The whole point of using FrontPage is to produce a really cool Web
site without having to know any programming. Still, it pays to know
some basic HTML so you can troubleshoot your own pages. We've heard
some horror stories about pages created in FrontPage 98 that open just
fine in FrontPage 2000, look great in Internet Explorer, and don't
even show up in Netscape Navigator! FrontPage 2000 does a very good
job of including all the needed HTML tags, but it isn't perfect, so be
your own best friend by learning the basics.
We won't try to teach you HTML. But here are a few tags you can
check, either on the HTML tab or by displaying tags on the Normal tab
(by pressing Ctrl-Spacebar). Tags can be uppercase, lowercase, or
mixed case--your browser won't care. However, they must be inside <>
characters and they can't be misspelled. Some tags always appear in
pairs, some don't; some tags are mandatory, some are optional. If any
tags are missing, you can simply type them on the HTML tab in the
proper spot. Here are some major tags that define the basic structure
of your page:
HTML--Each document must include the <HTML> tag at the very start
of the document and the </HTML> tag at the very end of the document.
This tag specifies the language of the document, which, of course, is
HTML (HyperText Markup Language).
HEAD--Every document should have a <HEAD> and </HEAD> tag near the top
of the document. This pair of tags encloses certain other tags, such
as <META>, <TITLE>, and </TITLE>. Header information isn't mandatory,
but it is useful in telling your browser how to interpret the
document.
BODY--Each document should include the <BODY> tag after the <HEAD> tag
and the </BODY> tag just before the </HTML> tag at the end of the
page. As its name implies, you enter the body of the document between
the opening and closing BODY tags. Make sure your page includes a
matched set of these tags.
HTML ISN'T A FOREIGN LANGUAGE--PART 2 OF 2
In the last tip, we showed you some important HTML tags that define
the basic structure of your page. As we mentioned, if these tags are
missing, your page might not render properly in one or more browsers.
Another important set of tags relates to tables. Believe it or not,
most of a page's woes can be traced to a missing table tag. Even if
you use FrontPage's fine table-creation tools (and believe me, there's
nothing worse than hand-coding an entire table!), you might need to
double-check for the relevant tags. Here are the vital ones to check
for:
TABLE--Each table must have a <TABLE> tag at the beginning and a
</TABLE> tag at the end of the table. I've seen whole pages disappear
because of a missing </TABLE> tag. All the other tags and information
in the table appear between the <TABLE> and </TABLE> tags. If you
embed a second--or third--table inside a table, you must nest the tags
so that the outermost table's tags encompass each inner table's set of
TABLE tags.
TR--The <TR> tag indicates, "Hey, I'm starting a new table row.
Everything you see from here until the next </TR> tag is in the same
row." At the end of the row is a </TR> tag, which is usually several
lines below the <TR> tag.
TD--Think of the <TD> tag as meaning "table detail" or "table data."
The <TD> tag marks the beginning of the actual content of the cell. A
</TD> tag must appear at the end of that content. Numerous <TD> and
</TD> tag pairs can appear between a set of <TR> and </TR> tags.
Here's a simple example of how TABLE tags work together:
<TABLE> Start of a table.
<TR> Start of the first row in the table.
<TD> First cell in the first row. The cell content goes here.
</TD> End of the first cell in the first row.
<TD> Second cell in the first row.
</TD> End of the second cell, first row.
</TR> End of the first row.
<TR> Start of the second row.
<TD> First cell, second row.
</TD> End of the first cell, second row.
<TD> Second cell, second row.
</TD> End of the second cell, second row.
</TR> End of the second row.
</TABLE> End of the table.
FrontPage offers lots of nice effects that enhance your pages in
Internet Explorer--DHTML effects, mouseovers, and ActiveX components,
to name a few. Most of these effects don't work in Netscape Navigator.
There IS, however, one nice effect that works in Netscape but not in
Internet Explorer--and that effect is blinking text.
We can't emphasize enough that you should use flashing, scrolling,
and animated effects sparingly--unless you're promoting a circus or a
party service, such effects can interfere with your message. And they
get irritating pretty quickly.
But when you want to draw quick attention to a bit of text, making
it blink will probably do the trick. Here's how you apply this effect:
Drag over the text you want to make blink, press Alt-Enter (or choose
Format, Font) to open the Font dialog box, click the Blink option in
the Effects area, and choose OK. Save your page and view it in
Netscape Navigator (not on the Preview tab--it's based on Explorer and
won't display the effect). If Netscape isn't your default browser, you
can select it by choosing File, Preview In Browser; highlighting the
Navigator option; and clicking the Preview button.
It's an age-old question: "If a bear claps in the woods, does a log
fall on him?" Well, it goes something like that, but the point we're
trying to make is this: Is anybody actually visiting your Web site?
How can you tell?
One way to tell whether people have stopped by your site is to put
a hit counter on your home page. A hit counter displays a number
reflecting each time that someone arrives at that page. This counter
doesn't tell you how long your visitors stayed or what they did, but
it does tell you that someone did enter the URL for the bear in the
woods.
To add a counter in FrontPage 2000, select a nice empty spot on
your page, pull down the Insert menu, point at Components, and choose
Hit Counter. (Alternatively, you can choose Hit Counter by clicking
the Insert Component button on Standard toolbar--it's the one that
looks like a page with a gear on it.) Select one of the five counter
styles FrontPage offers by clicking its option button. (If you prefer,
you can create a custom counter, but that goes beyond the design scope
of this tip.) Finally, click OK.
When you choose a counter, be sure to upload it to a server (such
as Personal Web Server) so you can preview it in an actual browser;
that way, you can know exactly what you're getting. By the way, the
server must be running FrontPage Server Extensions or you'll see only
a placeholder for the counter.
You just finished page 100 of a massive web for your friend's
plumbing company. Then he calls you to make sure you didn't copy the
phone number from his business card, because the business just moved
and has a new phone number. You seem to recall that the number appears
on about 30 of those pages, but you're not sure which pages. Don't get
hostile--just do this:
Display the web in FrontPage's Folder view (or display the Folder
list in Page view) and click on the highest level folder you want to
replace text in. Pull down the Edit menu and choose Replace. Type the
text you want to replace in the Find What edit box and enter the
replacement text in the Replace With box. Choose All Pages in the
Search Options area and click the Find In Web button. The window
underneath Search Options will list each instance of the specified
text as it finds the text in your web's pages.
There's another step involved in actually replacing the text.
Double-click the first entry in this list to see the text highlighted
in the page. Then, click the Replace button to replace this single
instance of the text or click the Replace All button to replace every
instance of the text on this page. FrontPage will ask whether you want
to save and close this document and then open the next document in the
list. Make sure a check mark appears in front of this option, then
click the Next Document button to proceed to the next page in the
list.
When you've finished, the Replace dialog box will list Edited in
the Status column for each replacement. At this point, just click
Cancel or click the Close button.
The Web's screen-based interface is so much like TV--most of your
visitors have as short an attention span as a person with a remote
control. So you need to give 'em what they need quickly so they can
move on. One way you can do this is to crop your images--get rid of
everything in the image except the part you want. The image will load
faster and your visitors won't have to pick out which part of the
picture you mean for them to look at.
Here's how to crop an image. First, click the graphic to enable the
commands on the Pictures toolbar. Then, click the Crop button, which
looks like a couple of diagonal Xs. A rectangle will appear on the
picture. You can resize this rectangle by moving its corner or side
handles (the little black squares), or you can draw your own rectangle
around the area of the picture you want to keep. When you've selected
the crop area, press Enter or click the Crop button again. In a
moment, the rest of the picture will disappear.
If webs are hierarchical organizations of files in folders, then,
you may ask, who creates this organization? The answer is you (unless
you use a template or a wizard). So remember to put as much thought
into designing your web as you do designing your pages. Your web
structure should reflect the structure of your site. Place pages with
similar
subjects in the same folders. For instance, put all files (graphics,
sounds, and text) relating to a single page in a single folder, or put
all text files in a folder and all graphics in the Images folder. When
your web becomes large, put folders inside folders--just like you
organize your files in Windows.
To create a new, empty folder, right-click the folder you want to
add a new subfolder to and choose New Folder. Then, type a name for
the new folder and press Enter.
To change your site's structure with the existing folders, just
drag a folder to a new location. It might help to think of this in
terms of family structure. For instance, to convert a "sibling" folder
to a "child" of another folder, just drag and drop the sibling onto
the
other folder. To convert a subfolder (child folder) to a sibling
folder, just drag and drop it onto the folder above the siblings (you
guessed it--onto the "parent" folder).
Don't worry about links: FrontPage updates them for you
automatically!
When you're working in FrontPage, you sometimes open several pages
to change a link here, a font there, a sentence somewhere else. When
you're ready to leave FrontPage, you probably save the current page
and then hit the Close button--only to be prompted to save each page
individually. If you've been working for an hour or two, you've
probably opened--and not necessarily saved--several pages.
FrontPage doesn't offer a Save All command or button, but the good
folks at Microsoft have provided a VBA macro that you can copy and
paste into your FrontPage macro editor. Then, you can add the macro,
as a command, to the File menu. (If you're brave, you might even
attach the macro to a toolbar button!)
If you'd like to give this macro a try, you can get it at
The instructions are clear and easy to follow. Although the
directions don't explicitly say so, you can COPY the macro (by
highlighting it and using the Ctrl-C shortcut) and paste it into the
module window (using the Ctrl-V shortcut).
If you don't use a theme for your web pages but you DO use a
background color other than plain old white, you can save some time
with each page by letting FrontPage automatically apply your standard
background color. You do this by changing the background color of the
Normal page template. To begin, click the Open button on the Standard
toolbar. Next, navigate to the Normal template's file. In a standard
FrontPage 2000 setup, it will be located in
Select the normal.htm file and click the Open button. Now, change
the background color by clicking on the blank page; choosing Format,
Background; and selecting your color from the Colors section's
Background drop-down palette. Click OK to set the background color,
click the Save button to save the template file, and then close the
file. The next time you click the New Page button, FrontPage will
present you with a blank page that uses your custom background color.
You can always return the default page to its standard background
color by repeating these steps.
When I was writing college term papers, way back in the 1800s, we
were instructed to set off long quotes by indenting the quote one inch
from both the left and right margins. Now, that was no small
achievement, considering we were using format-as-you-go manual
typewriters. The ding at the end of a line let you know you'd taken
the quote too far--and it was time to get out the typewriter
eraser and risk putting a hole in your paper and eraser crumbs in the
old Remington's innards.
Nowadays, indenting a paragraph at both margins is easy--even in
HTML! In FrontPage, you right-click anywhere in the paragraph, choose
Paragraph from the shortcut menu, and enter values for the Indentation
section's Before Text and After Text options. Depending on your
screen's resolution, a setting of 75 or so will create a one-inch
indentation.
Another way you can indent a paragraph from both sides is by using
the BLOCKQUOTE tag. This tag has gone out of favor, but the major
browsers still support it at present. To use this tag, highlight the
paragraph you want to format and then click the HTML tab. Just before
the start of the paragraph, type
<BLOCKQUOTE>
At the end of the paragraph, type
</BLOCKQUOTE>
This tag creates a standard indent (about 3/4 of an inch). You can
double up on the tag to create deeper indentations--two <BLOCKQUOTE>s
before the paragraph, two </BLOCKQUOTE>s after the paragraph.
Sticking with standard navigational vocabulary like "Home,"
"Forward," and "Back" makes it easier for visitors to find their way
through your Web site. But if you're anti-tradition and want to name
your home page "MT. EVEREST" and use "Uphill" and "Downhill" for
"Forward" and "Back," respectively, that's your right.
Fortunately, it isn't hard to change the text on generic navigation
bar buttons throughout your site. Here's all you do: Place your web in
Navigation view by clicking the Navigation button in the Views bar.
Select Tools, Web Settings or right-click on the blue line connecting
the page in the Navigation view and choose Web Settings from the
pop-up menu. Click the Navigation tab to reveal the standard button
names (Home, Up, Back, Next). Simply replace the current text with
your own and click OK. If you want, you can undo your creativity and
restore the original navigation text by reopening the Navigation tab
in the Web Settings dialog box and simply clicking the Default button.
Can't draw a straight line? Then how about inserting one instead?
Just position your cursor where you want a horizontal line to appear.
Then, select Insert, Horizontal Line, and you get what you wished for:
a plain, but very straight, horizontal line.
You can double-click on the line itself and have a field day with
the resulting Horizontal Line Properties dialog box, where you can
make the line wider, taller, and a different color, among other
things.
If you double-click on the horizontal line and find you can't
change anything (or just certain things), that's because you've
applied a theme to the page and you can't override it.
Ready for a really quick tip for a change? Well, here's one: Want
to know at a glance which of your pages are open for editing? No, you
don't need to pull down the Window menu and glance at the list. Just
look at the open folders in Folder List view. Any open document will
be identified with a small pencil attached to its file icon. It's a
subtle change, but one that can save you several mouse clicks over
time.
Has this ever happened to you? You want to edit a Web page when
FrontPage suddenly seems dead--nearly every command on the toolbars
and menus are grayed out. What's going on! Call 911! Call tech
support! Houston, we have a problem...
Oops.
Chances are, you forgot you're in Preview mode. Click the Normal
tab to continue editing, arranging, and figuring out how to get back
to Earth.
FrontPage and most of the Web design community encourage the use of
cascading style sheets over line-by-line formatting. This makes sense,
really--you wouldn't format each line of text in Word, so why do it in
FrontPage?
Fortunately, FrontPage makes working with styles and style sheets
pretty easy. But first, let's look at the three basic types of styles
you can use in FrontPage and on the Web:
- Inline styles--Similar to line-by-line formatting in a word
processor.
- Document, or embedded, styles--Styles that pertain to a single
document; they're similar to document-specific styles in a word
processor.
- External style sheets--Similar to a template you create or edit and
then apply to any number of documents.
You can use all three types of styles on the same page. However, what
happens when you've defined "normal" text in an external style sheet
AND as a document style? And what happens when you manually change the
formatting of that same "normal" text with an inline style?
Here's an important thing to know about mixing styles on a page:
the order of precedence--in other words, how the styles "cascade"
through your document. Here are the rules:
- If an inline style is attached to the text, the text will carry the
formatting specified in the inline style.
- If no inline style is attached to the text, the text will carry the
formatting specified in the document style.
- If no document style is attached to the text, the text will carry
the formatting specified in the external style sheet.
- If no external, document, or inline style is attached to the text,
it will carry the default formatting for text.
In the next several tips, we'll discuss the types of styles and how
you define and apply them in FrontPage. So hold onto your seat!
In this tip, let's take a closer look at inline styles. Chances are
you've been using inline styles already--you just didn't know they
were called by that name. To format text using an inline style, you
select one or more paragraphs of text and use commands from the Format
menu.
For example, you might apply character spacing in the Font dialog
box, indention and line spacing in the Paragraph dialog box, or a
highlight color or border in the Borders And Shading dialog box. In
the HTML code, the style definition appears at the beginning of the
paragraph(s) you selected. Inline styles don't cover simple formatting
such as font color, alignment, font size, bold, or italics--that stuff
usually appears inside regular HTML tags, like <B> for bold or <FONT
COLOR="blue" SIZE="1">.
Here's an example of an inline style as it appears on the HTML tab:
In the last tip, we talked about inline styles. Let's now look at
document styles.
Document styles pertain to a single page. You can use them several
times on the same page, but when you switch to another page, they
aren't available. You can change the default formatting of a standard
style. Also, you can either define a generic style you can apply to
any paragraph, or you can create a style that's restricted to a
particular existing style such as H1 (a top-level heading) or P (a
normal paragraph).
To change the formatting of a standard style, choose Format, Style;
pick All HTML Styles in the List drop-down box; highlight the name of
the style you want to change; and click Modify. At this point, click
the Format button and choose the desired formatting. You can apply any
number of formats to your new style. Back out of the Styles feature by
clicking OK in each dialog box.
To define a generic document style you can use with any other
style, choose Format, Style, then click the New button. Next, type a
style name, click the Format button, and choose from the formatting
options (Font, Paragraph, and so forth). Click OK to back out of the
Styles feature.
To define a restricted document style, choose Style from the Format
menu, highlight the name of the desired style from the All HTML Styles
list, and click Modify. Then, in the Name (selector) box, type a
period after the existing entry and then a name for the new style. For
example, to define a red heading 2, the entry should be
h2.red
Next, click the Format button and apply the desired formatting,
then back out of the Styles feature by clicking OK in the dialog
boxes.
In the next tip, we'll show you how to use document styles.
DOCUMENT STYLES--PART 2 OF 2
In the last tip, we talked about redefining standard document
styles and defining new document styles--universal styles you can
apply to any paragraph in the document and restricted styles that
apply only to the style you create them for.
Once you've defined the styles, you're free to start using them.
And using a document style is as easy as can be. Your new style will
appear at the bottom of the Style list on the Formatting toolbar; just
click in the text and choose the style name from the list.
On the HTML tab, you can see your style definition near the top of
the page. The following style definition shows that we created three
styles--the first redefines the standard heading 1 style with a new
color (green). The second defines a universal red style that colors
whatever you apply it to (which might include a heading 1 style if you
wish). The third style specifies a restricted heading
style--h1.red--that you can use only to create red headings.
When you apply a new style to a paragraph, the HTML tag preceding
the paragraph will include the new style name following the specifier
CLASS, like this:
<H1> This is a normal green heading 1.</H1>
<H1 CLASS="blue"> This is a blue heading 1.</H1>
<H1 CLASS="red"> This is a red heading 1.</H1>
With external styles, your styles are defined in a separate
document it has a .css file extension), which is similar to a template
in a word processor. You define the styles once, in one place, and you
can use the style sheet for every page in your web or just for
selected pages.
First, you define styles in a style sheet. Open a blank or
predefined style sheet file by selecting File, New and clicking Page.
In the New dialog box, click the Style Sheets tab and select one of
the options. (Don't worry--if you don't like a style on a predefined
sheet, you can modify it.)
When the style sheet opens in Page view, you'll see lines of text
and curly braces (or, if you chose the Normal Style Sheet option,
you'll see a blank page!). That's pretty much all there is to an
external style sheet. The first thing to do is save and name your
style sheet. Be sure to save it either with your web or with your
other style sheets.
