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Editor: Tina Clarke
Issue 4 Vol a: 25th March 2006 Members: 2,395

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FrontPage News

~ Editors ramblings

A great big hello to all our new members and all our long time members who have been with us through thick and thin. From the beginning when we were AccessFP Bytes - The Bit in the middle (weekly) and AccessFP Ezine (monthly). Then on to AnyFrontPage Bytes - The Bit in the Middle to our last incarnation AnyBackpage Ezine - The Bit in the Middle.

Brief history. We obtained a new domain name and company name because we wanted to become a LLC (Limited Liability Company) and of course you can't use the word FrontPage in the domain name or company name, so we used a play on words. However events conspire and real life takes over, now Tiffany and Fran our co-editors throughout AnyFrontPage's first incarnation and AnyBackpage have now retired from the ezine.

Myself (Tina Clarke) the original founder and owner of this site and ezine will now produce and publish AnyFrontPage Bytes under the old domain name AnyFrontpage.com The format of the ezine will be changing. Which will consist of FrontPage News, FrontPage and General Links and a FrontPage Article either written by me or a guest writer. The article will only be available to members via the mailing and also on the yahoo archives it will not be available on the website. So if your reading this on the site and your not a member sign up for our first issue with the new re-launch and you too can enjoy not only the article but access to a Free E-book FrontPage Newbie Secrets.

The ezine will be published when I have an article to print, so if you fancy seeing your name in lights (so to speak) consider submitting your ideas.

Tiffany, Fran and I have moved our E-books to another domain called FrontPage Ebooks Where you can find:

1) Volumes 1 & 2:AnyFrontPage Bytes E-book
2) Any FrontPage Bytes - Tips and Tricks Ebook

by Tina Clarke, Tiffany K. Edmonds and Frances McColl Stewart

3) Search Engines The Right Way E-book

By Tiffany K. Edmonds & Frances McColl Stewart

4) FrontPage 2000 The Right Way

By Tiffany K. Edmonds

I expect you would like to catch up on what else I've been doing since February? Well not that much only re-launching my FrontPage Addons site which is about FrontPage Addons and where you can get them, free, demos or trial versions. I also produce an update ezine that lets you know of new pages and new FrontPage addons.

I'm currently collecting members ready for a new site launch about FrontPage Tips the domain is WITH the dash NOT without. Sign up for your weekly FrontPage Tips because the mailing list is the ONLY place to get them, no archives not even on yahoo.

Last but not least I've started a FrontPage Blog If you want to know about any of my sites ezines or articles you can catch up with them there.

Other news is I took over the abandoned FrontPage List and moved members of my old AccessFPList to that one as it's much larger, no sense in having two lists. However some people had to make their own way and if you were a member and got dropped by the wayside that's where we are now. Join in for lively FrontPage discussions.

Also you can catch more of my FrontPage Tutorials on my main FrontPage site AccessFP.net

I'm still shaking down this format, its not as much as your used to and won't be as regular as I decided to split my efforts amongst different sites and different ezines, so I did not have to produce everything in one go. I can't promise prizes all the time either, and a lot of things have fallen by the wayside as I streamline everything into an easy manageable site, however I hope you like the fact your actually getting an ezine once more <smile>

~ FrontPage News

Have you been keeping up with your updates?

1) Issues that are fixed in FrontPage 2003 by Office 2003 SP1

2) here are Critical updates at Microsoft which include FrontPage amongst other Microsoft products.

Tip: Don't apply the updates from windows updates or office updates without first shutting down FrontPage or your webs will be moved to another location.

At lot is do with a graphics flaw go to the windows update and the office update and scan for updates you have not got yet.

3) Paul Colligan. Microsoft MVP - FrontPage is about to launch a new service called I am my webmaster This is a paid for service which covers a lot of ground with Teleseminars, Fully staffed Forums, Office hours chat with your questions answered. Videos added monthly and a Bi-monthly Critique show plus quite a bit more. Sign up now for the introductory price.

