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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 appeal-
ing 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 modifica-
tions 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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