Once you've saved the style sheet, select Format, Style to see
exactly what's in the style sheet. At this point, you can
redefine standard styles, modify existing styles, or add new styles,
just as you do with document styles.
In the next tip, we'll show you how to attach an external style
sheet and how to apply external styles.
EXTERNAL STYLE SHEETS--PART 2 OF 2
In the last tip, we showed you how to define a style sheet. The
next step is to attach the style sheet either to the whole web or to
individual pages. Then, you can start applying the external styles.
To attach an external style sheet to the whole web, just open one
of your web's pages and choose the Format menu's Style Sheet Links
command. Click the All Pages option and then the Add button. Select
your style sheet's name and click OK.
To attach an external style sheet to a single page, you open that
page and repeat the steps above, except you click the Selected Pages
option instead of All Pages. You can even attach one style sheet to
most of the web and then attach a different style sheet to selected
single pages. The HTML tab will simply refer to the style sheet's name
near the top of the page, as follows:
Once you've attached a style sheet, you start using it. To apply a
style, simply place your cursor in the appropriate paragraph and click
the style's name in the Style box on the Formatting toolbar. Pretty
darn simple, isn't it?
Over the past few days, we've taken you on a whirlwind tour of
styles and style sheets. Although you really don't need to know all
the details about CSS to apply styles in FrontPage, you might wish to
learn enough to hang with the hardcore HTML crowd. If you want to
learn even more about CSS, you might want to check out these Web
sites.
- Cascading Style Sheets, Level 1 Recommendations of the World Wide
Web Consortium (W3C)--the basic style sheet elements, properties, and
values:
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1-961217.html
We've already given you a couple of tips for organizing your links
pages. Well, here are a few more:
- IT'S OKAY TO DUPLICATE INFORMATION. We've already mentioned that you
should categorize your links. If a link fits in two or more
categories, go ahead and include it wherever it's useful. No one will
read the list from top to bottom, so don't let your viewers miss
anything really good.
- ANNOTATE YOUR LINKS. All you need to supply is a short phrase--or a
sentence or two--telling the viewers why they would want to visit this
site.
- BE CONSISTENT. Consistency may be "the hobgoblin of little minds,"
but it's vital on your links page. Don't let your page fizzle out at
the bottom because you're tired of working on it or because some links
don't neatly fit in a category. If necessary, use a heading like
"Additional Links." Be sure to annotate all your links--the absence of
an annotation might make the viewer think the link isn't important.
(Actually, Emerson's quote is "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin
of little minds," but for some reason, most people omit the "foolish"
part.)
Nobody wants to look at a Web page that's filled with just text. So
be sure to spice yours up by adding pictures to it. Choose Insert,
Picture, From File. Find the file you want to see in your Web page,
then click OK. FrontPage will insert the picture into the page you're
working on.
You can also simply click the Insert Picture From File button on
the Standard toolbar. It looks like a little photo with an arrow on
the left side. Simple, huh?
A picture in a Web page doesn't have to just sit there and look
good. Why not make it useful by adding a hyperlink to it? Once the
picture is linked, when someone clicks on it, he or she will be
whisked away to whatever Web site you've chosen.
To begin, click once on the graphic you want to associate with a
hyperlink to select it. Choose Insert, Hyperlink, and you'll see the
Create Hyperlink dialog box. In the URL box, type the URL you want the
picture to point to, then click OK. Good luck!
When you're creating a page in FrontPage, it's easy to see your
text hyperlinks--they're blue and underlined. But it can be difficult
to tell if you've associated a hyperlink with a picture. Luckily,
there's an easy way to check on it.
Simply move your mouse pointer over the picture, then look down at
the gray status bar. If the picture is hyperlinked, the URL will
conveniently appear there.
FrontPage makes centering (or left- or right-justifying) text and
pictures as simple as if you were using Microsoft Word. Actually, it's
exactly as if you were using Microsoft Word, or any other Microsoft
Office application. It's designed to use the same commands and menus.
So if you want to center elements on your Web page-in-progress,
simply select the text or graphics of your choice (to edit the whole
page, choose Edit, Select All), then select Format, Paragraph. In the
Alignment list, choose Center, then click OK.
Once you've selected text, you can also just click the Align Left,
Center, or Align Right buttons on the Formatting toolbar.
Every time you do something like align text and graphics, or insert
a hyperlink, you're actually creating HTML tags. FrontPage is designed
so that you never have to think about tags, but if you want to see
where tags are placed as you're designing your pages, there's an easy
way to do it.
Select View, Reveal Tags. You'll see the tags represented in
yellow. To hide the tags, select View, Reveal Tags again. It's as easy
as that!
When you press Enter while designing a Web page in FrontPage, the
cursor inserts a paragraph break, equal to about two lines. This is
great if you're actually starting a new paragraph or want to put some
space between graphics. But what if you just want the text to fall on
the very next line?
Easy--just insert a line break rather than a paragraph break. The
easiest way to do this is to press Shift-Enter. You can also choose
Insert, Break, then select Normal Line Break and click OK.
If you want people to visit your Web page (and maybe even return to
it), don't make them wait to download big pictures. A single picture,
depending on how big it is, can take minutes to download, but it only
takes a millisecond for someone to decide it's not worth waiting
around for.
The solution? Shrink your photos to thumbnails. That way, if your
adoring public really wants to see your stunning vacation photos or
your latest product, they can choose which photos they want to
download.
After you've inserted the photo into your page-in-progress, click
on it to select it. FrontPage will automatically display the Pictures
toolbar below your Page view. Click the Auto Thumbnail button--it
looks like a photo, with a miniature of the same photo in front of it.
FrontPage will create the thumbnail and add a blue border so folks
know it contains a hyperlink to the larger photo.
THUMBNAILS--PART 2 OF 2
In our last tip, you learned how to create thumbnail pictures. But
what if the default size is too small, or you don't like the border?
It's easy to change the default options.
First, click Tools, Page Options, then select the AutoThumbnail
tab.
Here, you can change the default size of your thumbnails by
- setting the height or width
- changing the thickness of the blue border around the image (or
getting rid of it)
- giving the thumbnail a beveled edge, which makes it look more like a
button
Gone are the days of boring, text-heavy Web pages. Not only can you
liven things up with graphics, but now you can also make plain old
text do flips--by applying Dynamic HTML (DHTML) effects to text and
associating it with a trigger event like pointing or clicking a mouse.
For example, say you want the words "Welcome to my Web page" to hop
on to the screen word by word when the page loads. Type the words,
then select them. Select Format, Dynamic HTML Effects. In the On box,
choose the event that will trigger the animation--in this case, it's
Page Load. In the Apply box, select Hop (there are also seven other
effects to choose from). Close the DHTML Effects toolbar. You can view
your handiwork by clicking the Preview Page View tab. Go ahead--get
crazy with it.
The only problem with DHTML is that it will slow down page loading
and some browser do not handle it well.
Sometimes, the standard keyboard just isn't up to snuff. What if
you need to insert the symbol for British pounds, or a copyright or
trademark symbol? Don't bother looking up the HTML codes--it's easy to
insert them in FrontPage.
Position your cursor where you want to insert the symbol. Choose
Insert, Symbol. Make your selection, and click Insert, then Close.
It's that simple.
What makes a Web page a Web page? Well, obviously, you can get to
it by dialing up the World Wide Web. But more important, a Web page is
linked to other Web pages through hyperlinks. We know this is getting
back to basics, but useful information bears repeating. Here's a
refresher on how to create a hyperlink with text.
Let's say you want to include a link to TipWorld in your page. Type
Click here to go to TipWorld, the most useful site on the Web!
Then select the text and click Insert, Hyperlink. You'll see the
Create Hyperlink dialog box. In the URL box, type
www.tipworld.com
immediately after the http:// prefix, then click OK.
HOT LINKS--PART 2 OF 3
In our last tip, you learned how you create a text hyperlink. But
did you know that FrontPage will create a hyperlink automatically if
you type a URL directly into your page-in-progress? Let's use the
TipWorld Web site as an example again, shall we?
Position your cursor where you want the link to appear, then type
http://www.tipworld.com
As soon as you press Enter to start a new line, the URL you just
typed changes from black to blue and is underlined, indicating a
hyperlink. Of course, a hyperlink all on its own isn't very
descriptive, so you'll want to change the text. Luckily, you can do
this without erasing the hyperlink.
Select the URL you just typed. Type
Click here to go to TipWorld, the most useful site on the Web!
EXAMPLE: Click here to go to
TipWorld, the most useful site on the Web!
The hyperlink still points to the URL but now includes a label.
HOT LINKS--PART 3 OF 3
In our last two tips, you've learned two different ways to create
hyperlinks. But both of them require that you remember the correct
URL. Type in the wrong one, and your Web page will be wrong. But there
is a way to make sure you've got the right URL--create the hyperlink
from the actual Web page. Of course, this requires that you have Web
access while you're designing your page.
First, select the text you want to link. Click Insert, Hyperlink
(or click the Hyperlink button on the toolbar--it looks like a globe
with a chain link). In the Create Hyperlink dialog box, click the Web
Browser button. FrontPage will start your browser. Navigate to the
page to which you want your hyperlink to point. Press Alt-Tab to
switch back to the Create Hyperlink box in FrontPage (or click the
FrontPage button on the Windows taskbar). Click OK. Voila! Now you've
got a hyperlink that works--which is always better than a link that
doesn't work.
When you're designing a Web site with multiple pages, FrontPage
makes it easy to keep all the pages together in a web. You can add a
new page to the web by clicking File, New, Page, and then saving it to
your web project, but there's an easier way--create a new page in your
web right from the Folder List.
In the Folder List, right-click the folder in which you want to
create the new page, and then select New Page from the shortcut menu.
Type the name of the new page, then press Enter.
When you're looking for a specific phrase or word in a page, it can
be a real pain to scroll down and read line by line. Luckily,
FrontPage makes it easy to search for text on the page you're working
on.
>From Page view, position your cursor at the beginning of the page.
Click Edit, Find (or press Ctrl-F) and type the text you're looking
for in the Find What box. As with any Microsoft Office application,
you have some options when searching for text. If you want to search
for whole words only, check the box next to Find Whole Word. If you
want to search for words that match the exact capitalization of the
text you typed, select the Match Case option. Click Find Next, and
FrontPage will find the text. Good luck!
FIND AND REPLACE TEXT ON A PAGE--PART 2 OF 2
In the last tip, you learned how to find text on a page using Edit,
Find (or Ctrl-F). But what if you're looking for text only so you can
change it to something else? For example, let's say you're putting
together a Web page for your family history and realize you've
misspelled your grandfather's name. You don't need to scroll through
and look for every instance of the name, then retype it. Let FrontPage
do that.
>From Page view, position your cursor at the beginning of the page.
Click Edit, Replace (or press Ctrl-H) and type the text you're looking
for in the Find What box--in this case, it would be your grandfather's
misspelled name. As with any Microsoft Office application, you have
some options when searching for text. If you want to search on whole
words only, select the option Find Whole Word. If you want to search
for words that match the exact capitalization of the text you typed,
select Match Case.
Type the replacement text (the correct spelling of dear old
grandpa's name) in the Replace With box. To find only the next match
for the text, click Find Next, then click Replace. If you want to
replace all the incorrect text in one fell swoop, click Replace All.
Half a second here, two seconds there--wherever you can save
yourself some time, you should, because it all adds up. And though
FrontPage has designed its menus so you can navigate them pretty
quickly, almost every action you can mouse your way through can also
be done more quickly using a keyboard shortcut. This series of tips
will tell you the keystrokes that will come in handy when you're
working with pages, formatting text, editing text and graphics, and
selecting text and graphics.
- Create a new page: Ctrl-N
- Open a page: Ctrl-O
- Create a hyperlink on a page: Ctrl-K
- Preview a page in a Web browser: Ctrl-Shift-B
- Print a page: Ctrl-P
- Display non-printing characters: Ctrl-Shift-8
- Display HTML tags: Ctrl- /
- Refresh a page: F5
KEYBOARD TRICKS--PART 2 OF 4
In our last tip, you learned the keyboard shortcuts that come in
handy when you're working with pages in FrontPage. Today, we present
10 keystrokes that will shave some time off your project when you're
formatting text and paragraphs.
- Change the font: Ctrl-Shift-F
- Change the font size: Ctrl-Shift-P
- Apply bold formatting: Ctrl-B
- Apply an underline: Ctrl-U
- Apply italic formatting: Ctrl-I
- Apply superscript formatting: Ctrl-Plus Sign
- Apply subscript formatting: Ctrl-Minus Sign
- Copy formatting: Ctrl-Shift-C
- Paste formatting: Ctrl-Shift-V
- Remove manual formatting: Ctrl-Shift-Z or Ctrl-Spacebar
KEYBOARD TRICKS--PART 3 OF 4
In the last two tips, we shared our keyboard tricks for working
with pages and formatting text. Today, you'll learn shortcuts for
editing and moving text and graphics, so you can be the fastest cutter
and paster in town, dude.
- Delete one word to the left: Ctrl-Backspace
- Delete one word to the right: Ctrl-Delete
- Cut selected text to the Clipboard: Ctrl-X
- Copy text or graphics: Ctrl-C
- Paste the Clipboard contents: Ctrl-V
- Insert a line break: Shift-Enter
- Insert a nonbreaking space: Ctrl-Shift-Spacebar
KEYBOARD TRICKS--PART 4 OF 4
In the last three tips, you've learned keyboard shortcuts for
working with pages, formatting, and editing. Today, we'll show you our
tricks for selecting text and graphics. If you've got an ultra-fast
machine and a quick-scrolling mouse, you know the pain of trying to
select text and ending up selecting all the way to the end of the
page, then starting over. We can help.
- One character to the right: Shift-Right Arrow
- One character to the left: Shift-Left Arrow
- To the end of a word: Ctrl-Shift-Right Arrow
- To the end of a line: Shift-End
- To the beginning of a line: Shift-Home
- One line down: Shift-Down Arrow
- One line up: Shift-Up Arrow
To err is human, but to mess up a whole project would be tragic.
That's why Microsoft, in all its wisdom, built what may be the most
important feature of all into FrontPage (and all the Microsoft Office
applications): Undo.
Whether you've just made the wrong modification to a table, or
you've accidentally deleted the wrong page from the tree in Navigation
View, FrontPage keeps a list of the last 30 actions you've performed
and will let you undo them, in sequence. (If you make more than 30
mistakes in a row, you need more help than I can provide.)
To undo the last action you performed, click Edit, Undo, or click
the Undo icon on the Standard toolbar (it looks like a curved arrow
pointing backwards). If you click Undo again, FrontPage will undo the
action you performed before that, and so on down the list.
If you click the arrow next to the Undo icon, you'll see a list of
your most recent actions that you can undo, so you can select a
particular action.
No matter what kind of project you're working on--whether it's
building a house or a Web site--it's a good idea to have a master file
that states the name of the project, when it was started, who's
responsible for it, which tasks still need to be accomplished, and so
on.
You can do this in FrontPage by adding details to the Properties
dialog box. In any view except Tasks View, right-click the file, then
click Properties. To view the filename and title, the type of file
(such as Web Page or Picture), and the file size and location, click
the General tab. To view the date that a file was created or modified
and who modified it, or to view comments that have been added to the
file, click the Summary tab. To view the categories to which a file
belongs, the name of the person or workgroup assigned to the file, or
the review or publishing status of the file, click the Workgroup tab.
To view errors in a component in a file, click the Errors tab if it is
present.
Nobody wants the links on their site to be wrong; if it's a
personal Web site, it's embarrassing and inconvenient, but if it's a
business Web site, it's embarrassing and bad for business. So a
critical part of managing a Web site is verifying that the hyperlinks
to other sites are valid.
Before verifying hyperlinks, you should save all your open pages.
Click Reports in the Views bar to switch to Reports View. Click the
icon for Verify Hyperlinks on the Reporting toolbar (it looks like a
chain link with a check mark just below it). Click Verify All
Hyperlinks, then click Start. If a link checks out, a check mark will
appear in the Status column.
Hey, mistakes happen. In the course of putting together a web with
lots of hyperlinks, you're bound to enter some of them incorrectly.
And even if every URL you type is correct, if the destination page is
on another World Wide Web site, the page might have been changed or
removed.
So while you're working on a web, you should occasionally check to
see if it has broken hyperlinks, and if it does, repair them. I
TRY to do this about once a month. But does not always happen
since I have 5 websites to keep up with!!!!!
Simply click View, Reports, Broken Hyperlinks. FrontPage will list
all the broken hyperlinks--if a hyperlink goes to an outside site, the
status will be Unknown.
To fix internal links, double-click a hyperlink with Broken status,
then click Edit Page. If you know the correct URL, edit it in the
Replace Hyperlink With box. Or, click Browse to find it in a web,
file, or on the World Wide Web. To repair other occurrences of the
same hyperlink in all pages in your web, click Change In All Pages,
then click Replace.
Once you're ready to publish your Web site, take one final look and
make sure that the pages are ready, too.
You can view the publishing status of all the files in a web by
running a report. By default, all files are marked as Publish unless
you change the status, which you might do if one page isn't ready but
the rest of the web is good to go.
Simply click View, Reports, Publish Status. The Publish column
displays the publishing status of each file.
Are all the files in your web ready to meet the public? Then make
sure they're correctly marked for publishing. By default, files are
marked for publishing, but there are some cases where you might want
to change this setting--for instance, if you haven't finished editing
a page but you want to publish the rest of your Web site.
The publishing status of all files in the current web is displayed.
Select one or more files, right-click them, click Properties on the
shortcut menu, and then click the Workgroup tab. To prevent a file
from being published, select the Exclude This File When Publishing The
Rest Of The Web check box. To mark a file for publishing, clear the
Exclude This File When Publishing The Rest Of The Web check box.
You've learned how to check on a file's Publish status and how to
change that status. But you might be thinking, "Hey, all my pages are
perfect--why would I need to unpublish any of them?" Well, here's a
reason.
If you've got nifty features on your web pages like a guestbook, a
hit counter, or a discussion web, you want to make sure they don't get
published again after you first publish your web. If you later update
your Web pages and publish all your files again, including the pages
that contain those elements, you'll be replacing your guestbook, hit
counter, and discussion web with blanks. Oops. So make sure those only
get published once.
If you want people to visit (and return to) your Web site, you need
to make it look professional, with text that's clean and easy to read.
