Microsoft FrontPage
2000 Basic Features
Modes
Three Different Modes:
-Normal
-HTML
-Preview – If you have IE3.0 or later installed on your computer, this will
preview it in IE. If you do not,
you can use the File, Preview in Browser command described below.
Commands Not
Using Advanced Features (e.g. Style sheets, JavaScript)
FrontPage 2000, like other Office 2000 programs, uses
an adaptive menu system in which the most recently used commands are moved
toward the top. For this reason, I
have discussed the second level commands in alphabetical order within each first
level category. As in other Office
programs, this feature can be turned off (go to Tools, then Customize, then
Options, and uncheck the box "Menus show recently used commands
first") or you can reset your usage data.
1. File
New, then select Page or Web.
If you select web, FrontPage will create a directory structure for you.
Selecting Page allows you to create pages without FrontPage doing that
for you.
Preview in Browser – You can
add browsers to the list. One
slight disadvantage of previewing through this command for non-IE browsers is
that if you have already previewed a page through a given browser, and then make
changes and save it, and preview again, a new browser window is opened, rather
than reloading the page into the current window. On the other hand, you don't have to remember to reload the
page.
You can also simulate the effect of viewing the page
at different monitor resolutions. Default is the resolution at which your monitor is set.
Recent Files or Recent Webs
allow you to access things you have worked with recently, just like in Word or
Excel.
2. Edit
The standard Cut, Copy, Paste, Find, and Replace function
as in a word processor. These
commands can be accessed in both Normal and HTML mode.
In some situations, it is important to be in the right mode before you
use these commands. For example,
·
If you are looking to find or replace something that only appears
in the HTML code (e.g. a tag), you will want to use these commands in HTML mode
rather than Normal mode.
·
If you are copying and pasting text from another application and
the text uses characters which have a special meaning in HTML, e.g. < or
>, if one pastes into Normal view, the < > symbols will be translated
into their equivalents so that one sees the < and > in the browser.
On the other hand, if one pastes these into HTML view, the < and >
characters will appear in the HTML. To
achieve the latter effect, one can also be in Normal view, and select Paste
Special, and then Treat as HTML.
3. View
FrontPage often divides the window into three columns in
which Views are displayed in the left most column, folder list in the middle,
and contents of the current page in the right most. If all three are being displayed, you can eliminate Views
column by clicking View, Views Bar and eliminate the folder list by clicking
View, Folder List.
4. Insert
Bookmark – To create an anchor for a link.
The names of existing anchors are displayed and a default one is
suggested which one can change.
Break – To insert a simple <br> tag, it is easiest to simply
depress the Shift and Enter keys at the same time rather than use the menu.
If one uses the menu, one can insert a value for the clear attribute of
the <br> tag. The clear
attribute is used with graphics. Text
will automatically wrap to fill the space along side of a graphic.
If you want the text to resume below the image, you insert a <br>
tag with a clear attribute. The
attribute has three possible values: left, right, and all. It tells the browser to skip down the page until the
specified margin is clear and begin flowing text at that point.
Form – To insert various form elements.
Hyperlink – To turn text
into a link, highlight the text and then select Insert, then Hyperlink.
You can browse for the file if relative or enter if absolute.
It is important to save the file before making relative links so that
FrontPage will know the location of the file containing the link and thus be
able to construct the relative link appropriately.
You can also link to a bookmark (the named anchors on the page are
displayed) or an email address.
Line – inserts an <hr>
tag.
Component – The Marquee
option inserts a <marquee> tag and allows you to specify various
attributes. In Netscape, which does
not support the <marquee> tag, the text between the <marquee> and
</marquee> tags is displayed in a stationary manner, as opposed to the
scrolling behavior in Internet Explorer.
Most of the other options
(specifically Hit Counter, Confirmation Field, Include Page, Scheduled Include
Page, Categories, and Search Form) are only functional if the page is hosted on
a server that supports FrontPage Server Extensions (these are discussed later).
Picture – then From File or
Clip Art. If from file, you can
browse for the file in the box at the bottom of the dialog box and insert the
picture. To turn the picture into a
clickable link, insert the picture into the web page, then right click on the
picture and select hyperlink, and then browse for the file if on your computer
or put in the absolute link. FrontPage
automatically specifies the height and width attributes for pictures you insert,
and specifies border=0 for pictures you turn into links (so that they don't have
a blue border around them).
