Denise Tyler
Series Editor: Laura Lemay
SECOND EDITION
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| Publisher and President: | Richard K. Swadley | Publishing Manager: | Greg Wiegend |
| Director of Editorial Services: | Cindy Morrow | Marketing Manager: | John Pierce |
| Assistant Marketing Managers: | Kristina Perry, Rachel Wolfe | Acquisitions Editor | Christopher Denny |
| Development Editor | Fran Hatton | Software Development Specialist | Brad Myers |
| Production Editor | Mary Inderstrodt | Copy Editor | Kris Simmons |
| Indexer | Ben Slen | Technical Reviewer | Robert Bogue |
| Editorial Coordinator | Katie Wise | Technical Edit Coordinator | Lynette Quinn |
| Editorial Assistants | Carol Ackerman, Andi Richter, Rhonda Tinch-Mize | ||
| Cover Designer | Tim Amrhein | Book Designer | Alyssa Yesh |
| Copy Writer | Peter Fuller | Production Team Supervisors | Brad Chinn, Charlotte Clapp |
| Production | Jeanne Clark, Gene Redding, Ian Smith, Becky Stutzman | ||
When one looks at a painting on a canvas or listens to a musical piece, the focus is usually on the elements in the foreground. Without background scenery or instrumentation, the compositions are incomplete.
This book has its own background-a team of dedicated individuals without whom this book simply would not be. At the helm of this team are Chris Denny, Fran Hatton, Mary Inderstrodt, and Mark Taber of Sams and Sams.net. Their skills in providing technical expertise parallels their abilities to provide moral support and friendship.
The driving force behind this book, and the series of which it is a part, is Laura Lemay, a true master in the field of Web authoring. Her clear, no-nonsense approach in her award-winning books about Web authoring is sprinkled with style and wit. This style was the inspiration throughout this book, for all involved.
Denise Tyler is a computer graphics artist/animator and author. After a 15-year career as an engineer in technical writing and customer training experience, she left the corporate world and started her own business in 1991. She combined her technical knowledge with a lifelong interest in art and music, and developed her skills in computer art and animation. She began by specializing in the development of graphics for multimedia presentations and computer games. As the World Wide Web grew, so did Denise's interest in developing and authoring Web pages.
Using her background experience in technical writing and customer training, Denise began writing tutorials in creating computer graphics. She is co-author of the best-selling book, Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus and author of Fractal Design Painter 3.1 Unleashed, both published by Sams Publishing. Using the same hands-on style of writing, she is now directing her attentions toward the World Wide Web and is the author of the blockbuster best seller, Laura Lemay's Web Workshop: FrontPage (version 1.1).
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| NOTE |
If you have a technical question about this book, call the technical support line at (800) 571-5840, ext. 3668. |
As the publishing manager of the group that created this book,
I welcome your comments. You can fax, e-mail, or write me directly
to let me know what you did or didn't like about this book-as
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information:
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| E-mail: | programming_mgr@sams.mcp.com |
| Mail: | Greg Wiegand Sams.net Publishing 201 W. 103rd Street Indianapolis, IN 46290 |
During the infancy of Web development, it took an Internet guru to develop Web pages. The pioneers of Web page development developed a standard program code called Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML. Though HTML is a relatively easy programming language to learn, the task of Web page development was usually left to the experts. Then, along came trailblazers like Laura Lemay, who developed books that clearly and effectively demonstrated the proper use of this code. As a result, the Web took off like wildfire.
The Internet is more than a phenomenon; it's rapidly becoming the way to communicate for the 90s, and beyond. By far, the most popular area of the Internet is the World Wide Web, where corporations and individuals alike are creating home pages and Web sites that tell the world about themselves. Take a look at television advertising, movie trailers, and business cards. You'll see a home page address displayed as conspicuously as other contact information. Now, everyone wants a place on the Web. For some, though, this isn't an easy undertaking.
In spite of the plethora of books on the subject, there are still many who shy away from developing their own pages. No matter how they look at it, they still see HTML as programming. Over time, software tools have been developed that make Web page development easier. Still, there are those who need more. "What we need," they say, "is a tool that will let us see what we actually get when we view the pages in our browsers-without worrying about touching any code."
We are now seeing a new generation of Web authoring tools that fulfill this need. After evaluating several of them, FrontPage became my tool of choice. It's clearly one of the best, especially for those who want to develop a medium- to large-sized Web site. The reason for this is that FrontPage goes beyond Web page development-it combines a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) Web page editor with a Web server and site management tool. As you develop your site, FrontPage's bots, templates, and wizards make the job easier. You can quickly and easily verify the links in your web, making sure they all work before the site is published. FrontPage takes all the drudgery out of Web page development, and makes it fun and easy.
Also, until the advent of FrontPage, Web page developers had to learn other programming languages in order to add interactivity to their sites. FrontPage provides a solution to this also. Using some of the bots, you can create online ordering forms, surveys, guest books, and other items that can retrieve input from those who visit your site. By selecting an Internet service provider that uses the FrontPage Server Extensions, a novice can add these advanced features to his or her Web pages without any programming.