The easiest way to clean up text is to clearly define section
headings, so readers aren't faced with a huge block of small text.
You can use paragraph styles to format headings and other text
quickly and consistently. Say you want to set off all your paragraph
headings. Click anywhere in the heading you want to format. Click the
Style list on the toolbar, then click Heading 3. The heading will be
bold and in a larger font than the rest of the text.
Heading styles in the Style list are based on universal HTML
standards. Heading 1 is the largest possible text style for Web pages,
and Heading 6 is the smallest.
Whether you want to create a new standalone HTML page, or add a
page to your current web, the process is the same.
Select File, New, Page. The Normal Page template (a blank page) is
automatically selected, but you can select any other template you
wish. The Preview area will show how each template looks. Click OK.
If you just want to create a blank page, you can simply click the
New Page icon on the Standard toolbar, or press Ctrl-N.
CREATING A NEW PAGE--PART 2 OF 3
In our previous tip, you learned the quickest ways to add a new
page to your web. But you still have to save it to the current web.
Why not add a new page directly from the Folder List? That way, it's
already filed correctly.
In the Folder List, right-click the folder in which you want to
create the new page, then click New Page on the shortcut menu. Type
the name of the new page, and then press Enter.
CREATING A NEW PAGE--PART 3 OF 3
In our previous tip, you learned how to add a new page to your web
in the Folder List. If you're one of those people who likes a visual
aid while working, you probably spend a lot of time in Navigation
view, where you can see a graphic representation of how your web is
laid out.
To add a page from Navigation view, right-click a page and select
New Page from the shortcut menu. This will add a new page below the
selected page.
The best ideas aren't always original ones. Sometimes it makes
sense to use a good page from another web in your current web. Then,
you can customize it as needed.
To replace one page with another, first open the page you want to
replace. Click Insert, File. In the Select File dialog box, navigate
to the file you want to import, then click Open. FrontPage inserts
your selection onto the current page.
The competition is tough on the Web. Millions of other sites are
vying for your users' attention. You could give away fancy prizes to
attract more visitors, but that would get expensive. So make your site
stand out a bit with a scrolling marquee that zips across the page.
Okay, so it isn't a cruise to the Bahamas, but it is an advantage when
people are Web-surfing.
Click where you want to insert the marquee, then click Insert,
Component (or click the Insert Component button on the Standard
toolbar) and select Marquee. In the Text edit box, type the message
you want to display.
Remember what we said a few tips back about making sure your Web
site looks professional? Even if your site is all about your latest
family vacation, there's no excuse for it to be boring. So if you have
a list of items, make sure it's set off by bullets or numbers. Heck,
even a grocery list looks better with bullets.
If the list is already typed into the page, separated by paragraph
breaks, simply select the list and click the Bullets button on the
Formatting toolbar. If you want your list numbered, click the
Numbering button.
If you already have a numbered or bulleted listed and want to add
to it, simply press Enter. The next line will start with a number or
bullet. To end a list, press Enter twice after typing the last list
item.
Hey, mistakes happen. Sometimes perfectly good Web designers go
overboard with bold, underlined, italic, and colored text. If you
decide after hours of work that you just can't stand the formatting on
a page, don't worry. There's a quick and easy way to get rid of it.
When you remove formatting, the text conveniently reverts to the
default settings of its style.
In Page view, select the text. Click Format, Remove Formatting. You
can also press Ctrl-Shift-Z.
A border is a great way to set an important paragraph off from the
rest of the page, and FrontPage makes it easy to add a border and play
with the style, color, and width.
In Page view, select the paragraph around which you want to add a
border. Or click anywhere in the paragraph--the border will still be
applied to the entire paragraph. Select Format, Borders And Shading.
For a four-sided border, click Box (under Setting). Then, you can set
the properties by clicking options from Style, Color, and Width.
Left on their own, tables aren't all that exciting visually, though
they often contain crucial information. So don't leave your site users
hanging by making them guess what a table contains--give it a caption!
FrontPage makes it easy to place a caption either above or below the
table.
To add a caption to a table, click anywhere in the table, then
select Table, Insert, Caption. FrontPage will add a centered caption
just above the table. You can type the appropriate text at this point.
If you want to move the caption to just below the table, select Table,
Properties, Caption, then select the Bottom Of Table option.
A good Web page designer knows that when it comes to pictures, a
Web page isn't just a photo album. You can use a picture in many ways,
including as a tool to enhance a block of text. What sounds more
interesting: a paragraph about Paris, or a paragraph wrapped around a
picture of the Eiffel Tower?
To align a picture with the left side of a paragraph, place your
cursor at the beginning of the first line. Click Insert, Picture, From
File (or just click the Insert Picture From File button on the
Standard toolbar). FrontPage assumes that the picture you want is
already part of your web, so it displays the Picture dialog box. If
the picture file is there, select it and click OK. If it's not, click
Select File and navigate to the picture file. Select it and click OK.
Once you've inserted the picture, click Format, Position. Under
Wrapping Style, click Left, then click OK.
Okay, so you're not the world's greatest speller. Not to
worry--that's why there's spell-check, one of the greatest inventions
of the 20th century. As with Microsoft Word, you can have FrontPage
automatically check your spelling as you type. Misspelled words are
indicated a red wavy underline.
Click Tools, Page Options. On the General tab, select the Check
Spelling As You Type check box. Then, click OK.
In the last tip, you learned how to have FrontPage automatically
check your spelling as you type. But what if it's too late for that?
Not to worry--you can also ask FrontPage to check the spelling in your
entire web.
In Folders view, click the Spelling button on the Standard toolbar
(it has a check mark with the letters ABC over it). Under Check
Spelling Of, choose Entire Web. Click Start. When FrontPage finds a
misspelled word, it will add an item to your task list, so you can
correct it later.
When you're inserting pictures in your page, it's easier if those
picture files are already part of your web. And at some point, you'll
need to have all the files associated with your web in one place, or
you'll have broken links when you publish. But there's no need to add
them all at once. You can import a group of files into your web at the
same time.
Switch to Folders View. Click File, Import. Click Add File in the
Import dialog box. You should now see the Add File To Import List
dialog box. Navigate to the directory where your graphics files are
located. Select them (remember, to select multiple files, hold down
Ctrl while you click on the files). Click Open, then click OK.
You've got this burning question about FrontPage--let's say it's
about doing a spell-check. And you can't figure it out--your manual is
lost in the stack of papers on your desk and today's tip doesn't seem
to be about spell-checks. What to do? Turn to the Answer Wizard. No,
this isn't a guy in a purple cloak who might show up in the next
volume of Harry Potter. This is a handy little trick you can use to
find the answer to your questions. Look at the toolbar at the top of
FrontPage.
See that little question mark in a cartoon-style dialog box all the
way on the far right? Click once on this magical icon, and FrontPage
Help will appear on your screen. You'll see three tabs: Contents,
Answer Wizard, and Index. You're here to see the wizard, so make sure
that tab is selected. (It probably is.) Under the Answer Wizard tab,
it says
What would you like to do?
In the white box, type in your question, or even just a word. If
you type
spell check
you'll get a list of answers, each one about performing a different
kind of spell-check. Select the answer you want, and the information
will appear on the right-hand side of the screen.
WIZARD ME THIS--PART 2 OF 2
In our previous tip, you learned how to use the Answer Wizard, but
let's say you then have this problem: When you return to FrontPage to
actually follow the instructions, you can't read them all. You do
manage to get both FrontPage and FrontPage Help on the screen at the
same time--which, admittedly, is pretty cool--but you still can't see
all the instructions. No problem. You simply have to resize the
FrontPage screen a little bit.
Got both FrontPage and FrontPage Help on the screen together? Good.
Now look at the lower-right corner of the FrontPage screen. You should
see a few faint diagonal lines. If you put your cursor over these
lines, your cursor will turn into a black line with an arrow at each
end. Click and hold your left mouse button, and you can now drag the
FrontPage screen to any size you want. Resize it so you can read all
your help instructions.
Alternatively, you can also tinker a little with the FrontPage Help
screen. Go to that page, and you'll notice that there's a vertical bar
separating the Answer Wizard from the actual instructions. Put your
cursor over that vertical bar, and you'll see that same black line
with the arrow on each end. Click and hold your mouse button, then
drag the line to the right to make all the instructions fit into a
slightly smaller space. Now when you jump back over to FrontPage, the
instructions should be more readable.
Use one or both of these techniques to make the Answer Wizard work
best for you.
Once you insert a picture or photo on your Web page, you might want
to wrap text around it so you have a polished look. Here's how.
First, you need to insert your photo. To do so, place your cursor
where you want the photo to appear. Then, select Insert, Picture, From
File. In the Picture dialog box that appears, find the photo you want
on your page. Highlight the name of that photo and click OK.
When your photo shows up, it will be glued to the far-left margin
of your web page. Let's say, though, that you want it to appear on the
right, with your text wrapped around the left-hand side of the image.
To do this, first click once on the image, essentially highlighting
it. Now choose Format, Position. In the Position dialog box, under
Wrapping Style, you'll have a bunch of different options. In this
case, you'll want to click on Right--which means that your photo will
appear on the right-hand side of the page with text to the left.
Finally, click OK, and your changes should appear on the screen.
WRAPS--PART 2 OF 2
In our previous tip, you learned how to insert a photo and then
wrap text around your image using a series of menu choices. But today
you'll learn the secret, back-route shortcut: Once you've inserted
your image on the page, click on it. Now look at the toolbar at the
top of the page. You're looking for three different icons--one where a
bunch of lines are all aligned to the left; one where the lines are
all neatly centered; and one where the lines are all aligned to the
right. If you hold your cursor over these icons, the pop-up boxes that
appear will read Align Left, Center, and Align Right, respectively.
Found them? Good. Now, say you click the Align Right icon. Your photo
will move to the right side of the page, and the text will wrap around
it on the left. Couldn't be easier.
Put 'em up! Calling someone's Web page boring? Them's fightin'
words. But if you take a careful look, you may just have to admit to
yourself that it's true. After all, if your page simply consists of
text with a few pictures thrown in for color, you're going to have to
jazz it up. The best way to do that? Add themes.
Themes are basically design features that you can add to your site.
FrontPage has a number of different themes you can use to add color
and flavor to your site. Here's how:
First, open your home page. Then, select Format, Theme. In the
Themes dialog box, select the option Apply Theme To All Pages. Now's
the fun part. As you click on the different theme names--from Artsy to
Sumi Painting--you'll find different design options for your Web page.
Once you find one you like, click the OK button. The theme will
automatically be applied on all pages of your Web site.
WHO SAID MY WEB PAGE WAS BORING--PART 2 OF 5
Last time, you learned how to apply a theme to your Web site, but
what happens if you don't like the options that FrontPage offers?
Well, one solution is to get additional themes from the FrontPage CD.
You see, FrontPage doesn't load them all onto your computer because it
doesn't want to suck up too much space. But if you want to check out
other options, it's easy enough to do.
Simply choose Format, Theme. In the list of theme choices in the
Themes dialog box, click Install Additional Themes. FrontPage will
prompt you to verify that you want to install the themes. Once you do,
FrontPage will install a plethora of other options--including ones
like Saturday TV Toons and Tidepool--from which you can choose.
WHO SAID MY WEB PAGE WAS BORING--PART 3 OF 5
What? Even with a new and fabulous theme, your page doesn't look
right to you? Okay, so you need to do a little more tweaking. This is
not only possible, it's easy. Once you've added a theme, changing
colors, graphics, or text isn't rocket science.
Once again, choose Format, Theme. In the Themes dialog box, at the
bottom, you'll see a button labeled Modify. This is your ticket. Once
you click that button, three other buttons will appear: Colors,
Graphics, and Text. Click these buttons and fiddle around with the
appearance of the theme.
Here's an important note: When you've finished fiddling, click OK
and then--back in the Themes dialog box--you'll see the option to save
this newly constructed theme. Don't do it. Instead of clicking the
Save button, click the Save As button. This way, if you decide later
that you don't like the changes you made, it's easy enough to go back
to the original theme and start again. Now that's using your head.
WHO SAID MY WEB PAGE WAS BORING--PART 4 OF 5
Generally when you apply a theme, you want to apply it to your
entire Web site. But there may be times when you want to apply it only
to certain pages. Here's how:
First, go to the Folders list and highlight only the pages that you
want to have the new theme. (Tip in a tip: If the folders aren't next
to each other, hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard so you can
select them.) Next, choose Format, Theme. When the Themes dialog box
appears, make sure the option Apply Theme To Selected Page(s) is
selected. Then, select the theme you want, and it will be applied only
to the pages you chose. Don't forget to click the OK button to finish
the job.
WHO SAID MY WEB PAGE WAS BORING--PART 5 OF 5
Enough! Thirty-one flavors is sometimes a beautiful thing--and
sometimes, plain vanilla is best. Wanna change your page back to
boring by removing the theme(s) you've added? No problem. First,
choose Format, Theme. In the Themes dialog box, make sure that All
Pages is selected. Then, choose No Theme and click OK. Any themes you
applied will be erased automatically.
FrontPage automatically includes a status bar at the bottom of the
screen. This status bar gives different information in different
views; for example, it will provide you with the exact path to a file
if you select it in the Folders view. But you might think that this
status bar is just so much more clutter on your screen. To remove it
from sight, select Tools, Options. In the Options dialog box, click
the General tab. There, under the General section, you'll see a
checkbox labeled Show Status Bar. Deselect the checkbox and click OK.
The status bar will automatically disappear from your screen.
Want to add a new page to your Web-in-progress? Well, if you want
to get a jump-start on the process, keep in mind that FrontPage has
dozens of templates from which to choose. Simply select File, New,
Page to display a list of all the options. To get a sense of what a
template looks like before you select it, click on the template name
once. You'll see a design of the template in the Preview box.
Rather than creating an outline in FrontPage, use Microsoft Word
instead. Then, when the outline is complete, copy and paste it into
your FrontPage web. It should be several steps easier than starting
the outline from scratch in FrontPage itself.
Microsoft FrontPage includes ActiveX controls. These nifty items
let you add certain kinds of features to your Web page, like stock
tickers or pop-up windows. But one of the coolest features is an
interactive calendar. Using this calendar, visitors can change the
month and year and choose different dates. To add this calendar to
your page, choose Insert, Advanced, ActiveX Control. In the Insert
ActiveX Control dialog box, highlight Calendar Control. Now click OK.
You'll see the calendar appear on your Web page.
WANNA MAKE A DATE--PART 2 OF 3
Last time you learned how to add an interactive calendar to your
Web page, but when you tried to interact with it, you found that it
didn't do anything at all. Did you make a mistake? Is there a bug?
Neither. You just need to look at it a little differently: Click on
the Preview tab that's on the bottom left-hand side of your screen.
Now you'll be able to navigate that calendar with ease. Just don't
forget that when you're ready to start editing your page again, you'll
need to click on the Normal tab at the bottom of the screen.
WANNA MAKE A DATE--PART 3 OF 3
You're interacting with that interactive calendar, but you want it
to be a little more exciting, not just the boring gray dates you see
before your eyes. You want to be an artiste; you want color.
No problem: Simply right-click on the calendar and then choose
ActiveX Control Properties from the context menu. In the resulting
dialog box, click the Color tab. On the left-hand side of the dialog
box, you'll now see a list with names like BackColor and DayFontColor.
On the right, you'll see a series of different colors. Here's how it
works: First pick the part of the calendar that you want to change.
For example, if you want the background color to be different,
highlight BackColor. Now, choose the color you'd prefer on the right.
Click the Apply button to see if you like the change. When your
artistic side is satisfied, click OK to finish the job.
Here's a scenario: You're just about to launch the Web site for a
new company, but that company is going to be moving its
brick-and-mortar location soon. And the company address is plastered
all over the Web site, so you know that you're going to have a lot of
updating to do once the move is final. But FrontPage has a shortcut
that will help you save some time. Instead of just adding the company
address to the site, make the address a variable. By defining it as a
variable, you can simply make one change--to the variable--and it will
update itself over the entire site.
To create a variable, begin by choosing Tools, Web Settings. Next,
click the Parameters tab. To create the variable, click Add. In the
Add Name And Value dialog box, you'll do just that--add a name and a
value. In our example, the name would be something like "address" and
the value would be the actual address of the business. When you've
finished, click OK. Congratulations! You've just created a variable
for your Web site.
VARYING VARIABLES--PART 2 OF 3
In our previous tip, you learned to add a variable to your Web
site, but you still need to learn how to put your variable on your Web
page. (For those of you who are joining us a little late, a variable
is content that may change. You define a variable and then simply make
one change to the value of the variable in order to update that
information over your entire site.) So, once you've created your
variable, here's how to display it on your site.
First, position your cursor where you want the variable information
to appear on your page. Now select Insert, Component, Substitution. In
the Substitution Properties dialog box, you'll see a white bar with a
pull-down arrow on the right. Click on the pull-down arrow, and you'll
see a list of variables. Choose the variable you want to add and click
OK. It's just that simple.
VARYING VARIABLES--PART 3 OF 3
Way back in June we talked about creating variables... Now, here's
the thrilling conclusion! The reason you created a variable in the
first place is because you knew you'd have to update information. For
example, you knew your company was moving and you'd have to change the
address listed on the Web site, or you knew you were going to be
changing a product name. To edit the variable you've created, first
select Tools, Web Settings. Then, click the Parameters tab. Now
highlight the variable you want to change and click the Modify button.
Once your changes are complete, click OK.
Navigating the Web is often tricky business. A nice addition that
makes it easy for people to navigate your site is a navigation bar. A
navigation bar is a series of links that appears on every page of your
Web site. It allows visitors to jump from one page to another easily.
Here's how to add one to your site.
First, open your home page in Page view. Choose Format, Shared
Borders, then click the All Pages button. (We're assuming that you
want a navigation bar to appear on each page of your Web site--which
is probably a good idea.) Now you have a few choices: You can choose
to have a navigation bar at the top, bottom, right, or left of your
page. Or you can choose more than one of those options. For
simplicity's sake, click on Top and Left. Select the Include
Navigation Buttons option for both. Finally, click OK. You'll see a
navigation bar on the left and a banner at the top of the page.
TIPTOE THROUGH YOUR WEB PAGE--PART 2 OF 4
Last time you learned how to add navigation bars to your Web page.
Today, you'll learn a little bit about editing these bars.