4) D2Stuff FrontPage Addon This Addon was updated late last month and works for 2k/02/03 FrontPage versions. D2 Tools extends FrontPage with Page Building, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and Time Management tools, it's really a  3 in 1 tool. There are over 10 tools to help with your page building needs, 6 tools to help with your Search Engine Optimization tasks, and a complete Time Card program to keep track of your work. The benefit of combining all these tools into one add-in is that it takes less FrontPage resources to run and everything is contained in one compact toolbar. However, the price will be going up soon and it's only $24.95 so I'd grab it while you can.

5) A New version of FrontPage Devices is coming in august. When it is released, Version 1 owners will be upgraded for FREE - but the price will be raised to $99.95 when that happens. So grab the addon now while you have the heads up. What do you get?

  • Dynamic Menus (XP Style Navigation Bars, Elevator Menus)
  • Real-time Clocks (digital and analog)
  • Scrolling News Ticker
  • Slide Show / Presentations - Allows you to play a list of photographs (or slides from Microsoft PowerPoint), which playing MP3 narration for each.
  • Text Ads - Random text ads for advertising your affiliate links or other web sites.
  • MP3 Players - Build a play list, then play it on your web site. Can be used for streaming narration as well!

6) OutFront have just announced along with their superb client support for their FrontPage Hosting they are giving away their entire collection of FrontPage Web Templates  (a $950 value) plus 2 months worth of hosting free when you pay for the year!

7) Are you a web designer with clients? Then you might want to read the following. I'm quite excited about this one. Chris Leeds. Microsoft MVP - FrontPage has just launched a new FrontPage Addon.

Have you ever wanted a system that will work easily with FrontPage so that you could allow your clients to make changes without disturbing your tables, navigation, scripting, or technical aspects of your pages?

Do you ever get those those little content change requests; never enough to bill for but always enough to mess up your work flow?

Would you like to protect your design by only allowing content changes?

Well now you can. This new FrontPage Addin CMS (Content Management System ) Application works with FrontPage and your business letting the client be responsible for their own content and move on to the next project.

Don't get hung up waiting for your clients to submit their content. Just set the pages up, plant the "seeds" and bill it out. Once you've got the agreed to pages set up you're done.

There is a demo available and there is a free version and the buy version is ONLY $49. It's called Content Seed.

8) There is a new listing of Microsoft MVP - FrontPage

The MVP Award, which stands for "Most Valuable Professional" is an annual award given to outstanding members of Microsoft's peer-to-peer communities. The following list contains all of the names of the current MVPs who have received awards for the 2004 - 2005 award cycle.

Cheryl D. Wise Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://mvp.wiserways.com/ 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NEW Chris Leeds Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://nedp.net/
http://contentseed.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Christoph Schneegans Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://schneegans.de/frontpage/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David J. Berry Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://www.net-sites.com/sitebuilder/ 
http://radio.weblogs.com/0103924/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gregory A. Beamer Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jack Brewster Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
James S. Huggins Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://JamesSHuggins.com 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jens Peter Karlsen Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jim Buyens Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://www.interlacken.com 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jon Spivey Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://www.roksteady.net/menus/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kathleen Anderson Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://www.spiderwebwoman.com/resources/ 
http://msmvps.com/spiderwebwoman/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kevin Spencer Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://www.takempis.com/ 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Louise Villeneuve Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://www.lino.com/~vmartino/logiciel.htm 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mark E. Fitzpatrick Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike Naughton Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://www.texaswebdevelopers.com/ 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Paul Colligan Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://frontpageworld.com/
http://frontpagetalk.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Riccardo Rausch Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://www.rausch.it/ 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NEW Ron Symonds Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://www.rxs-enterprises.com/cgi-bin/btifaqs.pl
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stefan B. Rusynko Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://sbrenjoy.bizland.com/ 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Steve Easton Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://95isalive.com/fixes/index.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thomas A. Rowe Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thomas D. Willett Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tiffany K Edmonds Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://atfrontpage.com/ 
http://frontpage-webtemplates.com/ 
http://frontpage-ebooks.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tina Clarke Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://accessfp.net/ 
http://addonfp.com/ 
http://anyfrontpage.com/
http://frontpage-tips.com/
http://msmvps.com/blogs/frontpage/
http://frontpage-ebooks.com/
http://frontpage-advice.blogspot.com/ 

9) I have updated the Free Ebook FrontPage Newbie Secrets that is available to members only. If you wish to update your ebook or obtain it, you can download it from: http://anyfrontpage.com/ebooks/   Your password is in your welcome email or available in the Ezine archives. Please don't pass that information on to non-members.

