension in the
Personal Home Page Wizard. Enter a title for the page in the Page
Title field. The page in the previous figures is titled Bob Richards'
Home Page; you might want to name yours similarly. After you assign
the URL and enter your title, click Next to continue.
| TIP |
If you are familiar with the Internet, you have probably used Web searches to find pages. These searches typically use information from the page title. You should title your page with something descriptive so that people know whose home page they are going to. |
If you include an Employee Information section on your home page, the wizard asks you to choose what fields you want to appear. Figure 2.2 shows a page generated with the Personal Web template; use it as a guide. The information is the same as what appears when you generate a page with the Personal Home Page Wizard. You can select any of these options: job title, key responsibilities, department or workgroup, manager, and direct reports. Click Next to continue.
If you include a Current Projects section on your home page, you
can enter a list of the projects that you are working on.
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If you are working on a hot Web site that you want everyone to see, provide a link to it in the Current Projects section. |
After you enter the projects that you are working on, you can choose how to display the information. The default choice is a definition list, as in Figure 2.3. The information can also appear in a bulleted or numbered list. Figure 2.8 shows projects arranged in a bulleted list. Figure 2.9 shows projects arranged in a numbered list.
Figure 2.8 : Current projects are displayed in a bulleted list.
Figure 2.9 : Current projects are displayed in a numbered list.
You can select the format for your hot list. You also can import a hot list from a browser that can export hot lists or favorite places into an HTM file.
You choose one of the following types of styles.
| TIOP |
If you use Netscape 2.0 for a browser, you can save its bookmarks into a hot list by opening your bookmark list in Netscape with the Bookmarks | Go To Bookmarks command. Then choose File | Save As to save the bookmark list in HTM format. |
Click Next to continue.
If you have a Biographical Information section on your home page, you can choose what type of biographical information to include. The wizard has three categories of information.
Click Next to continue.
If you include a Personal Interests Section on your home page, enter a list of them in the area provided. Begin each item on a separate line. Figure 2.14, for example, has three items: Music and Musicians, Anything high tech, and Myths and Mythology.
Figure 2.14: Personal interests displayed in a bulleted list.
After you enter your interests, choose how you want them to appear. The three possible formats are
Click Next to continue.
When you use the Personal Home Page Wizard, you can add contact information. Figure 2.16 shows the fields from which you can choose. They are
Figure 2.16: Contact information can be as complete-or as sparse-as you want.
Click Next to continue.
If you include a Comments and Suggestions form on your page, you choose the format in which the data is received. You can retrieve the information from your customers in one of the following three ways:
Click Next to continue.
The Personal Home Page Wizard enables you to rearrange the order of the sections on your home page. Simply highlight the option that you want to move, and click the Up or Down button to change the location in which the section appears. Click Next to continue.
The final screen of the Personal Home Page Wizard informs you that you have completed all the questions required to generate your page. Click the Finish button to create your page. Use the File | Save command to save your home page to the empty web. You can add graphics, customize the information on the page, and add your own special touch. That's the fun part.
In this chapter, you learned different ways to generate a home page in the blink of an eye with FrontPage. They might not be the most eye-catching home pages that you will ever see, but you have only just begun.
No doubt, you want to edit the content on your personal home page. With FrontPage, you can customize your page exactly as you want it to appear. You can add or delete content, add graphics and colored text, and do a great deal more. In the next chapter, you learn how to add a discussion group-your own personal message center-to your Web site.
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| Do I have to name my home page index.htm? |
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| FrontPage uses the filename index.htm by default for any home page. When FrontPage sees a file by that name, it knows that the file is the home page and uses a home page icon (a house) to designate it as such. Some Internet service providers require that you name your home page something other than index.htm (index.html, default.htm, and intro.htm are common names). Chapter 23, "Web Maintenance and Administration" outlines the procedure you use to specify a different home page name. To rename the page (especially if you have other pages in your web that are linked to it) use the Edit | Properties command in the FrontPage Explorer. This enables you to update the links on other pages in your web that point to the page. |
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| I put my home page on my Web site, and I'm getting feedback that the form doesn't work. Why? |
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| The main reason might be that the FrontPage Server Extensions do not exist on your target server. For the forms to work, they need a form handler, which is explained in more detail in Chapter 20. It is common for Web developers to write their own form handlers through CGI scripts. FrontPage's form bots serve the same function and save you the tedious task of writing a form handler yourself. Your target server must know how to communicate with the bots. This is why they also need the server extensions on their end. Chapter 24, "Working with the FrontPage Servers," discusses the FrontPage Server Extensions that are available to Internet service providers. |