The navigation bar you added to the top of the page didn't look
like much of a navigation bar. In fact, all it said was something like
"Edit the properties for this navigation bar to display hyperlinks
here." Huh? Well, if you hold your cursor over that line of text,
you'll see the cursor arrow turn into a little hand that looks as if
it's holding a postcard. When you see that icon, double-click your
mouse.
Now, you'll see the navigation bar's properties dialog box. Here,
you can choose the kinds of links you want to have appear on the page.
One thing to keep in mind is that the organization of Web pages looks
much like a family tree. If you're working on your home page, for
example, then all the pages that come "below" the home page--the ones
that branch off from it, as it were--are called the Child level. So,
knowing that, choose the pages that you'd like to link to from this
page. (If you can't figure out the different levels that well, just do
a little experimenting. Remember: Everything you're doing can easily
be undone or redone.)
Once you've decided on a selection for your navigation bar, click
the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box. You'll see the
appropriate options appear on your Web page.
TIPTOE THROUGH YOUR WEB PAGE--PART 3 OF 4
When you were tweaking your navigation bar last time, you noticed
these appealing choices: You could change the orientation and
appearance of the navigation bar. Out of curiosity--and because you
want the spiffiest-looking Web site on the block--you chose buttons;
that way, your navigation bar will have buttons instead of
straight-up, drab text. Only thing is, the buttons never materialized.
Instead, you got--you guessed it--straight-up, drab text.
What didja do wrong? Nothing. The buttons won't look like graphical
buttons unless you have a theme for your Web page. Apply a theme and
try again. If you don't know what a theme is, stay tuned for upcoming
tips!
TIPTOE THROUGH YOUR WEB PAGE--PART 4 OF 4
When you add a navigation bar to the top of your page, you'll
notice that you also get a page banner (that's the text across the top
of the page). The page banner automatically uses the text of the page
title--but this might not be the text you want to shout from the top
of the page. If it's not, try the following:
First, move to the page banner and double-click the text. In the
resulting dialog box, look for the section called Page Banner Text.
Highlight the text as it currently appears and then type in the text
you'd like to see on your Web page. When you've finished, click OK.
The page banner text will be changed.
You're trying to learn more about FrontPage, but you keep bumping
into acronyms: HTML, FTP, WWW. But the one that's most confusing to
you is WYSIWYG. How do you say it? Are you supposed to pronounce each
letter? What does it mean?
WYSIWYG is pronounced "Whiz-ee-wig," and it stands for "What you
see is what you get." FrontPage is a WYSIWYG program, which basically
means that you don't need to be a hot-shot programmer to get the job
done: You just tell the program what you want to have appear on the
screen and it does the rest for you. Ah, behold the power of ease...
okay, okay--that's bad.
So you've learned how to find slow pages on your Web site. But
here's the catch: Who defines slow? After all, if you know that all
your site visitors are going to be using a T1 line, then slow means
something different than if you're expecting folks who are still
surfing on a 14.4-Kbps modem. FrontPage's default settings are for a
page that takes 30 seconds to download on a 28.8-Kbps modem. Wanna
change the settings? Easy enough. Select Tools, Options. In the
Options dialog box, click the Reports View tab. There you'll see the
settings you want to change. You can adjust the amount of time a slow
page takes to download, and you can set the assumed connection speed.
The topic of today's lesson? Frames. Nope, we're not talking about
the stuff that neatly outlines the pictures you have hanging on your
walls at home, or those nifty eyeglasses that help you see your way
through the world. In Web-speak, frames are a way to create several
pages that the visitor can view at once. For example, you have a frame
across the top of the page that has the company name, a frame down the
side of the page with a table of contents, and another frame for the
rest of the page that has the bulk of the information. "How is this
different from borders?" you ask. Good question. Here's the
difference: When you click on a link in one frame, you have the option
to change the material on that section of the Web page only; in other
words, you don't necessarily change the whole page as you would on a
page with borders.
When you create a page with frames, you're actually also creating
what's called a frame source page. The frame source page basically
acts as a traffic director for the other frame pages. Let's put it
this way: If you have a page that has three frames, that page needs
one frame source page to refer to, so it knows where to put which
frame.
Whew! Hope that clarifies frames. Over the next few days, we'll
learn how to build them.
THE GREAT FRAME-UP--PART 2 OF 5
To create a page with frames, start by choosing File, New, Page. In
the New Page dialog box, you'll see a tab for Frames Pages. Click that
tab and you'll see a plethora of different options for your
frame-enhanced page. Don't know which to choose? Select the option and
check in the lower-right corner of the dialog box. There, you'll see a
preview of what the page will look like. Once you've picked the
perfect frame page, simply click OK.
Doesn't look like much, does it? Just a bunch of gray blocks in a
gray page, with a few buttons. Well, it might not look like much, but
this is the magical frame source page of which you've heard. You'll
notice that in each section of the frame source page, there are two
buttons: Set Initial Page and New Page.
You'll use these buttons create the different pages of your
frame-enhanced page: If you want to start from scratch, click the New
Page button. If you want to essentially import a page that you've
already created, click the Set Initial Page button and find the page
on your hard drive. Keep in mind that you'll have to go through this
procedure for each frame of your Web page.
THE GREAT FRAME-UP--PART 3 OF 5
Last time when you created your frame, you picked the best of the
options that FrontPage had to offer, but you still weren't exactly
sure what you wanted your page to look like. Not a problem--as usual,
FrontPage has some editing options that will allow you to tweak to
your heart's delight.
Let's say you want to split a frame into two separate frames.
First, position your cursor in the frame section that you want to
split. Now, choose Frames, Split Frame. In the Split Frame dialog box,
you can choose whether you'd like to split the frame into rows or
columns. Once you've made your choice, click OK and the frame will be
split in two. Note that once you've done this, the new section of your
page will be gray, and you'll have to create the new page that belongs
in that framed section.
Tinkering with frames can be an endless task. You'll notice that a
thick line surrounds each framed section. If you hold your cursor over
that line, your cursor arrow will turn into a short black line with an
arrow pointing in each direction. Once you see that short black line,
hold down your mouse and drag the line. In this way, you can adjust
the size of each framed section of the page. Stay tuned--more on
frames next time.
THE GREAT FRAME-UP--PART 4 OF 5
Saving your Web pages with FrontPage is normally a one-two job, no
more complicated than saving a document in, say, Word or Excel.
Unfortunately, it's a little trickier when you're working with frames.
When you go to save your frame (by selecting either File, Save or
File, Save As), FrontPage will ask you to save each section of your
frame page. And then, to top it all off, it will ask you to name and
save the frame source page. How will you know which section of the
page it's asking you to name? When you're saving a page with frames,
the Save dialog box includes a little diagram of the page. As it asks
you to save each section of the page, it will highlight that section
in the diagram. When it's time to save the frame source page, it will
outline the entire page.
Here's another tip about saving frame pages: Name the sections of
your page and the frame source page something similar. That way, if
you create other pages with frames, FrontPage (and you!) will be able
to identify which frames go with which frame source pages.
THE GREAT FRAME-UP--PART 5 OF 5
You know etiquette. You know netiquette. But did you know that some
browsers can't display frames? For the folks who are still using those
browsers, you should do the polite thing and create a page that
doesn't require frames capability. It won't take much of your time and
it is, after all, the polite thing to do. Simply look at the lower
left of your screen at all the various tabs. Find the tab called No
Frames and click it. Onto this page, you'll want to copy all of the
most relevant material from your frame-enhanced page. Then, FrontPage
will be able to offer a backup plan for those folks who don't have the
browser support for frames.
If you want to insert a table on your Web page, you generally
choose Table, Insert and then select from the several options
presented. But there's another way. If you have a certain visual idea
of what you want your table to look like, choose Table, Draw Table
instead. When you pick this option, you'll notice that the Table
toolbar automatically appears, and your cursor turns into a pencil.
Using your pencil cursor, just go ahead and draw the size table you
want.
THE FREEFORM TABLE--PART 2 OF 3
When you draw a freeform table, keep in mind that the first shape
you create with your cursor is the size and shape of a row. Let's say
you want to add rows--you simply choose the Table toolbar and click
the Insert Rows icon. Another row will appear on the screen that's
exactly the same size and shape as the row you first drew. If you want
to create columns, click the Insert Columns icon. Your rows will be
split in half to create the columns.
THE FREEFORM TABLE--PART 3 OF 3
You've created a table that's filled with columns and rows, but you
decide that you want to merge two cells or get rid of a row. The
easiest way to get the job done? Click the Eraser icon on the Table
toolbar. (It's the second icon from the left on the toolbar.) Once you
click this icon, your cursor will turn into a little picture of an
eraser. Simply drag that eraser over the lines you want to delete, and
they'll automatically disappear. When you're done, click on the Eraser
icon again to return your cursor to normal.
Let's say you have a multilevel list (or an outline), but you want
sections of it to be collapsible. In other words, you want your
visitors to have some control over that list and be able to make parts
of it appear and disappear. First select the section of the list you
want to be collapsible. Now right-click and select List Properties.
Toward the bottom of the dialog box, you'll see the Enable Collapsible
Outlines option. Select that option and click OK. The section of the
list you selected is now collapsible.
THE DISAPPEARING LIST--PART 2 OF 4
In our previous tip, you learned how to make a collapsible list,
but you're not quite sure how to collapse it. Here are two tips.
Most important, you simply collapse the list by clicking on the
level ABOVE the section that's collapsible. As a favor to your
visitors, you might want to add some instructions to your site to
explain that to them.
Now, you might be testing this and thinking that this tip just
doesn't work. It does. But the trick is that you have to view your
page in Preview mode in order to see your list do its collapsing
stuff. To do so, look at the lower left-hand corner of FrontPage and
click the Preview tab. Now go ahead and test it. When you've finished,
go back to editing by clicking the Normal tab.
THE DISAPPEARING LIST--PART 3 OF 4
When creating a collapsible list, you also have an option to have
the list collapsed when your Web page first opens. To do that, you
have to make the whole list collapsible. But that's simple enough:
Just highlight the entire list, then right-click and choose List
Properties from the context menu. In the List Properties dialog box,
select the Initially Collapsed option and click OK.
Tip-in-a-tip: If you've followed all these instructions but you
don't see List Properties as an option on the context menu, it could
be that your list doesn't have enough levels. Don't worry--you don't
have to add anything to the list. Simply select the very first item of
the list and try again. It should work just fine.
THE DISAPPEARING LIST--PART 4 OF 4
Here's something to keep in mind when creating collapsible lists:
This neat trick works only with Web browsers that support Dynamic
HTML. (That's a fancy Web programming language.) And that could be a
problem, because that means that it will work only for folks who use
such browsers as Internet Explorer 4.0 (and higher) and Netscape
Navigator 4.0 (and higher). So all those folks who use older versions
of these browsers (or perhaps even other, less popular browsers) might
miss out on your nifty collapsing lists. One way around this problem
is just to be sure that the list isn't collapsed when viewers come to
your page. That way, if they want and are able to collapse the list,
they can. However, if they can't collapse it, they'll still be able to
read all of the important data in the list.
Wanna add some real pizzazz to your Web page? What about text that
changes as visitors scroll over it on the page? Sound like fun? Here's
how to do it.
First, highlight the text that you want to have change in
appearance. Now, choose Format, Dynamic HTML Effects. The DHTML
Effects toolbar will appear on the screen. It walks you through the
process of adding the effect. You'll see that it starts with the word
"On." Click the first pull-down arrow, and you'll see a list of
different events. Highlight Mouse Over, which means that when visitors
scroll their mouse over the text, it will change in appearance.
Once you click Mouse Over, the next task will appear on the DHTML
toolbar. This time, you'll need to apply an effect. Click on the
pull-down arrow and select Formatting. (You'll notice that it's your
only choice.) Next, you'll be asked to choose settings. Since you want
to change the way the font looks when someone scrolls over the words,
click Choose Font. (Alternatively, if you want to create some kind of
border around the words as someone scrolls by, click Choose Border.)
In the Font dialog box, select the new look you want for your text
once someone scrolls over it. If you just want the text to turn bold,
simply select Bold. You can also change font style, size, and color if
you want. When you're done, click OK.
To test your new settings, you'll need to view the page in Preview
mode. Check for the Preview tab on the lower-left side of the page.
When you click this tab, you'll be viewing the page as a visitor
would. Scroll your mouse over the text in question, and voila, you'll
see it change before your eyes!
Remember in grade school when your teacher would assign an outline?
You might have hated the assignment, but you have to admit that an
outline is a pretty handy tool. Fortunately, FrontPage has a way to
let you present outlines on your Web site, without you having to sit
and hit tab keys, line everything up, and change all the numbering by
hand. It's still a fairly complex process--you're essentially
stringing together a series of lists--so it will take a few tips to go
through the whole thing.
The first thing to do when you're starting an outline is to
position your cursor where you want the outline to begin. Now, select
Format, Bullets And Numbering. The List Properties dialog box will
appear. Click the Numbers tab. There you'll see several different
numerical styles. Pick the one you'd like for the first level of your
outline and click OK.
The next step is to just start typing your outline. When you press
the Enter key to select the next level of your outline, you'll notice
that it doesn't automatically indent or give you a different numbering
system. Don't worry; you'll learn how to apply those formatting tricks
in the next few tips.
TEACHER SAYS MAKE AN OUTLINE--PART 2 OF 5
In our previous tip, you started the process of making an outline
using FrontPage. But all you have on the screen in front of you are a
series of outline points, all with the same lettering (or numbering)
system and without indentations. "Not much of an outline," you are
mumbling to yourself. Not to worry. Today, you'll learn how to indent
everything so it looks more like the outlines you used to make in
school.
You've typed in a series of items. Let's say the first line is
SUMMER PARTY, and under that you have a series of items that you want
to indent, such as: FRIED CHICKEN, LEMONADE, and WATERMELON. (By the
way, we'll expect an invitation once you've figured out how to create
your outline.) Go ahead and select all the food--in this case, that's
all the stuff you want to indent. Now look on your toolbar for the
Increase Indent icon; it has an arrow pointing to the right, with a
bunch of lines next to it. Click that icon twice, and all your food
will be neatly indented for your summer party menu.
TEACHER SAYS MAKE AN OUTLINE--PART 3 OF 5
Well, you've been working on an outline, but in order to make it
complete, you'll have to take one more step. Right now, everything's
neatly indented, but it all has the same numbering system, which
certainly isn't how Ms. Fields in fifth grade taught you how to do
outlines. Remember? Each level has a different lettering or numbering
system.
So here's how to do it right and get that A. Select the level of
the outline whose numbering system you want to change. (Using our
previous example, that's the list of food you'll be serving at your
summer party.) Select the first item on that sublevel. Right-click and
choose List Properties. You'll see that same List Properties dialog
box, with different numbering styles. Choose the one you'd like for
the sublevel you're working on and click OK. You'll notice that the
change is applied to all items in that sublevel. (NOTE: The change
won't apply to items on other sublevels. Even if the levels have the
same amount of indentation, you'll have to select each sublevel
separately to change the numbering.)
TEACHER SAYS MAKE AN OUTLINE--PART 4 OF 5
You're building an outline and you made a mistake. Say you've
indented items too far--turns out that your outline has changed and
you want to move stuff up a level. Not a problem. Simply select the
items you want to move and click the Decrease Indent icon on your
FrontPage toolbar. It looks like an arrow pointing to the left, with a
bunch of lines next to it.
TEACHER SAYS MAKE AN OUTLINE--PART 5 OF 5
Enough of this outline stuff? Well and good. When you've finished
with your outline, just press the Enter key twice to exit from all its
intricate list-making properties.
The best thing about a frames page is the way you can manipulate
it. For example, let's say you have a table of contents in a left-hand
frame. The items in that table of contents are for the seasons:
Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring. But here's the cool part: Your
visitor clicks on Summer and voila--the information for Summer appears
in the central frame of the page. When the visitor clicks on Autumn,
the Summer information is replaced by information on Autumn. Mind you,
even though information changes in the main frame, the table of
contents (and any other frames on the page) remains the same.
How to pull off this neat trick? Think about it as a two-step
process: First, you have to tell FrontPage where you want the new
information to appear. (In our example, that would be the main frame
of the page.) Next, you have to tell FrontPage what information you
want to have loaded into that frame. (In our example, that would be
Summer, Autumn, Winter, or Spring, depending on the link that the
visitor clicked.) Today, we'll just stick to the first step.
Okay. Roll up your sleeves and let's get going. Anywhere in your
frames page, right-click. Select Page Properties from the context
menu. In the Page Properties dialog box, look for the Default Target
Frame option. To the far right of that option, you'll see an icon of a
small pencil, drawing dots. Click that icon.
Now you'll find yourself in the Target Frame dialog box. Here
you'll see an image of the current frames page, with all of the
different framed sections. Click on the section of the frames page
that you want to set as the target. Remember, the target is the
section of the page that will change, or the section of the page in
which the new information will appear. Once you've selected the
appropriate target, click OK. Back in the Page Properties dialog box,
click OK again.
Your target is set. Tune in next time to learn how to move
information into the target frame.
TARGETING FRAMES--PART 2 OF 4
Last time you learned how to create a target for your frames page.
Today we'll learn how to load new information into that frame target.
Let's use the same example we used last time: You have a page with
a table of contents down the left-hand side of the screen. The links
in that table of contents refer to the four seasons. You set the main
frame (in our example, the only other frame outside the table of
contents) as the target for that information on the four seasons.
First, double-click to select the word Summer in your table of
contents. Now find the Hyperlink icon at the top of your screen--it
looks like a globe with a sideways figure-8 in front of it. Click this
icon once. In the Create Hyperlink dialog box, find the page you've
created that has the information on Summer. Select that page and then
click OK.
All you've really done is create a basic hyperlink, but because you
created the main frame as a target, the information on Summer will
load in the main frame when you click the link. Test it out by
clicking the Preview tab at the bottom of the screen and then clicking
the link.