10)  Netstudio - Easy Web Graphics have updated their website and finally have a affliate setup I like. I like Netstudio because it can work easily with FrontPage and is a FP Addon and has this  neat feature that will colour all your graphics the same colour for you.

FrontPage Article

Using FrontPage Includes

By Tina Clarke. Microsoft MVP - FrontPage.

FrontPage is all about saving you time, and Include pages certainly do that.
 
Imagine that your Web site needs the same block of content on each page. For example, you certainly need a menu on each page
 
Most likely, the menu will need to be updated as new pages are made. However, updating the same content on more than one page can lead to errors. You might mistype the link or hyperlink on one page or forget to put the link on another.
 
FrontPage offers an easy solution to this problem: Create a separate page for the menu, and include it within the other Web pages.
 
We are going to run an exercise to help you better understand FrontPage Includes.

Step one - Open FrontPage

Start | Programs | Microsoft FrontPage
 
Open FrontPage

Step Two - Open the web you want to work with

File | Open Web
 
NOTE: FrontPage Includes won't work without a web open.

Step Three - Make an _includes folder

Lets presume you already have a site pre-made that you want to use FrontPage Includes within. For our example we will use http://anyfrontpage.com If not you will need to make a template for your site.
 
NOTE: To make sure you see the folders marked _ with an underscore you need to make sure you have show documents in hidden directories ticked to check this go go Tools | Web settings | Advanced Tab | Make sure the 'Show documents in hidden directories' box is ticked. Press ok. You will be asked to refresh the web.
 
As you can see on the site, the template has a menu on the left and the menu is a FrontPage Include, this is because I can then use different menu's in the same place throughout the website, giving me far greater control than navigation bots do.
 
NOTE: Includes work best with contained in tables or table cells.
 
If I want to make a change to one of the menu's I open the page the FrontPage Include it is on and edit then I save and the changes are propagated throughout.
 
So I need to make a page that contains my menu.
 
NOTE: Includes are not something that should be seen by the FrontPage TOC (Table of Contents) or the FrontPage Search, and they should all be kept together, so it is best to make a folder to contain them all using a prefix of a underscore.
 
E.g. _includes
 
a) Click on the Root web folder to select it and then right click and choose New | Folder you must then name the folder _includes, click away to close the naming box. View Screenshot
 
 When you include a Web page within other pages, you benefit in two ways:
  • You don't have to spend time copying and pasting the content onto each page in the site.
  • You only have to update the content in one place for all of the other pages to be updated.

Step Four - Open a blank new page

File | New from the 'New' Dialog box select 'Blank page'.
Or click the 'Create a new normal page' icon
Or use the keyboard shortcut 'Control + N'
 
a) Next we need to create the menu, this is a text menu and there is certain formatting I want applied to the menu. I am using a CSS sheet which decides all the formatting for my pages. To make this work I have to apply the sheet to all pages, however not with includes, I only need to apply the sheet to the pages the Include will APPEAR on. The reason for this, is that, only the content between the <body> </body> tags appears on those pages the includes appear on.
 
I don't need to put the menu into a table either because the Include feature appears within a table cell and is contained by it, on my template at the point I have decided to install it.
 
In Design View (Normal View) make the menu.
 
Once I have made the menu which you can see on http://anyfrontpage.com/_includes/mainmenu.htm it is time to save it within the _includes folder I just made.
 
b) File | Save As | The 'Save As' Dialog box open, where it says 'Save in' click the drop down box to browse to the _includes folder within the website and name the page, in this case it is called mainmenu.htm. Also name the page title by clicking on 'Change title'. Click  'Save'.
 
NOTE: Files should be saved in lowercase, dashes or underscores can be used but NO spaces.
 
c) At this point it's a good idea to take a look at the Code View (HTML View) View screenshot

Step Five - Inserting an Include Page

Next we have to place the include page within the page(s) we want it to appear on. When I first made the new anyfrontpage.com template, I selected a place on the page for the menu includes to go. When you make a new site as you make new pages your template contains the code for the include and therefore will appear on all your pages. If your site is pre-made however you will want to insert the code for the include on all your pages. This can be done in a variety of ways.