FrontPage 97 offers tools that streamline development of your pages even more. Now, you can add features such as Java applets, Netscape Plug-Ins, ActiveX components, and VBScript or JavaScript into your pages. Tight integration with Office 97 documents makes management of documents on a corporate intranet extremely easy and user-friendly. New features in the FrontPage Explorer include the following:
It's easier to create webs without the Web server. The File | New | FrontPage Web command allows you to specify a directory on your hard drive in which to create the web. The FrontPage Explorer writes the files that it needs to create the web without the Web server.
It's easier to manage files and place them in subfolders in your web. With the new Folder View in the FrontPage Explorer, you can drag and drop files into subfolders in your web, similar to how files are managed in the Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 Explorer. As you move your web content, links are updated automatically.
It's easier to import existing content. The File | Import command has been enhanced, and there is also an Import Web Wizard that makes importing your web content as easy as 1-2-3.
You can perform global spell-checking and text search-and-replace using new commands in the FrontPage Explorer.
Faster support with ISAPI extensions. The speed of performing Web searches, discussion groups, file opens and saves, and form handling is improved. Security features are also enhanced, allowing you to administer your web from a remote location, using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connections.
Integration with Office 97. FrontPage 97 takes advantage of Office 97's advanced hyperlink features. The hyperlinks you create in Office 97 can be viewed through the FrontPage Explorer's Hyperlink view, and can be automatically updated and repaired. Office documents can be opened and edited directly from FrontPage.
Additional server extensions. FrontPage 97 now works with Linux and DigitalUNIX.
Peek behind the scenes of the new FrontPage 97 Editor, and you will see many new enhancements. For example:
You can preview your pages in browsers, in multiple resolutions. FrontPage automatically detects the most popular browsers and lets you configure your own as well.
Integrated database connectivity lets you link to ODBC-compliant databases, using the Database Connector Wizard. This is enabled using the Internet Database Connector, included with Microsoft Internet Information Server (Windows NT) and the Microsoft Personal Web Server (Windows 95). Form field validation commands automatically write client-side VBScript or JavaScript code to perform the validation.
Font face and formatting support allow you to format and view different font faces and sizes from within the FrontPage Editor.
Improved support for Internet Explorer 2.0 and 3.0 features and HTML 3.2 tags lets you insert Internet Explorer features like marquees, background sounds, watermarks, margins, table background colors and borders, and animations into your pages with easy-to-use commands. List attributes have been expanded and are more intuitive.
You have support for ActiveX, VBScript, Java, and Netscape Plug-Ins, and you can insert these features into your pages through the use of dialog boxes, property tables, and Script wizards.
Drag-and-drop features make it easier to build your pages. Create links in the FrontPage Editor; insert Excel spreadsheets into HTML tables; import graphics, text files, and Word documents.
Now you have the ability to edit HTML code directly, with color-coded syntax checkers.
More text import converters allow you to share files with Microsoft Office.
A built-in thesaurus is included in the FrontPage Editor, in addition to the spell-checker.
Enhanced WebBot controls allow you to configure your forms for use with the Database Connector Wizard, CGI, and other scripting languages.
This book is designed for those of you who are familiar with browsing and surfing the World Wide Web and who want to develop pages of your own. The chapters in this book teach you how to design Web pages and complete Web sites using Microsoft FrontPage 97. The chapters progress from the quick-and-easy way to develop pages toward more advanced techniques such as adding interactivity and incorporating your own code into your FrontPage Web sites. The lessons should appeal to beginners and intermediate-level authors who want to learn how to develop Web pages the FrontPage 97 way.
This workshop book assumes that you have already surfed the Web and that you are somewhat familiar with the basic terminology of the Web. You should, at minimum, recognize what Web pages, URLs, and links are, and what they do. This book also assumes that you use the Windows 95 operating system and that you have or will use FrontPage 97 as an authoring tool.
This book is divided into five sections, beginning with the easiest and quickest way to develop Web sites, and progressing through more advanced techniques and publishing your Web site. The projects in the Real-Life Examples chapters are all new for this edition of the book. The chapters teach you how to build complete Web sites, while incorporating the majority of the features available to you in FrontPage.
The chapters are arranged so that you can find most everything you need to know about a particular topic in one area. Margin notes direct you to other areas of the book where related information appears. Tips and notes provide you with important or interesting information that can assist in your Web page development. Cautions tell you about things that will help you stay out of trouble.
The CD-ROM contains support files for the tasks and projects in this book, as well as some additional resources that will help you make your Web sites the best on the Internet. If all this isn't enough, visit my support site for this book. In addition to a user-to-user discussion group, you'll get to see most of the FrontPage features live and in action. I'll also have some goodies and art on the site as things progress. Visit me at the following URL:
http://www.fpworkshop.com
The goal of this book is to combine the best of both worlds-FrontPage's ease of use and the straight, hands-on tutorial approach that is the Laura Lemay trademark. I hope I've succeeded in accomplishing this goal and that it opens up an exciting, interesting and fun new world for you. Enjoy!