TARGETING FRAMES--PART 3 OF 4
Now that you know the basics about targeting frames, you might want
to branch out. Let's say, for example, that you have a frames page
with three frame sections--a top border, a side table of contents, and
a main section. Obviously, you want most of the information from the
table of contents to load into the main frame. However, there's one
bit of info--some company stuff--that you want to have appear in the
top border, not the main section. In that case, you have to change the
target when you create the hyperlink. Here's how:
First, select the word that you want visitors to link from and find
the Hyperlink icon at the top of your screen. (Remember, it looks like
a globe with a sideways figure-8 in front of it.) Click the Hyperlink
icon. In the Create Hyperlink dialog box, find the Optional section,
and look for the Target Frame option. Click on the little pencil to
the far right of this option. Now you're in the Target Frame dialog
box. Select the frame that you want the information to appear in. (In
our example, it's the top border.) Once that area is selected, click
OK. Back in the Create Hyperlink dialog box, find the information that
you want to link to and select it. Click OK.
Note that you've only changed the target location for this one
link. The rest of the links on the page will still appear in the main
section (assuming that's the default target you've created). Try the
whole thing out by clicking the Preview tab at the bottom of the page
and clicking the link.
TARGETING FRAMES--PART 4 OF 4
Let's say you want a link to overwrite your whole frames page and
basically reset the window. How do you do that? Just follow these
directions:
First, select the word that you want visitors to link from and find
the Hyperlink icon at the top of your screen. (Remember, it looks like
a globe with a sideways figure-8 in front of it.) Click the Hyperlink
icon. In the Create Hyperlink dialog box, find the Optional section,
and look for the Target Frame option. Click on the little pencil to
the far right of this option. Now you're in the Target Frame dialog
box. There, you'll see a list of Common Targets. Select the one called
Whole Page and click OK. Back in the Create Hyperlink dialog box, find
the page that you want to link to and select it. (Note that if you
want to jump out to the Web, that's okay too. Just type the address of
the page in the URL box.) Click OK.
Test it out by clicking the Preview tab at the bottom of the page
and then clicking your link. The frames page will disappear and a
whole new page--the one you created the link to--will appear on the
page.
There's nothing less professional than misspellings. So, here's a
tip: Go to Tools, Spelling before you post any Web page for the world
to see. People will definitely think more highly of your work.
Does your Web site have dozens of pages, all in need of a
spell-check? Rather than doing the job page by page, use the secret
shortcut and spell-check the whole site at once.
First, go to the Folders view. Now click the Spelling button on
your toolbar. (It looks like a check mark, with the letters ABC above
it.) The Spelling dialog box will appear. Click the button that allows
you to check spelling of the entire Web. Before you click the Start
button to begin the spell-check, decide if you want to add a task for
each page with misspellings. This might be a good idea if you think
you're going to run into a whole pile of misspelled words and you
don't have a lot of time. By selecting this option, you can wait until
later to make all the changes. Click Start and let the spell-check
begin!
You're typing along and suddenly, under the word synergy, this
squiggly red line appears. Oops! You've made a typo. You typed synerge
instead of synergy. Aren't sure how to correct it? Easy. Go to the
line with the red underline and right-click. You should get a list of
choices for correct spelling. Click on the word you were looking for,
and FrontPage will automatically correct the spelling on the page.
SPELL SQUIGGLE--PART 2 OF 2
That little red squiggly line that appears under your typos can be
handy: After all, it keeps you from writing absurdities like "hoq noq
veoqn xoq" when your fingers get off the right keys. (Honest, it
happens to the best touch typists. And, by the way, that should be
"how now brown cow.") But oftentimes those little red squiggles are
simply an annoying distraction. If you'd rather type without them for
a while, here's how to make them disappear.
Select Tools, Page Options, and on the General tab, you'll see a
Spelling section. Then, deselect the Check Spelling As You Type check
box and click OK. All red squiggles will disappear. Fair warning: Just
because the red squiggles are gone doesn't mean the spelling errors
and typos have disappeared. It's probably a good idea to run a
spell-check when you've finished working on your page.
You want to take a look at all the files of your Web site, so you
mosey on over to the Reports view (View, Reports, etc.). But there,
you find an incredible mish-mash of files. You can't make heads or
tails of the thing. Instead, you want a listing of all the files
chronologically or alphabetically, or something organized.
Easy. Look at the headings at the top of each column. Want to see
the files chronologically? Click on the heading called Modified Date
and all the files will be instantly organized by that category. Want
to see files listed in terms of size? Click on the Size heading to
size everything up.
Last time you learned how to organize all your files
chronologically, alphabetically, or by size by simply clicking on the
column headings in Reports view. There's just one small problem: You
clicked on the Modified Date column heading to see everything
chronologically and it listed all the files from the oldest file to
the newest file--and you wanted to see them from the newest to the
oldest. No problem at all--just click on the column heading again, and
the whole list will flip over for you.
Wanna close a dialog box in a hurry? Instead of using your mouse to
laboriously to do the job, just press Alt-F4 on your keyboard. How's
that for a quickie?
By default, visitors to your Web site will be able to resize frames
on their screen (that is, if your Web page uses frames). This is
handy, especially since users will generally come to your site from
different browsers and with different-sized monitors. However, if you
want to turn off this feature for some reason, simply right-click on
your frame page and select Frame Properties from the pop-up menu that
appears. In the Frame Properties dialog box, look under the Options
section and deselect the Resizable In Browser check box.
There are many, many reasons that you may want to know the overall
size of your Web site. One good one? You may have free space on a Web
server--up to a certain size. How to determine if you're under the
limit? Choose View, Reports, Site Summary. Check the top line of the
resulting report--it's labeled All Files. In the Count column, you'll
be able to ascertain the number of files in your Web. The Size column
will tell you the total size of all those files combined. Neat, huh?
Sometimes, the easiest way to present information is in a table.
Fortunately, FrontPage makes it easy to add tables to your Web. Here's
how:
Begin by choosing Table, Insert, Table. In the Insert Table dialog
box, specify the number of rows and columns you want your table to
have. If you aren't sure of the number, don't worry. You can always
make adjustments once the table has been added. Now, click OK. The new
table will appear on your page.
Simple enough? Now fill in those rows and columns!
SERVING UP TABLES--PART 2 OF 5
Want to add a row or column to a table on your Web page? Simply
right-click on the table. In the context menu, you'll see the options
Insert Row and Insert Column. These will do the trick.
SERVING UP TABLES--PART 3 OF 5
You're Martha Stewart at heart: What you really want to do is make
your table look beautiful. Nope, not the table where you eat, but the
table you have on your Web page. To make changes to a table,
right-click on the table and select Table Properties from the context
menu. In the Table Properties dialog box, you can make all kinds of
changes to your table. You can change the table alignment so it's
centered on your page or all the way over to the right. You can adjust
the width of the lines bordering the table and change the color of the
lines. You can even change the background color of the table itself,
or add a background image. Don't hesitate to fiddle around with
different options. Remember, you can always undo something if you
don't like the effect.
SERVING UP TABLES--PART 4 OF 5
Here's an important table tip (like the rest of them aren't?!):
When you go to insert a table on your Web page, you have the option of
specifying the width of the table. And you can set the width either in
pixels or in a percentage of the total width of the page. Skip the
pixel option and go with the width of the page. Why? Well, it's not
just because measuring in pixels seems a little absurd. It's also
because different viewers have different-sized screens, and you'll be
able to set the size of the table so it's appropriate for anyone
looking at it--and that IS important.
SERVING UP TABLES--PART 5 OF 5
Let's say you want the top cells of your table to all look a little
different from the other cells: You want them to stand out as header
cells. Easy enough. First, position your cursor in the cell that you
want to have stand out. Now simply right-click on your table and
choose Cell Properties from the context menu. In the Cell Properties
dialog box, select the Header Cell option and click OK. When you type
in that cell, you'll notice that the text is bold compared to the
other text in your table.
Shared borders. No, we're not talking about some geographical line,
separating Country A from Country B. In FrontPage, shared borders
refer to common areas that are on the different pages of your web. For
example, you can have a shared border across the top of the page,
where you can provide navigational links. Or a shared border down the
right-hand side of a page can have a certain design. Options abound,
my friends.
How do you add a shared border to your Web site? Begin by choosing
Format, Shared Borders. In the Shared Borders dialog box, specify that
you want the borders to apply to all pages of your site. Now choose
the type of borders you want--right, left, top, bottom. (Note that you
can add navigation buttons on top and left borders.) When you've
finished making your selections, click OK, and FrontPage applies the
borders. Now you'll just have to hire some folks for border
patrol--just kidding.
RUBBING ELBOWS, OR SHARED BORDERS--PART 2 OF 5
In our previous tip, you learned how to add shared borders to all
the pages of your Web site. But what if you want to add those shared
borders to only one or two pages?
First, go to the Folders view of your Web page. While you're there,
highlight the pages where you want to apply the borders. (Note: If you
want to select pages that aren't next to each other, hold down the
Control key on your keyboard.) Once you've highlighted your pages,
select Format, Shared Borders. In the Shared Borders dialog box, click
Selected Page(s). Now choose the borders you want to apply and click
OK. The shared borders will be applied to the pages you selected.
RUBBING ELBOWS, OR SHARED BORDERS--PART 3 OF 5
What to put in a bottom border? This is the perfect spot to stash
stuff like copyright and trademark information or to put contact
information so people know how to reach you.
RUBBING ELBOWS, OR SHARED BORDERS--PART 4 OF 5
Top and bottom borders spread across the entire width of your Web
page and should be wide enough to accommodate all the information you
have in them. Left and right borders are the same, except, of course,
that they stretch from the top to the bottom of the page. But there's
a little trick with those side borders: width. After all, you don't
want your left border to be so wide that visitors have to scroll to
the right to be able to see your Web page in its entirety. To preempt
this problem, make sure that the content of your left or right border
isn't too wide. Make adjustments so you can see everything on your
screen. Then, to be sure it isn't a problem for anyone else, preview
the page in different browsers with different screen sizes.
RUBBING ELBOWS, OR SHARED BORDERS--PART 5 OF 5
In our previous tip, we talked about previewing your page using
different screen sizes, to be sure that all your visitors will be able
to see it properly. Don't worry, that doesn't mean you have to go out
and buy a whole bunch of different monitors. Instead, you just have to
change a few settings as you preview your page.
Begin by choosing File, Preview In Browser. In the Preview In
Browser dialog box, you'll see a section called Window Size. Here, you
can select different screen sizes--640x480, 800x600, 1024x768. You
should preview your page in all these different options.
If you're only one of many people working on a Web site, how can
you be sure that you have the absolutely most up-to-date information?
After all, someone else could be working on the page that you're
currently viewing.
To stay up to the minute, click the Refresh icon at the top of the
page. It looks like a piece of paper with green arrows circling it.
It's important to know which pages of your Web site aren't linked
up to other pages. After all, a visitor to your site isn't going to be
able to see a page if there's no way to link to it. But rather than
scanning tediously through each individual page in order to find the
stragglers, take this quick shortcut: Select View, Reports, Unlinked
Files. From here, you'll see a list of all the files that need to be
linked up with their cousins on the site.
There are lots of tricks you can use when designing the paragraphs
of your Web page to highlight text or to create an interesting look.
One is to create a border around the paragraph.
To create a border, first select the entire paragraph. Now choose
Format, Borders And Shading. In the Borders And Shading dialog box,
select the Box option. This tells FrontPage to put a box around the
paragraph in question. Next, you'll have to design the style of that
box. Under Style, you'll see a bunch of different options. As you
highlight them, you'll notice a preview on the right, so you'll have a
sense of the change you're making in advance.
Finally, feel free to change the color of the box and/or the width
of the line. When you're done adjusting these settings, click OK. A
border will appear around the selected paragraph.
PARAGRAPH BASICS--PART 2 OF 5
Borders aren't the only way to emphasize the text of a paragraph.
You can also highlight paragraphs by using a shading technique.
First, select the paragraph that you'd like to shade. Then, choose
Format, Borders And Shading. In the Borders And Shading dialog box,
click the Shading tab. Now look for the pull-down menu called
Background Color. Click the pull-down arrow to see the plethora of
colors you can choose from. Note that you can also create a custom
color, if you so desire. Once you've selected the right color, click
OK.
One note here: Background colors can be tricky. You'll want to be
sure you use a shade that allows viewers to still read your text
easily.
PARAGRAPH BASICS--PART 3 OF 5
Of course, you can emphasize a particular paragraph of your Web
page by simply adjusting borders and spacing. To do this, first select
the paragraph with which you'd like to work. Now choose Format,
Paragraph. Here, you can tinker with such details as the alignment of
the paragraph, the indentation of the beginning and end of the graph
(as well as the indentation of the first line), and the spacing around
and in the paragraph. When you've finished making the appropriate
changes, click OK.
PARAGRAPH BASICS--PART 4 OF 5
Once you've created a particular design for a paragraph--like a
border, a shading option, or even just indentation--you can continue
that design to the next graph. Just press the Enter key to start your
next paragraph, and the effects will still be in place.
PARAGRAPH BASICS--PART 5 OF 5
Want to select a given paragraph in a hurry? Move your cursor to
the margin on the left-hand side of the paragraph. You want your
cursor to look like an arrow instead of a line. When it does, simply
double-click. That will highlight the entire paragraph. Easy as pie.
When you're looking at your page in Navigational view, what you see
basically looks like a genealogy--there's that great-great grandmother
at the top, and everything else flows from there. Genealogy is a good
way to think of it, too, because page relationships are referred to in
genealogical terms. There are two basic page relationships: the
parent-child relationship and the peer relationship.
The parent-child relationship is when one page is above another.
The one on top is the parent page; the one beneath is the child. The
peer relationship refers to pages that are on the same level with one
another.
PAGE NAVIGATION--PART 2 OF 3
If you're the plan-ahead type and you've made an outline of your
Web site in advance, then you probably know how many pages you want
and how you want them to relate to one another--in other words, if
they should be peer pages or if they should have a parent-child
relationship. In that case, there's an easy way for you to build the
shell of your entire Web site in a hurry.
Start by choosing File, New, Web. In the New dialog box, find the
Empty Web option. Select Empty Web and click OK.
Now, select View, Navigation. You'll see a direction to create a
home page by starting a new page. Do this by choosing File, New, Page.
A home page icon will appear on your navigation screen. To add child
pages below the home page, right-click on the home page icon and
choose New Page from the context menu. A new page will appear below
the home page.
To add more pages on this level, continue to right-click on the
home page and choose New Page. If you want to add pages another level
down (that would be a grandchild to the home page), right-click on the
page that's directly below the home page. If you want to create a page
that's a peer to the home page, simply drag a page to the level of the
home page.
Each of the pages created in the navigational view is actually a
new page of your new web. Now all you have to do is get in there and
create the actual content of your site!
PAGE NAVIGATION--PART 3 OF 3
The Navigation view is a handy tool: It helps you get the overall
look of your site--how every page is related to every other.
Although all of his Web pages are still intact, he no longer has
the navigational chart. When he tries to re-create it, FrontPage tells
him--quite accurately--that the pages he's trying to create are
already there. The problem is that he'd like a flow chart in his
Navigation view again. The fix for this problem:
Navigation bar links are missing when you
preview your Web pages in FrontPage 2000 or in FrontPage 2002
You know you need a toolbar, but it doesn't appear when it's
supposed to--much to your chagrin. (For example, suppose you click on
a photo, only to find that the Pictures toolbar is nowhere in sight.)
To find and show a toolbar you need, simply choose View, Toolbars
and then pick the toolbar you want from the list.
Some tips just bear repeating. If you've seen this one before, it's
a good reminder; if you haven't, you'll be glad you're reading it now.
If you make a mistake and you want to undo something you've just
done, simply press Ctrl-Z on your keyboard. That will undo your last
action. The neat thing is that this key combo works with many programs
(certainly any Microsoft program), so it may come in handy in a number
of different situations.
Say you're typing away and you press the Enter key when you want to
start a new paragraph. And it seems like FrontPage knows exactly what
to do: The cursor jumps two lines instead of just one so you can start
that new paragraph. But what happens if you're typing poetry onto your
web page--or something like that--and you want your cursor to drop
down only one line instead of two? Simple. Instead of pressing the
Enter key, press Shift-Enter, and your cursor will move down only one
line.
You've got to do things so fast that you scarcely have time to stop
and click that mouse. If you prefer keyboarding and want an overview
of all the shortcut keys that FrontPage offers, open FrontPage Help
and type
keyboard shortcuts
in the Answer Wizard. There, you'll get a list of all the different
shortcuts you could ever imagine.
You don't pick your teeth at the dinner table, and you help little
old ladies cross the street if they have heavy groceries. So why
should your manners fade away just because you're on the Net? Well, if
you design your Web site without checking out how it looks in
different browsers, it may well be that you're making it tough on some
of your visitors. Remember, every browser is not created the same. So,
view your page on several different browsers. Don't have lots of
browsers loaded on your machine? No problem: Ask friends with
different browsers to provide you with some feedback.
MIND YOUR MANNERS--PART 2 OF 2
On the go and don't have time to check out that Web page when
you're sitting at your computer? No problem: You can just print it and
take a paper copy with you. Except--arghh!--the colors are practically
unreadable when that Web page is put on the printed page.
Don't let this happen to you. Even if your color combos look great
on screen, be sure they look okay once they're printed. Try to avoid
light (for example, yellow or white) text colors--otherwise, your
printed copies will only waste paper!
Bookmarks are handy inventions--just a thin piece of paper, slipped
casually into a book, helps you find the place you left off and saves
you a lot of time.
FrontPage uses the word "bookmark" to mean something slightly
different, though just as useful. A bookmark in FrontPage lets you
find a location in the middle of a Web page. These kinds of bookmarks
are handy for a few different things: they're good as links so
visitors to your site aren't always dropped off at the top of a given
page. They're also a handy way for you to navigate around a page. Much
like a paper bookmark, they help to mark a place so it's easier for
you to find when you go back to revisit a location on your site. Over
the next few days, we'll learn how to do a few different tricks with
bookmarks.
MARK IT WITH A "B" FOR BOOKMARK--PART 2 OF 5
Last time we introduced bookmarks. Today, you'll learn how to
create one. First, you should know that you can bookmark either a
location on your page or text on that page. If you're bookmarking
text, the words will be underlined with a dotted line. If you're
simply bookmarking a location, an icon will show up in the bookmarked
spot; it looks like a little blue flag.
To bookmark text, highlight the text in question. If you want to
bookmark a location, simply position your cursor in that spot on your
Web page. Now, choose Insert, Bookmark. In the Bookmark dialog box
that appears, you'll need to name your bookmark. Once you've given it
a name, click OK. Either your text will be underlined or a small blue
flag will appear on your page to indicate the bookmark. (Note that
these indications of a bookmark will not appear to visitors of your
Web page.)
