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The LA Fox Developer Newsletter
June 1999
We Get e-Mail Dept....
Budding WebMaster
Hi Barry

I think you told me one time that you were using Front Page for your website; is that correct? Does your ISP support FrontPage oris that even a valid question? I’m just trying to get some info on what products are useful which are also hosted by !SPs. (i.e. I don’t want to use FrontPage and then find out that most !SPs don’t support it.) What.. .knowledge can you impart upon me? (I want to set up a web page of my own and would prefer to use a tool such as FrontPage if that is realistic since I’m a webpage-newby.)

Thanks!


If you’re looking for a service provider (or want to find one) that has FrontPage Server Extensions installed, Microsoft keeps an extensive list of them at http://microsoft.saltmine.com/ frontpage/wpp/list ... a little known piece of information. If you’re ISP doesn’t have Server Extensions installed, inform your ISP that they can go to http://www.microsoft.com/frontpagelwpp.htm to find out more about them.

The other “important” pieces of knowledge I can impart:
1.
Just about any reference material I’ve found on FrontPage
pretty much sucks. Especially any material on framesets (which you need if your site is to be considered truly “with it”), organizing your website, etc. So when you’re ready, either give me a call or come down here, and I can take you through the basics really fast.
2.
Organize your web graphics. What works for me is to have a
folder called, of all things, WebGraphics. Sub-folders under it include: Animation; Backgrounds; Bars; Borders; Bullets; Buttons; Misc; Themes. If necessary, you can subdivide these even further.
3.
“Stealing” graphics. Maybe you know this one. If you see a
background, or other type of graphic, that is particularly appealing to you, you can right-click on it and when the dialog box pops, select “save as” and place it in the appropriate folder. 4. If you really want an eye-opening experience, use one of the more popular search engines, like WebCrawler (http:// www.webcrawler.com), HotBot(http://www.hotbot.com), or MetaCrawler (http://www.metacrawler.com), or any of the other good ones, and key in “web graphics” (just like that, with the quotes, so you get an exact match). WebCrawler came back with 52,350 references. Many of the sites found through these search engines offer free graphics. Going to these references is just the beginning.. .most of them have links to other webgraphics sites. (It’s a neat thing to do, if you don’t have anything else to do for a few hours. <5>)
5.
Always, I repeat “always”, place the graphics you’re using for
a site/page in the same folder you’re developing the site/page in BEFORE you attempt to move or transfer anything. Not doing that will cause those funky symbols that you sometimes see on
other websites instead ofthe actual graphic that’s supposed to be there. (I keep pretty extensive notes detailing which graphics from which folder I’m using, as I go. If you don’t, chances are you’re going to mess up when you move all ofthe stuff up to the ISP’s site.) One other note on this subject. Before uploading your pages, review your pages and note which graphics are attached to which pages. This serves two purposes: 1) it allows you to verify the location(s) of your graphics so that any graphic references embedded in your pages may be resolved; 2) you won’t upload any unnecessary files. (Most home “sites” provided by ISP’s usually have a size limit.)
6.
Inside of FrontPage, there’s also an image editor that comes
in pretty handy sometimes. You can make your own buttons, etc., from scratch or from buttons, etc., you’ve acquired. You can also take a button or bullet and rotate/mirror it, which is what I did on the “Conference Topics” page of the conference website, at http://www.mesllc.com/conf99.html.
7.
You also have the ability to size (stretch, expand, etc.)
graphics from within the FrontPage design surface. While this has no effect on the original graphic, it will “define” the size to the FrontPage HTML interface.
8.
Framesets are tricky at first, but once you understand them,
they’re pretty straight-forward.
9.
It always helps (just like in data and screen design) to figure
out how you want your pages to flow or “dance” ahead of time by diagramming them out, even if it’s just buttons or page subjects connected by lines.
10.
One of the things I appreciate about FrontPage is that it’ll
generate the HTML source for you. It comes in handy when the page isn’t "behaving" like it should. You can then, with a minimal knowledge of HTML, go in and make the appropriate modifications to make it behave the way it should.
11.
There IS a difference between IE pages and Netscape
pages. So you have to design for one or the other, or pick a format that works on both.
12.
Start noticing how other websites “look”. Decide what you
like or don’t like. Anything.. .colors and color combinations; the amount of time graphics take to load (the more you have, or the higher resolution of the graphics, the longer it’ll take to load); the overall “presentation” of the site; use and abuse of graphics (are there too many, are they distracting - do they take your attention away from the actual content of the page or do they compliment the content and make it more interesting.) Start looking at sites with a critical eye. (Women seem to be better at this than most men, because they have a better ability to “accessorize”. <bg>)

I’ll stop here for now, because I don’t know if I’m telling you stuff you already know or have figured out for yourself.

Hope this helps. If you need any help, I’m always here. If you need some graphics, let me know.. 1 don’t know how many gazillion I could probably zip up and send you. And you know what...I guess I might as well put this information in an article for LA Fox’s newsletter so that any “budding” webmasters could benefit. What do you think?
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