5. Format
Background – This allows you to set properties for the entire page
such as background color or image, and the color of links, active, and visited
links. Selecting
More Colors brings up the web-safe palette of 216 colors, or one can
select an arbitrary color.
Font – You select the text, and then choose Format, then Font.
You can then select from a variety of fonts, font style (regular, bold,
italic, bold and italic), and point sizes (using the size attribute).
The preview box shows you what some standard characters look like with
this font, font style, and point size. You
can select a color for the text (as before, selecting More Colors brings up the
web-safe palette of 216 colors, or one can select an arbitrary color). You can choose from about 15 effects, including
underline, superscript, subscript, code, etc.
All of these are accomplished using standard HTML tags. As always, whether the browser will actually display the
specified font depends on whether that font is available on that computer.
6. Tools
Page Options – Page Options, then HTML Source allows you to
specify that when a file is saved, existing HTML is either preserved or
reformatted according to rules you specify.
I've set this and leave this at "preserve HTML". About the only time I change it is if I have pasted material
into an HTML document and I would like the HTML source to keep a line length
that allows all the HTML to be visible without horizontal scrolling.
FrontPage 2000 generally preserves existing HTML pretty well;
FrontPage 97/98 was
criticized in this respect.
Page Options, then Color Coding
allows one to specify separate colors for text, tags, attribute names, attribute
values, comments, and scripts.
Page Options, Compatibility,
allows one to specify the browser, browser version, and server as well as
specific technologies such as cascading style sheets, frames, JavaScript, etc.
For example, if one specifies Internet Explorer and Netscape for
browsers, from that point on, FrontPage will only enable in menus, the options
which are supported in both browsers. The
same holds true for the specification of browser versions and servers.
With regard to the technologies shown at the bottom, make sure that they
initially all are checked. Specification
of browsers, versions, and servers will uncheck those technologies which are not
supported by the specified browsers, versions, and servers.
If you do not want to use Front Page Server extensions or additional
technologies that remain checked, uncheck them in this box and subsequent menus
will "gray out" choices that depend on the technologies which are not
checked.
7. Table –
Selecting Table, then Insert inserts a table into the page at the selection
point with the specified number of rows and columns, and specified attributes
such as alignment, border, width, cell padding, and cell spacing.
Once a table is inserted into a document, one can edit the table by
clicking within in the table and then selecting Table in the menu.
There are several options at this point:
·
To modify properties of the entire table, click in the table and
then choose Table, Select, Table. You
can also do this by right clicking in the table.
·
To modify properties of a row or column, click in the row or
column, and then choose Table, Select, Row or Table, Select, Column.
·
To modify properties of a single cell, click in the cell and
choose Table, Select, Cell or click in the cell, and then right click and choose
Cell Properties.
·
To merge two or more cells so that they span several columns or
span several rows, highlight the cells, and then select Table, Merge Cells or
right click and select Merge Cells. To
undo this effect, click in the cell and select Table, Split Cells, and then
choose how they are to be split. Alternatively,
one can click in the cell, right click and select Split Cells, and then choose
how they are to be split.
8. Frames –
The commands under this option are only available after one has created a framed
page. To create a framed page,
select File, New, Page, and then click the Frames Pages tab. This will present ten templates of different frame pages.
One can alter the size of each frame by dragging on its edge, or create
an additional frame by selecting Ctrl Drag.
Each frame will display a Set Initial Page and New Page button.
The former is to use existing pages for the frame whereas the latter is
to create a page for the frame. One
these are created or specified, one can edit the frameset page, the no frames
page, or the content of particular frames just by selecting the appropriate tab.
9. Window
Standard Toolbar
The standard toolbar provides access to some of the
functions in the menus. Several of
items however provide functionality that does not appear to be available on the
menus:
The Format Painter allows one to copy formatting from one section of
text to another. One highlights the
source text, clicks on Format Painter, then drags the cursor over the text to be
formatted and releases (unclicks) the mouse.
Next to the arrow pointing
backward (Undo), there is an arrow. Clicking
the arrow shows multiple actions that one can undo.
Formatting
Toolbar
As with the standard toolbar, there appear to be
some items on the toolbars which provide functions not available from the menus.
The left-most box provides a drop-down list through which one
can specify the <h1> to <h6> levels of headings as well as
pre-formatted text (<pre>).
The 3 alignment boxes
(left, center, and right) provide alignment for paragraphs.