MARK IT WITH A "B" FOR BOOKMARK--PART 3 OF 5
Say you create a simple table of contents at the top of the page
that indicates all the headings throughout the text of that page.
Then, you create links to the bookmarks--in this case, the
headings--to make it a breeze to navigate.
To make the hyperlinks, highlight the text where you want to start
the hyperlink. In our example, that would be the text in the table of
contents that you've placed at the top of the page. Now, click the
Hyperlink icon in the toolbar at the top of the page. The Hyperlink
icon looks like a small globe with a sideways figure-8 in front of it.
You'll know you have the right button because the word Hyperlink will
appear if you hold your cursor over the icon for a brief moment. In
the Create Hyperlink dialog box, first highlight the page containing
the bookmark to which you want to link. Now, look at the bottom of the
Create Hyperlink dialog box. Under the Optional section, you'll see a
heading titled Bookmark. Click on the drop-down arrow by the heading
and select the name of the bookmark to which you want to link. You'll
notice that the address of the hyperlink's URL changes to include the
name of your bookmark. Click OK. Test the hyperlink by pressing the
Ctrl key while clicking your mouse. This allows you to follow the link
to your bookmark.
MARK IT WITH A "B" FOR BOOKMARK--PART 4 OF 5
Bookmarks aren't only handy for your Web site visitors. They also
are useful tools for you, allowing you to find locations on a Web
page. Let's say that you created a bookmark in the spot where you last
left off editing your page. Now that you're back, ready to edit again,
you want to find that spot. Rather than scrolling through the page,
take this shortcut: Choose Insert, Bookmark. In the Bookmark dialog
box, look for the section called Other Bookmarks On This Page.
Highlight the name of the bookmark that's holding the spot where you
last stopped working. Click the Goto button on the right side of the
dialog box. Your bookmark will now be highlighted on the page. Click
OK to close the dialog box.
MARK IT WITH A "B" FOR BOOKMARK--PART 5 OF 5
Has a bookmark served its usefulness? You needed it for a while,
say, to find a particular spot on your page, but you don't need it
anymore. Rather than clutter your Web site with unnecessary
information, delete the bookmark.
First, highlight the bookmark that you want to delete--either the
bookmarked text or the small bookmark icon. Now choose Insert,
Bookmark. In the Bookmark dialog box, you should see the name of the
bookmark you want to delete in the Bookmark Name section. If you don't
see it there, go ahead and highlight it. Finally, click the Clear
button. That will effectively eliminate the bookmark.
There are two simple kinds of lists that FrontPage will help you
create: a bulleted list and a numbered list. To create either type of
list, you first need to select the text that you want to have in list
format. Now look at the toolbar at the top of FrontPage. You'll see
one icon that has a small number one, two, and three listed
vertically. If you click this icon, your selected text will become a
numbered list. Or if numbers aren't your fancy, you'll find the bullet
icon next to the number icon. It has three bullets, one under the
next. Click on that icon to create a bulleted list. Voila! The choice
is yours.
LIST THIS--PART 2 OF 2
Once you've created a list, you may find that you want to add
another item. Easy enough: First place your cursor at the end of the
last item on the list. Now press the Enter key on your keyboard. If
you have a numbered list, your cursor will appear on the next line,
all numbered and ready to go. If you're working with a bulleted list,
the next line will have a fresh bullet point; you can start typing
after that bullet.
You have a numbered list, but you'd prefer bullets. Or you have
round bullets and you'd prefer square. It's easy enough to make any of
these types of changes to a list. Simply select the list and
right-click. In the context box that appears, choose List Properties.
Then, select the list type and style you'd prefer. Now, click OK to
have the change(s) take effect.
You know all about links on the Web--after all, they're the best
way to navigate. But how do you add them to your own page?
Fortunately, FrontPage couldn't make this easier.
If you want to link from text, highlight the text in question. If
you want to link from an image, click on the image once to select it.
Look at the toolbars at the top of your screen. You're looking for the
hyperlink icon: It looks like a globe with a sideways figure-8 in
front of it. Click this icon once to open the Create Hyperlink dialog
box. If you want to link to a site on the Web, type the address in the
URL box. If you want to link to another page on your Web site, find
that page and select it. When you've finished either of these tasks,
click OK. Presto--your hyperlink is all linked up.
Here's another way to save your fingers from extra work. Set
FrontPage to automatically open the last web you were working on when
you relaunch the program. This is a particularly handy trick if you
know you'll be working on the same web over and over again.
To set this up, select Tools, Options. In the Options dialog box
that appears, select the option Open Last Web Automatically When
FrontPage Starts in the Startup section. Then click OK. Now your web
will automatically launch when you open FrontPage.
You've started building the company Web page and you're worried
about one particularly daunting task: getting all those
already-written forms, brochures, and spreadsheets onto the new site.
Don't worry--you won't have to hire a whole passel of temps to re-key
every word. Instead, FrontPage lets you import most document formats
into your Web site and does the HTML for you.
Start by opening the page view of the page where you want the
imported information to appear. Place your cursor where you want the
information to begin. Select Insert, File. When you see the Select
File box, you'll need to find the file you want to import. Sounds easy
enough, but you'll have to keep one thing in mind: When the Select
File box first appears, FrontPage is only looking for HTML files. But
chances are good that your brochures (or whatever) aren't in HTML
format. So click on the pull-down arrow next to Files Of type, and
you'll see a list of all the different file formats that FrontPage can
easily import. If you don't want to cull through the whole list, just
pick All Files.
Now, find the file you want to import and click Open. FrontPage
might say that it can't currently import that file type. "But it's
just a Word document," you start to stutter. DO NOT PANIC! All you
have to do is follow the onscreen instructions, which should ask you
politely to insert your FrontPage disc into your CD-ROM drive. (See
how cordial and civilized the whole thing is?) Once you do this,
FrontPage will load a bunch of instructions that will help the program
translate this type of file--in this case, a Word document--into the
HTML that it can better understand. In a few moments, that Word
document will appear--unscathed--on your FrontPage web.
Best of all, you won't need your FrontPage CD every time you want
to insert a new document. Once FrontPage has learned how to import a
Word document, it can do them all. Of course, if you then try to
import an Excel spreadsheet, or something like that, you might need
that disc again--but next time around, you'll know just what to do.
Sometimes, you just want to keep things under wraps. If you have
files for your Web page that you'd like to tuck away where co-workers
won't have access to them, you can create a hidden file. To do that,
choose File, New, Folder. When you name your new folder, make sure it
begins with an underscore (for example, _keepout). That underscore
ensures no one can see the private folder.
KEEP OUT--PART 2 OF 2
In our previous tip, you learned how to create a hidden folder.
Well, that's all well and good, but it doesn't help much if you can't
see the folder yourself. To view all hidden folders, select Tools, Web
Settings. In the Web Settings dialog box, click the General tab. Look
for the option Show Documents In Hidden Directories. Once you select
that option and click OK, you'll be able to see all hidden folders.
Ever have to select an entire page and spend so much time scrolling
that your mouse finger hurts? Well, here's a quick and easy shortcut
that prevents carpal tunnel syndrome: Click on the section of your web
page where you want the selection to begin. Now press the Shift key on
your keyboard. Hold down the Shift key while you find the place where
you want your selection to end. Click at the end of the selection,
then release the Shift key. The whole section will be highlighted. By
the way, this neat trick works in other Microsoft programs, like Word.
In the movies, directors can create different effects as they move
from scene to scene. They can fade, cut, blend, etc. (You get the
idea.) Well, you can do something similar with your Web page; you can
create page transitions. This allows you, basically, to create a
blend, or a wipe left, or a circle in as your visitor enters or exits
a page.
To begin, choose Format, Page Transition. In the Page Transitions
dialog box, you'll need to adjust a few settings. First, fill in the
duration of the event--that is, the number of seconds that you want
your page transition to last. (Don't go overboard here. After all,
page transitions are cool, but they aren't THAT cool.) Second, you'll
want to choose the type of transition effect. Pick from the list--and
remember that you can always change it if you don't like the effect.
Finally, choose when you want the event to happen--either at Page
Enter, Page Exit, Site Enter, or Site Exit. (We'll talk a little more
about this next time, so don't sweat it too much now.) All done? Click
OK to finish the job.
JUST PAGING THROUGH--PART 2 OF 4
In our previous tip, you learned how to set up a page transition,
but all of the choices of when the event would happen weren't quite
clear. Well, here's a little primer of the different options:
Page Enter means that the page transition will happen when the
visitor comes to that page.
Page Exit means that the transition will happen when the visitor
leaves that page.
Site Enter means that the transition will happen only when the visitor
enters the whole, entire Web site through that page. Basically, then,
you'll want to use this transition on your home page, since that's the
page visitors generally see first when they visit your site.
Site Exit means that the transition will happen when the visitor
leaves your site--the whole site--and goes to another Web site
altogether.
JUST PAGING THROUGH--PART 3 OF 4
You've set up a page transition on your site, and you're trying to
view it in Preview mode, but you just can't get the thing to work. Did
you do something wrong? Probably not, but here are a few things to
keep in mind: First, you have to get the page in question to APPEAR
while you're in Preview mode. So you can't just switch over to Preview
mode to see the transition in action; instead, you have to go there
while you're already previewing. The best way to do this? Hyperlink to
the page to see the transition work. Don't have a hyperlink to that
page? Create one--just to be sure that you like the transition.
Next, you may have to actually publish your page to be able to see
the page transition if you've set it to appear when you're leaving or
entering the site. After all, there's no way to do that in Preview
mode. (If any readers have found a way to do this without publishing
their site first, please send your ideas along. The rest of us would
greatly appreciate it.)
JUST PAGING THROUGH--PART 4 OF 4
Sick of page transitions? Think they're too retro, too '70s? If you
want to get rid of the transitions on your page, just choose the page
in question, then select Format, Page Transition. In the list of
transition effects, choose No Effect. Finally, click OK. The
transition is now cleared from your site.
Your bulleted list has round bullet points, but you prefer the
square kind. Here's how to make a change:
Begin by choosing Format, Bullets And Numbering. In the List
Properties dialog box, click the Plain Bullets tab. Here you'll see
several different options, ranging from a bulleted list without
bullets (huh?) to round bullets to square bullets. Click on the
picture of the kind of bullet points you'd prefer and then click OK.
The bullets will change on the list you've just been working on but
won't change for other lists. You'll have to change the bullet points
on those lists separately.
JAZZING UP YOUR BULLETS--PART 2 OF 2
If you're using a theme on your Web page, you'll often notice that
the bullets are actually little images--much cooler than the standard
round or square bullet point. But if you're not using a theme, can you
ever hope for such interesting-looking bullets? Absolutely.
First, choose Format, Bullets And Numbering. In the List Properties
dialog box, click the Picture Bullets tab. Next, select the Specify
Picture option. Click the Browse button to find an image on your hard
drive that will work as a bullet. Keep in mind that you'll need to use
images that are small enough to be appropriate for a bullet point--you
won't be able to resize these images once they've been inserted on
your page. One good place to find appropriate images is in the
FrontPage clip art collection. There's a section called Buttons &
Icons. These images are all the perfect size for use as bullet points.
Once you've found the perfect image, click the OK button to insert
your new bullet points.
FrontPage has lots of great shortcuts. One of the best is its
ability to import documents, and even folders of documents, sparing
you the trouble of re-creating information that's already sitting on
your hard drive.
To import a file or folder, start by opening the web with which
you'll be working. Once it's open, select File, Import. In the Import
dialog box, you'll see the options Add File and Add Folder. Click on
the appropriate choice. Now a new dialog box--called Add File (or
Folder) To Import List--will appear. Find the file or folder you want
to import and select it. Choose Open, and you'll see the name of the
file (or all the files in the folder) appear in the Import dialog box.
Once you're satisfied, click OK, and the file (or folder) will be
added to your web.
IMPORT THIS--PART 2 OF 3
When you're importing a series of files or folders to your
FrontPage web site, you may be getting an error message telling you
that the file already exists on the web. Keep in mind that if you
choose to replace a file, you overwrite the file that's on the web.
The bottom line here is to proceed with caution: Be sure you don't
have two completely different files with the same name before you
overwrite one of them.
IMPORT THIS--PART 3 OF 3
Before you bought and installed FrontPage, you were working on a
web site. You know it's pretty easy to use FrontPage to re-create what
you've already done, but it seems like a huge waste of time. It
is--and even FrontPage knows it. That's why it includes an Import Web
Wizard that allows you to import an entire other web.
Here's how to get the messy job done in a hurry: First, select
File, New, Web. In the New dialog box, select the icon Import Web
Wizard, then click OK. Now you just need to follow the directions
provided by the wizard. Since you already have a web on your hard
drive, your first step is to tell the wizard that you want to import
from a source directory of files on a local computer or network. Now
you have to tell it the location of those Web files. (Tip in a tip:
Click the Browse key if you don't know the exact name of the folder
where you've stored the files.) Since the folder probably has some
subfolders, click Include Subfolders.
From there, simply follow the wizard's directions--they're
completely self-explanatory and will walk you through the process of
excluding or adding any other files. When you're satisfied, click the
Finish button to add those files to your new FrontPage web.
Let's say you have an image and you want to create a link from that
image. Easy enough. But what if you want to create several links from
one image? Can it be done? Yes. In fact, there's a name for such a
beast: It's called an image map.
To create an image map, first click on the image to select it. Now,
look for the picture toolbar at the bottom of your screen. On the far
right of the picture toolbar, you'll see three icons that are each the
outline of a different shape--a rectangle, a circle, and a polygon.
Click on the rectangle and you'll notice that your cursor turns into a
pencil. When you click and drag that pencil on your image, you'll draw
a rectangle. As soon as you release your cursor, the Create Hyperlink
dialog box will appear. Type the address of the URL that you'd like to
link to from this hotspot on your image. Then, click OK. Continue to
add hotspots to your image using the Rectangular Hotspot, Circular
Hotspot, or Polygonal Hotspot icon. When you're done, take your image
map for a test-drive by viewing it in your browser and jumping to all
the different sites to which your image has links.
IMAGE MAPPING--PART 2 OF 3
Once you create an image map, you might want to go back and check
out where you put all your hotspots. To highlight hotspots on your
image, first click once on the image to select it. Now look for the
Highlight Hotspots icon on the picture toolbar at the bottom of the
screen. This icon looks like an arrow pointing to an aqua-blue
rectangle. Click the icon, and you'll see all the hotspots in your
image, neatly outlined.
IMAGE MAPPING--PART 3 OF 3
When you're creating an image map, it's always a good idea to use
an image that already suggests different links. For example, if you
have a map of the US, it only seems natural for you to have links from
different sections of the map to your different store locations across
the country. However, as obvious as your image map may seem to you, it
never hurts to make things a little clearer. The easiest way is to add
text labels to your image map.
To do so, first click on the image and highlight the image
hotspots. Now look for an icon with a big A in the picture toolbar at
the bottom of the screen. This is the text label icon. Click it once.
A box will appear in the center of your image. Type the text label you
want to add to your image map. Now, click outside the label box. Once
you've done this, you can click the label again and--while holding
down your mouse--drag it to the section of the image that it's meant
to label. Continue to add labels for as many hotspots as you have on
your image map.
You've been fiddling around on your Web page and you suddenly come
to the conclusion that you don't like any of the changes you've just
made. Lucky for you, FrontPage allows you an unlimited number of
Undos. To undo anything, simply press the Ctrl-Z key combo on your
keyboard or click the Undo icon on the toolbar at the top of the
FrontPage screen.
I DON'T LIKE IT--PART 2 OF 2
You know that if you want to undo something in FrontPage, you can,
but what if you want to undo a lot of somethings? Say a few steps.
Easy. Instead of undoing each individual step, FrontPage allows you to
undo several at a time. Check out the Undo icon on the FrontPage
toolbar. (It looks like an arrow that's pointing to the lower-left
corner of the page.) To the right of that icon you'll notice a small
menu arrow. Click and hold that arrow, and you'll see the last seven
commands you just completed when you were working in FrontPage.
Highlight as many items as you want; when you release your mouse
button, FrontPage will undo them all.
Hover buttons are a great multimedia trick to add to your Web site.
They are buttons that change color, glow, or make a sound when the
mouse cursor hovers above them. Hover buttons are particularly handy
as navigational tools or menu option buttons, because you can easily
use them as links. In fact, there are lots of little tricks you can do
with hover buttons. Stay tuned... Over the next few days, we'll learn
about some of them.
HOVERING--PART 2 OF 5
To add a hover button to your page, first position your cursor
where you'd like the button to appear. Now, select Insert, Component,
Hover Button. The Hover Properties dialog box will appear on your
page.
First things first: You'll need some text to identify your hover
button. There's a line that asks for Button Text--type something here
to identify the button. If you're using the hover button as a
navigational tool, type the link name--or that sort of thing. You
might also want to change the font color and style. To do that, simply
click the Font button to the right of Button Text and make the
appropriate changes.
If you're going to use the button as a link, now's the time to set
that up. Locate the line in the dialog box called Link and click the
Browse button to the right of it. Now find the page (or Web site or
file or whatever) that you want to link to, and select it to set up
the link.
There are a few more things to decide before you've finished
creating your hover button. You'll want to set a color for the button
itself. You'll also want to pick a color for the effect you're going
to use on your button. (More on that in a minute.) Also, you'll need
to set the size of the button: Notice a place for width and height?
These are measured in pixels, so just make the appropriate
adjustments.
Okay, now for the really fun part: You get to choose an effect for
your hover button. Select Effect and click the pull-down arrow to the
right of the white box. Once there, you can choose from several
different effects, such as color fill, glow, or color average. Choose
one that sounds interesting to you.
Got everything set? Click OK to add the hover button to your page.
More to come next time..
HOVERING--PART 3 OF 5
You go to check out the effect of your hover button, but you don't
see anything change when you move your cursor across the button. What
did you do wrong? Nothing, really. It's just one of those FrontPage
things! First, save your page. Next, view the page in Preview mode by
clicking the Preview tab at the bottom of the screen. When you scroll
over the button, you should now see your effect in action.
HOVERING--PART 4 OF 5
Don't like the effect of your hover button? Or perhaps you want to
change a color, or the text no longer works for you. Not a problem.