I am using a DWT (Dynamic Web Template) so I can apply the DWT (which includes the code for the include page ) to prepared pages.

or

You can Find and Replace coding that already appears on your pages, this will only work if you have something you want to get rid of and if the code appears on all pages in the same place. You can achieve this by taking a piece of code next to the place you want your include to appear and adding to the include code so it is replaced but again added along with the include code.

Place the curser where you want the include page to appear.

View Screenshot

NOTE: Include pages spread themselves across the page so it’s best to utilise a Table or Table Cell with an Include and then you can control the rest of the width of the page.

Go to Insert | Web Component. The 'Insert Web Component' box will appear.

View Screenshot

On the left pane click ‘Included Content’. In the right pane click Page. Press Finish.

View Screenshot

The ‘Include Page Properties' Box appears. Here you can type in the path of the page you want to appear in the current page, however in my experience, it is best to utilise the browse button as this makes sure the path is absolutely correct. Press Ok.

View Screenshot

The content from the page appears—seamlessly embedded.

NOTE: A space is sometimes added, just press the delete key to eliminate it.

You then repeat this process for each page that needs the included content. That way, when you need to update the information across all pages, you change only the one included page; the rest will be updated automatically.

Step Six - Updating Included pages

To update the included content merely open the include page  as you would any other, so go to Folder View and the _includes folder select mainmenu.htm (our example) and double click to open it (or right click and press open) and edit the contents and save. You cannot edit the content of a include page by trying to edit it at page level.  FrontPage automatically recalculates and refreshes the website that all the pages that this include page is inserted on. All that content will be updated, saving you hours of time. This is why it is particularly good for customised navigation. After all your editing, before publishing, close all pages and go to Tools | Recalculate Hyperlinks and a box will appear. Click Yes and FrontPage proceeds with the recalculation.

NOTE: In Normal view if you pass the mouse over the included information, the pointer turns into a little hand holding a piece of paper, this is there to remind you of the included content. To edit the properties box, double click the included content.

This is the code the include inserts into your HTML.

Include Tips

  • If content appears more than once within a site it qualifies for being used as an include
  • Includes work best in tables or cells so they are 'contained'.
  • Include pages can use any extension. .asp .htm .php etc.
  • FrontPage Includes do not work across subwebs, you will need to repeat the information in the subweb.
  • Only the content that is between the <body> tags in the include page is displayed on the browser, so therefore extra meta tags between the <head> tags are not needed.
  • You can use multiple includes within a page
  • You can use includes within includes
  • When using forms within includes make sure the confirmation page is on the same level as the include with the form.
  • JavaScript won't work if you only place the code on the include page in the <head> tags it must be placed on the pages where the include appears also - Using this with a DWT makes this very easy to do. This is because the script is required to be placed within the head tags and so applies to any other kind of script as well.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
******************************
Tina Clarke, MS FrontPage MVP
http://derbyshire-cottage.com/
http://wilmslow-house.com/
Tina Clarke is Editor of AnyFrontPage and other FrontPage Resource sites (see Sister Sites on anyfrontpage.com) her most recent site is Derbyshire Cottage a birthday present for her father, who is selling his Derbyshire Cottage in New Mills and Wilmslow House a similar sitemade for his fiancée.
******************************

FrontPage Links

How to set up Streaming Audio in your FrontPage Web
HTML Basics FrontPage or FrontPage Express?
D2 Tools for Microsoft FrontPage
FrontPage Tools and Training
FrontPoint Blog
Image Composer

Inside Microsoft FrontPage - Nov 2004 Index

1. Create a page header that stretches to fit the browser window.
2. Connect site visitors to Access data using hyperlinks.
3. Redirect users to language-specific sections of your site.
4. Correcting an error when emailing form results.
5. Making missing themes appear in FrontPage.
6. Make hyperlinked buttons work when JavaScript doesn't.
7. Give your table cells corners and shadows with new cell layout options.
8. Printing the FrontPage task list for easy offline access.

General Links

Website Development Training

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