Creating a Microsoft FrontPage Web

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Clearly this is a large topic and we won't be able to cover it in one tutorial. Entire books have been written on the subject of Microsoft FrontPage and I'm not trying to take their place. This tutorial covers the basics of using FrontPage to create and maintain your web site. I am not going to talk about editing and, although I will make some suggestions, I won't talk a lot about page layout either. I am going to talk about things like using FrontPage components, working with the different views in the FrontPage editor, and keeping your web in working order. As we go along, I'll mention anything that is of particular importance to those of you who use FrontPage at places like Y!GeoCities.

The first thing you should know is that it is best to create your initial FrontPage web site on your own local computer and then publish it to your web site. I suspect that the FrontPage extensions are not completely installed to your web site until you publish to it the first time. Once you've done that, you can edit the site directly on the server. (I'll discuss that more in a minute.)

There's another compelling reason to create your site on your home machine. For some strange reason, the Shared Borders command on the Format menu doesn't work, in other words it's grayed out and you can't select it, when you are editing directly on Y!GeoCities. (I've seen this happen in other places as well, so it isn't only a problem at Y!GeoCities. I just know for sure that it is a problem here.) The solution is to decide what shared borders you want for your site when you create it. After you have published to your site, any pages you create in the future will have the same borders as the existing pages.

Are you ready to get started with FrontPage? The first decision you need to make is whether you want to start from scratch with a brand new site or use the contents of an existing site that you have created using other programs. If you have no existing site, the decision has been made for you. Continue with the next paragraph for directions. If you have existing pages that you want to use, go to Importing an Existing Site a little further down the page.

Creating a New Site from Scratch

To create a brand new site on your home computer, select File, then New and then, Web. You can create a one-page web site or you can select one of the templates provided by FrontPage. Either way, you will be asked to select a location for the new web site. Once you have specified the name of the directory where you want to place your new web, click OK and it will be created.

If you selected one of the web templates, you will also be asked one or more questions about which of the sample pages, included with the template you chose, you want to use. You will also be able to select a theme and a page layout for your new site. Once you have answered those questions, the new web is created with temporary information on the pages so you can see how things are going to look. Whichever path you have chosen, you are now ready to start adding your own information and refining the look and feel of your new site.

Importing an Existing Site

If you have an existing site, the easiest way to proceed is to use the Import Web Wizard to create a new web on your home computer using the files located at your existing web site. To do that, select File, then New and, finally, Web. In the dialog box that appears, select the icon for the Import Web Wizard. The next step is to choose the location of the files that will be imported. The dialog box lets you choose "From a source directory of files on a local computer or network" or "From a World Wide Web site." If you have already copied your files to your own computer, you can select the directory where they are located. If not, enter the address of your web site. For Y!GeoCities, it would look something like this: "http://www.geocities.com/membername/" where "membername" is your Y!GeoCities membership name.

The next step in the process allows you to limit the amount of material downloaded. In most cases, you will probably want to download everything, even if it takes some time. If you have at least a 28.8 modem, you should be able to tolerate the delay if you go get some coffee while it is downloading.

Those are the only questions you will be asked. The next step is to open the web site or locate the files on your hard drive. When you click the Finish button, the import process begins. Once it has completed, you are ready to begin converting your existing site to a FrontPage Web Site. The files are already in place, you only need to apply your changes. The next step is to plan the organization of your pages and add elements to make it easy for visitors to navigate through your site.