Make sure you're viewing your page in Normal mode, and then just
double-click the hover button you'd like to edit. The Hover Button
Properties dialog box will appear, and you can make whatever changes
you'd like. Just remember to save the changes and view the page in
Preview mode to see your edits in action.
HOVERING--PART 5 OF 5
Several days ago, we were discussing hover buttons and all their
beauty. Today, we tackle adding sound to a button. "How?" you eagerly
ask.
It's simple, really. View your page in Normal mode and double-click
on the hover button to which you'd like to add sound. In the Hover
Button Properties dialog box, click the Custom button. There you'll
see that you have the option to add a sound that will play either when
people hover over the button or when they click on it. To add either
of these, simply click the Browse button to the right of that option,
find the sound you'd like to add, and click OK.
It's nice to know how many people have come to your site--it makes
you feel good, important, and wanted. Ah, that's nice.
The best way to know how many visitors--or hits--you've had is to
add a hit counter. It's easy to do, too. First, select the place where
you'd like your hit counter to appear on your site. Then, select
Insert, Components, Hit Counter. Now, choose the style of hit counter
you'd like and click OK. Note that you won't actually see the hit
counter on the page until you publish the site. Instead, you'll just
see the hit counter surrounded by brackets, like so--[hit counter].
HITTING A HIT COUNTER--PART 2 OF 4
Note that when you insert a hit counter on your page, that's all
your visitors will see--just a number. So you'll probably want to add
some descriptive text around it--something like "xx number of people
have visited this site" or even something as basic as "Total Hits."
HITTING A HIT COUNTER--PART 3 OF 4
Where should you place a hit counter on your Web site? Well, it
might just be a little ostentatious to place it at the top of your
home page (unless, of course, you don't have many site visitors, in
which case it would just be silly). The best place for a hit counter
is toward the bottom of your page, before any copyright information.
Who reads the fine print, anyway?
HITTING A HIT COUNTER--PART 4 OF 4
There may come a time when you want to reset your hit counter:
You've hit a certain number of visitors, say, and it's time to start
over. Here's how:
Double-click the hit counter in FrontPage to open the Hit Counter
Properties dialog box. In the dialog box, you'll see the Reset Counter
To radio button. Select this button by clicking it. If you don't want
to reset the counter to zero but to some other number, change the
number now. Once you save the updated page to the Web, the hit counter
will be reset.
Ever select a page that has some nifty background sound that plays
while you peruse? Well, you can add your own sounds to your page.
Here's how.
Select the page where you'd like to attach a sound and right-click.
Choose Page Properties from the context menu. In the Page Properties
dialog box, click the General tab and look for the Background Sound
section. In the Location box, enter the name of the sound file you'd
like to play. The easiest way to do that is to click the Browse
button, search your files until you find the sound file you'd like to
add, and click OK.
The last step is to set the number of times you'd like your sound
file to repeat. In the Loop section, you'll see the Forever option,
which is enabled by default. What that means is that your sound file
will keep replaying and replaying and replaying, as long as your
visitor is looking at your page. If that feels like overkill to you,
deselect the Forever option and enter a specific number of times that
you'd like the sound file to repeat. Finally, click OK.
A visitor to your Web site clicks on a photo, and, when the
clicking's done, the picture disappears and transforms into an image
of a checkmark. Cool trick, huh? Wanna do that on your site?
Start by selecting the photo that you want to transform. Now choose
Format, Dynamic HTML Effects. In the DHTML Effects toolbar, you'll be
presented with a series of actions. In this case, since you want the
image to change when someone clicks on it, click on the pull-down
arrow and select Click from the list.
Next, you'll tell FrontPage what to do when someone clicks on the
image. Click the pull-down arrow to the right of Apply and select Swap
Picture from the list. Finally, you have to choose the picture that
you'd like to swap out. Click on the pull-down arrow to the right of
Choose Picture and click Choose Picture. (Seems redundant, but that's
the way it is.) In the Picture dialog box that appears, search around
for the picture you want. Once you've found and highlighted it, click
OK.
You're all set. Close the DHTML Effects toolbar to get it out of
the way. Now, to see your brilliance at work, click the Preview tab in
the bottom-left corner of the screen. Once you're in Preview mode,
click on your photo to see it swap to another picture.
(NOTE: The photo you select will be the same size as the photo it's
replacing, so you'll want to be sure that it looks good and doesn't
have to stretch or shrink too much to fit.)
The Web is supposed to help you know things faster and get
information more easily. But if the last time someone updated a given
Web page was way back in December 1998, then the info you're getting
probably won't enlighten you much.
How do you let visitors to your site know that the information
they're reading is current? Well, if you add a date and time
stamp--which lists the date when the page was LAST UPDATED--then
viewers will know whether your site is up to date. And of course,
having that date posted might just motivate you to stay current.
Position your cursor where you want the date stamp to appear on
your page. One good place for this might be in a bottom border. Choose
Insert, Date And Time. In the Date And Time Properties dialog box, you
can specify whether you want to display the date that the page was
last edited or the date the page was last automatically updated. You
can also choose a format style for the date and time. When you've
finished making your selections, click OK. The date stamp will appear
on your page.
Like that old-time black-and-white look? Well, if you have a color
photo on your page, it's easy enough to turn it black and white.
First, click once on the photo in question to select it. Now, look at
the picture toolbar at the bottom of your screen. The icon you're
looking for has two triangles that, when fit together, would make a
square. You'll know you've found the right one because the words Black
and White will pop up when you hold your cursor over the icon. Click
once on this magic button, and your photo will instantly change to a
black-and-white masterpiece.
Out with the old and in with the new: No, we're not talking about
the presidential election. We're talking about your Web site--once in
a while it's just time to purge those old files.
To get the job done in a hurry, right-click on the file you want to
eliminate. From the context menu that appears, choose Delete. Voila!
It's gone.
If you've got a few Web pages open and you want to quickly move
from one to the other, try pressing the Ctrl and Tab keys on your
keyboard. If you hold down the Ctrl key and keep pressing the Tab key,
you'll circle through all the open pages.
Changing fonts is part of the fun of designing a Web page. To
change font style and size, first highlight the text in question. (Or,
if you want to set a font style for a whole Web page, position your
cursor at the top of the page before you've added any text.) Now, look
at the toolbars at the top of your screen. There, you'll see a
pull-down list that offers innumerable font styles. Next to font
styles, you'll see another pull-down list for font sizes. Then, on the
far right of the toolbar, there's the option for font color. Tinker
with these three options to create the look you want.
FANCY FONTS--PART 2 OF 2
Our previous tip was on font basics--how to change style, color,
and size. This might have been stuff you already knew, but there's a
little more to font than you might have imagined. Again, select the
text you'd like to change. Choose Format, Font to open the Font dialog
box. Now you can use this dialog box to change style, color, and size,
just as you could on the toolbar--but that would be silly. Instead,
check out the Effects section. Use these options to create effects
like underlining or strikethrough or small caps. Once you've specified
the effect you want, click OK to apply it.
The last two days, you've learned how to add some Dynamic HTML
effects to your site. But let's say you've added something--and
subsequently decided that you don't like it anymore. Is there an easy
way to delete it?
Of course. If you're removing an effect from text, highlight the
text in question. If you're removing it from an image, simply click on
the image to select it. Next, choose Format, Dynamic HTML Effects. To
the far right of the DHTML dialog box that appears, you'll see the
option Remove Effect. Click that option, and the effect is effectively
deleted.
There's nothing like keeping everything organized. When things have
an order, it's easier to work, to find files, and to get things done.
Well, the same thing applies to your Web site. You can organize files
by different categories--say business files or travel files or some
such thing. Here's how to get the job done.
Select View, Reports, Categories. You'll now see a list of all the
different files you have in your web. (Note that there's a column
called Category, which is probably blank. This is where you'll see the
different categories for your files, once you assign them.) Select the
file you want to categorize first. Right-click on the file and choose
Properties. In the Properties dialog box, click the Workgroup tab.
There, you'll see a list of categories. Choose the appropriate
categories for the file in question. Be aware that you can choose more
than one category for each file. When you've finished choosing
categories, click OK. You will now see the category you selected in
the Category column.
EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE--PART 2 OF 4
Last time, you learned how to categorize the different files of
your FrontPage web. But what if you have several files that belong in
the same category? Do you have to sit and file each one separately?
Not at all. In the Category view, simply select all the files that
belong in the same category, right-click, and choose Properties from
the context menu. Select the Workgroup tab in the Properties dialog
box, and then select the category that applies to all the files you
selected.
EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE--PART 3 OF 4
You like this categorizing thing; giving all the files an order
appeals to you. But here's the catch: The categories that FrontPage
provides--like Competition, Ideas, and Travel--don't work for you. No
problem--just create your own categories.
First, you need to get to the category list. Do that by
right-clicking on any file in the Category view and selecting
Properties from the context menu. In the Properties dialog box, click
the Workgroup tab. There, you'll see the list of categories. You'll
also see the Categories button. Click that button once and you'll see
the Master Category list. To add your own category, simply type it in
the New Category text box and click the Add button. When you've
finished adding categories, click OK.
EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE--PART 4 OF 4
Categories are all well and good, but they're really not much use
if all your Business files are lumped together with your Travel files.
What you really need to do is view only one category of files at a
time.
While in the Category view, open the Reporting toolbar. To do this,
select View, Toolbar, Reporting. The new toolbar will appear on your
screen. Now, click the down arrow by the Report Setting box. (If you
don't know which arrow that is, hold your cursor by the arrow for a
moment. A label will appear that tells you you've located Report
Setting.) Select the category you'd like to display. Only that
category will appear on the screen. When you've finished looking over
files in that category, go back to Report Setting and either choose
another category or select all categories to display all files.
Some things just seem like they always have been and always will be
a certain way. For example, when you're navigating through a Web site,
you click Back to go back to the last page and Next to go to the next
page. But the labels don't have to say these exact things: You CAN
buck the trend. To change the way the labels appear on your navigation
bars, select Tools, Web Settings. Next, click the Navigation tab. Make
your customizations and then click OK.
No, we're not talking Vogue fashion. We're talking about the
elusive style sheets--sometimes known as cascading style sheets. What
are they? Style sheets can be a little tough to understand. Basically,
you use style sheets to specify design parameters for your Web page.
"But I can do that already," you say. True enough--to a degree. After
all, you can change font style and size or set background color. But
with style sheets, you can do more detailed tricks, like changing
character spacing (that is, the space between letters) or set shading
properties for boxes--and you can apply these effects and change them
with a few clicks of the mouse. Over the next few days, you'll learn
some of the basics of style sheets.
DESIGNING IN STYLE--PART 2 OF 5
Style sheets can be pretty complicated. In fact, high-end Web
designers use them to drill down into the details of Web design.
Fortunately for the less design-savvy among us, FrontPage has some
built-in, pre-designed style sheets you can use if you want to apply a
style to multiple pages of your Web site. These are called external
style sheets. Best of all, they're really easy to use.
Choose File, New, Page. In the dialog box that appears, click the
Style Sheets tab. As you highlight the different options, read the
description of the styles on the right-hand side of the dialog box.
When you find one you like the sound of, click OK. Suddenly, instead
of looking at the familiar comfort of the Web page you were just
designing, you're staring at a bunch of unfamiliar code. Don't
panic--that code is the guts of the style sheet you chose. You might
also see a small Style dialog box. For now, let's assume you don't
want to make any changes to the preformatted style sheet. (You'll
learn how to do that in a future tip.) Choose File, Save As. Give your
new style sheet a name and click OK.
Tune in next time for more steps on applying this new style to your
Web.
DESIGNING IN STYLE--PART 3 OF 5
Last time, you learned how to choose a style sheet from FrontPage's
options, but--you noted, sadly--nothing seemed to change.
Right--that's because even though you created a style sheet, you
haven't yet linked your Web pages to it. Here's how to finish the job:
First, choose Format, Style Sheet Links. In the Link Style Sheet
dialog box that appears, you'll see two radio buttons: Click All Pages
to apply the style to your entire web. (You'll learn how to apply it
to selected pages another day.) Now, you'll notice that the box under
URL is blank. You'll need to add your style sheet so FrontPage knows
what style to apply. Start by clicking the Add button to the right of
the dialog box. Find the name of your style sheet in the Select
Hyperlink dialog box. Here's a tip in case you're having trouble
finding it: All style sheets have a .css extension. Once you've found
the right style sheet, select it and click OK.
You're now back in the Link Style Sheet dialog box and the name of
your style sheet should appear in the white box. If everything looks
hunky-dory, click OK. You'll see your new style on your web.
DESIGNING IN STYLE--PART 4 OF 5
You've now learned how to apply a style to your entire web, but
what if you want it to apply to a few select pages only? Easy!
First, choose the Folders view. Now, highlight the pages to which
you want the new style to apply. If you want to select several pages,
hold down the Shift key (for consecutive pages) or the Ctrl key (for
pages that aren't next to each other). Choose Format, Style Sheet
Links. In the Link Style Sheet dialog box that appears, you'll see two
radio buttons: This time, click Selected Page(s). The style sheet will
be applied only to the pages you chose when you were back in the
Folders view.
Next, you'll need to add your style sheet so FrontPage knows what
style to apply. Start by clicking the Add button to the right of the
dialog box. Find the name of your style sheet in the Select Hyperlink
dialog box. Here's a tip in case you're having trouble finding it: All
style sheets have a .css extension. Once you've found the right style
sheet, select it and click OK. You're now back in the Link Style Sheet
dialog box and the name of your style sheet should appear in the white
box. If everything looks hunky-dory, click OK. You'll see your new
style applied to the specific web pages you selected.
DESIGNING IN STYLE--PART 5 OF 5
You've applied a FrontPage style, but you've decided you'd like to
make a few tweaks. Nothing daunted, you open the style page (choose
File, Open and then find the page), but then you gasp. All that code!
Don't panic. Style pages may seem impenetrable if you're just reading
through them, but FrontPage has a few tricks up its sleeve to help you
through the process.
With your style sheet open, choose Format, Style. The Style dialog
box will appear on the screen. Using this box, you'll make changes to
your style sheet. First, look on the left side of the dialog box at
the Styles list. This might look a little cryptic, but it's important.
These are the different parts of the style sheet you'll be editing.
For example, see the word "body"? If you select that, you'll be
editing the body text style of your style sheet. Look for "a:
link"--that has to do with the style of hyperlink text; "a: visited"
is the hyperlink text once it's already been visited; and so on.
Select the part of your style sheet you'd like to edit and then click
the Modify button.
Now you're in the Modify Style dialog box. Click the Format button,
and a whole list will appear. Do you want to edit the font? Select
that. The paragraph style? (That would have to do with indentation,
spacing, and so forth.) Pick it. You get the idea. If you're not sure
what something means, don't hesitate to experiment. You can always
cancel out of these dialog boxes so your changes don't take hold. Once
you're in the Font or Paragraph (or whatever) dialog box, make the
changes you'd like. When you're done, click OK to return to the Modify
Style dialog box. Now click OK to get back to the Style dialog box.
Finally (assuming you've done your tinkering), click OK. You should
see the changes you made take effect on your web.
Here's a little design tip: Select the first letter of the first
word of your Web page and make it a font size or two larger than the
rest of the lettering. This will add some attraction, without
cluttering your page.
You may not be creating a dictionary on your Web page, but
sometimes you still have to define a term or two. Fortunately,
FrontPage has a feature that lets you create a "definition list"--it's
basically a formatting trick that makes it clear that you're defining
a term. To add this feature to your page, first position your cursor
where you want the definition to begin. Now, look at the toolbars at
the top of your FrontPage screen. On the far-left side of the Format
toolbar, you'll see a white box with an arrow next to it. In the white
box, it says "Normal." Click on the arrow next to the word Normal and
scroll down until you see the phrase "Defined Term." Select that
phrase; it should now appear in the box on your toolbar. Start typing.
First, type the term you want to define. Then press the Enter key on
your keyboard. Now type the definition for your term. You'll notice
that the indentation is different for the term versus the definition.
That's how a definition list looks.
DEFINE THIS--PART 2 OF 2
In our previous tip, you learned how to create a definition list.
Now, here are a few tricks for making this tool more user friendly--if
you want to enter more than one definition for a term, press Shift and
Enter at the same time. That will simply insert a line break instead
of setting you up for another definition. When you've finished adding
terms and definitions, press the Control and Enter keys at the same
time--or just press the Enter key twice--and you'll return to Normal
formatting.
One of the cool things about the Web is that it allows people to
communicate with one another. Your Web page is no exception: You
should be sure to offer ways for people to talk to you. One way is by
creating a mail-to link, which is basically an email hyperlink that
lets people send you instant emails. Here's how.
Begin by placing your cursor where you want the mail-to link to
appear. Select Insert, Hyperlink. In the Create Hyperlink dialog box,
you'll see a line asking for a URL. To the right of that URL line,
you'll notice a series of icons. The second icon from the right looks
like the back of an envelope. (To be sure you have the right icon,
hold your cursor over it; the context-sensitive label should read
"Make a hyperlink that sends E-mail".) Click once on that icon.
At this point, a new dialog box will appear--the Create E-mail
Hyperlink dialog box. It's asking for the email address where you'd
like all those visitor emails to be sent. Type in the correct email
address, check it twice, and click OK. Now you'll see only the Create
Hyperlink dialog box, with the new email address in the URL line.
Click OK. Your Web page will now include a mail-to link. When visitors
click on it, they'll automatically get an email screen so they can
send you a message.
COLLECTING FEEDBACK--PART 2 OF 4
In our previous tip, you learned about adding a mail-to link to
your Web page in order to make it easier for your visitors to
communicate with you. But there's more than one way to solicit
information from the folks who are viewing your page. You can add a
feedback form, and it couldn't be easier to do. Simply position the
cursor where you want the form to appear and select Insert, Form,
Form. Voila! An insta-form, with a Submit and Reset button, all ready
to go! (Tune in next time for more information on customizing this
form.)
COLLECTING FEEDBACK--PART 3 OF 4
Well, in our previous tip you inserted a form on your Web page, but
then you started wondering "Hey, this doesn't look like a really good
way to encourage a dialog with my cyber-visitors." And you're right.
You'll have to spiff it up a little to convince folks to type in their
thoughts. Here are some tips on how to do that.
Once your form is in place, add a little extra room in it, by
pressing the Enter key a few times. Ah--some breathing space. Now,
move your cursor up to the top of the form. Select Insert, Form.
You'll see lots of options, ranging from a one-line text box to a
drop-down menu. These are all the different kinds of items you can add
to your feedback form to encourage people to actually send you
information.
Overwhelmed? Here's an example: Select Insert, Form, One-Line Text
Box. A small, rectangular box will appear on your screen. Next to it,
type
Your Name
Now, add other text boxes with other information--like an email
address. You can take advantage of the check boxes and radio buttons
when you have a series of different choices. Use the scrolling text
box when you want people to be able to send you a paragraph's worth of
information.
COLLECTING FEEDBACK--PART 4 OF 4
In the past few days, you've learned how to add different links and
forms to your Web page so visitors will be able to communicate with
you. But when you went to try out these nifty new items to be sure
they worked properly, you couldn't type anything in the text boxes and
the mail-to link went nowhere. Think you got it all wrong? Not a
chance. You're just not looking at it from the right point of view. At
the bottom of your screen, you'll see three tabs: Normal, HTML, and
Preview. You've been working in the Normal tab, which is just where
you should be. However, when you want to test out the features you've
just added, you need to jump over to the Preview tab. Once you click
on that tab, you'll be able to type in the feedback form, click on
radio buttons, or send yourself an email using the mail-to link.
Say you have a few different pages open and you want to close down
just one of them. First, open the Window menu and select the page that
you want to close. Then, look in the upper-right corner of THAT
window. Nope, not the corner of the whole screen--just of that
particular page. You'll see a little X. Click the X once, and that
page will close.
If you want to apply an effect--like a font style change or
color--to a whole page, you have to select the whole page first,
right? But rather than scrolling over the entire page to select it,
press Ctrl-A on your keyboard. That will select the page in a jiffy.
You might decide that different cells of your table should look
different--maybe one needs a different background color or different
alignment. It's easy enough to customize separate cells. Simply select
the cell (or cells) you want to change and right-click. Select Cell
Properties from the context menu and make your changes in the Cell
Properties dialog box. That's all there is to it.
Nope, we're not talking about snoozing off. (It's the middle of the
day! Wake up!) We're talking about adding a horizontal line to your
Web page. These handy design items are useful if you want to divide
your page. To add one, first position your cursor where you want the
line to appear on your page. Now select Insert, Horizontal Line.
Voila! A line will appear on your page.
BEING HORIZONTAL--PART 2 OF 3
Last time, you learned how to add a horizontal line to your page,
but you weren't too impressed with the result. After all, it was a
drab, thin black line. Want a little more color and pizzazz? Easy.
Just double-click on your newly added horizontal line. The Horizontal
Line Properties dialog box will appear. (They have one of those dialog
boxes for everything, don't they?) In this dialog box, you can change
the color, height, width, and alignment of your line. Tinker away and
then click OK to have your changes take effect.
BEING HORIZONTAL--PART 3 OF 3
In this series of tips, you've seen all this great stuff about
adding horizontal lines and making changes to them, but you can't seem
to do that with your horizontal line. And it isn't plain ol' black and
drab, either. What's going on here? No, there isn't some strange bug
in your copy of FrontPage. In fact, it's no mystery at all. It's just
that if you're using a theme on your Web page, the line that you add
will stylistically adjust with the theme you've selected.
If you want to add a background image to your Web page, it's
certainly easy enough to do. Just follow these steps:
Begin by selecting File, Properties. In the Page Properties dialog
box, click the Background tab. (NOTE: If you don't have a Background
tab, it's because you've already applied a theme to your Web site. You
can't change the background this way if your site has a theme.) Now,
under Formatting, click Background Picture. Click the Browse button to
find the image on your hard drive. Once you've found the image you
want, click OK. The image should appear, as a repeating pattern, in
the background of your page. Keep one important thing in mind when you
use this technique: Background images need to be subtle. If they're
too bold or loud, people won't be able to see the page for all the
busy-ness in the background. To avoid this problem, check out the clip
art that comes with FrontPage: It has a whole section of background
art.
Tired of the same ol' buttons, rulers, and bullets that FrontPage
offers? Well, on the Web you can find other options--for free. One
good site? Netscape has a tool chest that provides a treasure trove of
such paraphernalia. Check it out at
Now that you've checked out all the cool buttons, bullets, and
backgrounds that you can add to your site, you want more. Give 'em an
inch, they'll take a mile... If you're looking for images of anything
from airplanes to religious symbols, check out the Cool Archive site
at
This site is essentially a central repository of all clip-art
information. From here, you can link to practically every clip-art
site on the Web. Keep in mind that you'll probably spend lots of time
here--but if you're looking for that perfect image, it's probably
worth it.
ARTSY--PART 4 OF 5
You see an image on the Web and you like it. So why not download it
and use it on your site? We can sum that up in just one word: illegal.
Unless clip art (or animations, sound files, etc.) is offered for
free, you have to cough up some cash to use it on your site.
ARTSY--PART 5 OF 5
All this talk of clip art on the Web, but you're not sure how to
get those cool images and pictures from the Internet onto your
computer. Easy: When you find the image you want, right-click it. In
the pop-up menu that appears, choose Save Picture As. Now, choose a
location on your hard drive where you want to save the image, give the
image a name that's easy to remember, and click OK. When you need to
add the image to your Web site, you'll find it on that place on your
hard drive where you stored it.
Here's another thought on design: Don't use more than three
different fonts on your Web page. It makes everything too busy for
readers to really absorb.
It's been a while since you worked on your Web page (no, we won't
tell the Web police), and you can't remember where you put the last
files you were working on. Rather than dredging through your memory,
use this easy trick: If you choose File, Recent Files, you'll get a
list of all the files you last had open. Similarly, choosing File,
Recent Webs will display a list of all the Web sites you've been
working on, if there are more than one.
Yes, a rose by any other name would still be a rose--but your Web
site by any other name could just create a nightmare of broken
hyperlinks. Fortunately, you can avoid all those problems if you
change a web's name with FrontPage. Start by selecting Tools, Web
Settings. In the Web Settings dialog box, select the General tab.
There, you'll see a section called Web Name. Go ahead and make your
change here.
One note: If you've already published your Web site and then
renamed it, you'll have to republish it with the new name.
Over the past few days, you learned a lot about how to use style
sheets. But there's one important thing you should keep in mind: In
order for style sheets to work, a viewer's browser has to support
them. Newer browsers--specifically, Internet Explorer 3.0 and later
and Netscape Communicator and Navigator 4.0 and later--do support
style sheets. If a viewer is using a different browser, however, he or
she will see only the default style for that page or any enhancements
you've made after you applied the style sheets.
When you look at the scrolling marquee you added to your page,
you'll notice that the text moves--rather slowly--from the right side
of your screen across to the left side. Once it's finished scrolling,
it starts the whole process over--and over and over.
There are a number of different ways to alter the behavior of your
scrolling marquee. Let's start with the fact that the marquee scrolls
continuously across your screen. Face it: That might not be a great
idea. After all, your visitors may get annoyed with "TODAY'S SALE
PRICE!!" moving across their screens.
To change that, first double-click the scrolling marquee to open
the Marquee Properties dialog box. Look for the section called Repeat.
Under Repeat, you'll see that a radio box called Continuously is
checked. Deselect it. Once you do this, you'll have the option to set
the number of times you'd like to have your marquee scroll across the
page. Set it for something manageable and click OK. Trust us--your Web
readers will thank you for it!
a) A moving tent used in Shakespearean times for traveling players
b) A hut frequented by Bedouins
c) A moving banner that scrolls across the screen of your Web page
One hundred points if you guessed letter C! A scrolling marquee is
a neat little feature you can add to your Web page. It's perfect for
things like stock quotes, daily messages, or any other real-time
information. Over the next few days, you'll learn all the ins and outs
of scrolling marquees. But before you get too excited, be aware of one
important fact: These moving banners will show up ONLY when your
visitor is using Microsoft Internet Explorer. In other words, your
visitors who use Netscape products won't be able to see them.
Last time, we briefly discussed scrolling marquees. Today, we'll
add one to your page. First, position your cursor where you want the
marquee to appear on your Web page. (The best place for that would be
either at the very top or the very bottom of the page.) Now choose
Insert, Component, Marquee. In the Marquee Properties dialog box,
locate the Text box, then type in the text you want to have scrolling
across your screen. When you've finished, click OK. Your text will now
appear on your Web page--but in static mode. If you want to see it
move, you'll need to view the page in Preview mode. (Check for the
Preview tab at the bottom of the screen.)
Another neat trick with marquees involves changing the way they
move across the screen. As we mentioned before, the default is
Scroll--the text continually scrolls across the screen from right to
left. But you do have a few other options.
To check out your other choices, double-click the scrolling marquee
to open the Marquee Properties dialog box. Now look for the Behavior
section. You'll see that you have two selections in addition to
Scroll. If you choose Slide, your marquee will start off-screen, slide
all the way across the screen, stop there, and hang out. If you choose
Alternate, your text will start off-screen, slide across the screen,
and then ping-pong back and forth across the screen.
Pick your favorite option and click OK. Then, select the Preview
tab to see how your marquee moves across the screen.
Want to learn other ways to tinker with the way your marquee moves
across the screen? It could well be that you feel like your text
m-o-v-e-s a-t a s-n-a-i-l-'-s p-a-c-e and you'd like it to go a bit
faster. Now, this is a little tougher than you might think, but hang
in there--you can do it.
First, double-click the scrolling marquee to open the Marquee
Properties dialog box. In the dialog box, look for the Speed section.
Under Speed, you'll see two options: Delay and Amount. Delay is the
time in milliseconds between each redraw of the text. Basically, every
time there's a change on your screen, your computer is redrawing the
text. Amount has to do with the number of pixels the marquee moves
each time it is redrawn on the screen.
Clear as mud? Think about it this way: If you want to speed up your
marquee, you want the Delay to be lower (i.e., less time between
redrawings of the text) and the Amount to be higher (i.e., the text
moves a whopping number of pixels each time the screen is redrawn).
All right--it's not quite as clear as "buy low, sell high," but give
it a shot. Set the Delay to about 50 and the Amount to about 15, click
OK, and see if that works for you. If not, just do a little fussing
(based on the above information), and you should come up with
something satisfactory.
A table of contents is a handy way to help your visitors find their
way around your site. But creating one seems like it would be a
hassle. After all, can you imagine tabbing back and forth between your
Navigation view and the table-of-contents-in-progress? That would be a
nightmarish job.
Fortunately, FrontPage simplifies things quite a bit. To build a
TOC (that's table of contents in publishing lingo), start by choosing
File, New, Page. On the General tab, search for the Table Of Contents
option. Select it, then click OK.
You'll now find yourself in a spiffy new TOC. You'll see a bunch of
information at the top and then your TOC below. Double-click on the
TOC to open the Table Of Contents Properties dialog box. The most
important thing to do first is to set the URL starting point for your
table. This is basically the page that all the other pages flow
from--probably the index page. Once that's set, adjust the font size
and click OK to make your TOC official.
GETTING ORGANIZED--PART 2 OF 3
If you're building a table of contents (TOC), you'll notice an
option in the Table Of Contents Properties dialog box that may look
appealing to you: Recompute Table Of Contents When Any Other Page Is
Edited. This may seem like a good idea, but if your Web site is really
large, it will slow down page saving. If you don't select this option,
keep in mind that you can manually save TOC changes by opening the TOC
page and saving it.
GETTING ORGANIZED--PART 3 OF 3
If you don't want a whole table of contents (TOC) page but you'd
like to include a TOC on another page, there's a simple shortcut to do
this. Start by positioning your cursor where you want the TOC to
appear. Next, choose Insert, Component, Table Of Contents. The same
Table Of Contents Properties dialog box that you'd use if you were
building a separate TOC page will now materialize. Adjust the setting
in this dialog box, and a small TOC will appear on your Web page.
Last week, when we were learning about banner ads, you were
thinking that you didn't want FrontPage to automatically rotate the
images for your banner ad. Instead, you have one advertiser who has an
image scheduled for two weeks and then another advertiser who's paying
for a week's worth of space. Do you have to resort to reminding
yourself of these dates by marking them on your calendar? Not in this
high-tech world. Instead, use the Scheduled Picture component to have
images appear and disappear at the appropriate times.
Here's how it works: First, choose the place where you want the
image to appear. Now, choose Insert, Component, Scheduled Picture. The
Scheduled Picture Properties dialog box will appear. Find the section
called Picture To Display During The Scheduled Time. This will be the
image that you want to show on your site. Click Browse and locate your
image.
Finally, schedule the Starting and Ending times that you want the
image to show up and disappear from your site. This is pretty
self-explanatory: Set the date and time in the appropriate section of
the Scheduled Picture dialog box.
When you've finished, click OK, and the settings will take effect.
Want to delete a scheduled picture? Just choose the picture (or the
location where the picture would be were it currently running on your
site) and right-click. From the context menu that appears, choose Cut.
Voila! No more picture--or picture-to-be.
Well, you took the first step and got that banner ad onto your
site. Now, you'll probably want to take control of the way your ads
are viewed--and even jazz them up a little bit.
You already selected a number of different images that will rotate
through the banner ad location. But for how long will each ad appear?
And how will one ad choose the next? To address these questions, first
double-click the banner ad on your site.
In the Banner Ad Manager Properties box, look for Transition
Effect. If you click the pull-down arrow to the right of this option,
you'll find yourself with a number of different choices. The best way
to pick the right one is just to experiment: Test something that
sounds interesting to you and see how it looks on the screen. After
all, you can always go back and try something else later.
More important is the section called Show Each Picture For
(Seconds). Here are a few things to keep in mind: You don't want to
cycle through banners too quickly because that might annoy your
visitors. Also, remember that your visitor's browser has to download
each image, so it could take a while--and slow up other things on your
site--if you try to change images too quickly or show too many. Opt
for something that's a little on the slower side (at least for Web
time). Thirty seconds should do.
You're missing one key piece of information to make your banner ads
complete: a link. After all, if an ad looks enticing to visitors,
they'll want to click on it to get more information. Yep--that's
called the missing link.
To create a banner ad link, double-click on the banner ad to call
up the Banner Ad Manager Properties dialog box. Now find the box
called Link To. To the right of that line, click the Browse button.
Search for the page you want to link to, highlight it, and click OK.
The link is now complete--but there's one important thing you
should be aware of: FrontPage doesn't allow you to link to a different
site from each image that cycles through your banner ad location.
Instead, you can link to only one location. So what to do if you have
several ads that should each have its own link? Simply create a page
to link to from the banner ad that then provides links to all the
pages for each of the ads.
You might not know that you know what banner ads are. But if you're
ever on the Internet, you see them all the time: They're those ads at
the top of the page (or the side of the page, or the bottom of the
page) that attempt to catch your attention, beckoning you to click
through to check out some cool promotion, company, not-to-be-missed
deal, or whatever. Now, you may or may not have actual advertising for
your site, but even if you don't, banner ads are a good thing to know
about. After all, you might want to place a banner ad that draws
people to another place on your site.
Stay tuned... Over the next few days, you'll learn all the ins and
outs of placing banner ads on your site.
Last time, you learned what a banner ad is; today, you'll learn how
to put one on your site.
First, position your cursor where you want the banner to appear on
your page. Traditionally, you'll find banner ads at the top or bottom
of a page, so you might want to start with that as a design plan. Once
you're positioned, choose Insert, Component, Banner Ad Manager.
Okay--that was the easy part. Now you have to don your thinking
cap. (C'mon, dust that thing off and let's get to it!) The first thing
you're faced with is the width and height of your banner ad.
Fortunately, there are some standard banner ad sizes you should
probably consider. The most popular for top--or bottom--banners are
440x50 or 400x50. If you're using paid advertising, try 468x60.
Next, you'll need to add the pictures that will be displayed in
your banner. Keep in mind that your images will be resized to fit the
size you just fixed in those height and width boxes. Since resized
images tend to look a little distorted, you'll probably want to keep
the actual image size as close as possible to the size you set for the
banner.
Next, look for the section called Pictures To Display. Click the
Add button to the right of that section. You can add many images, but
keep a few things in mind: All of your images will rotate through the
banner ad location on your page. They will cycle through based on
their order in the Banner Ad Manager, so if you prefer a different
order, click the Move Up or Move Down button. Once you have the order
of choice, click OK.
You've now taken your first step toward adding banners to your
page!
If you're adding a scheduled picture to your page, and you set the
start date and time equal to or earlier than the actual date and time,
the image will pop up on your screen immediately. How's that for a
quickie?
Having trouble keeping track of the order of your banner ad images?
To make life a little easier, give each image a new number suffix--you
know: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.--to make it simple to figure out which
banner goes where. If only every problem in life could be solved so
quickly!
There's a glitchy little thing about the Scheduled Picture
component that you should know about. For some odd reason, the change
to your page--that is, having the scheduled picture appear on the
site--will occur only if other changes have been made to the web. The
best advice? Just keep editing and tinkering (which you should always
be doing anyway), and you'll be sure that everything will proceed on
schedule (as it were).
Wanna add a copyright symbol to your Web site? Or a trademark sign?
How about a Spanish N with the squiggly line over it? Easy. Choose
Insert, Symbol. Pick your symbol of choice and click OK. It just
doesn't get any easier than that!
Say you visit a Web site looking for a particular bit of
information, but with the dozens of pages posted, finding what you
need is more frustrating than looking for the proverbial needle in a
haystack. Don't let visitors to your Web page be similarly frustrated.
Instead, add a search mechanism that allows visitors to find exactly
what they want.
First, choose File, New, Page. In the New dialog box, find Search
Page on the General tab. Once you've located it, select it and click
OK. A whole new page will open on your FrontPage screen. This is your
new, handy-dandy search page. You'll notice some innocuous language
about this being a search page that you can use to find particular
words and phrases. Then there's the little box where visitors can do
their searching. Below that is a quick cheat sheet on how to combine
words to create more effective searches. If the page works for you as
is, go for it. If you don't like the way some of the initial language
is phrased, change it. For other changes, tune in next time.
CORRECTION
Thanks to those of you who pointed this out: FrontPage does indeed
come bundled with Image Composer. The only time you won't get the
Image Composer program is when you're using the FrontPage program that
comes bundled as part of Microsoft Office 2000. Sorry for the error!
