FrontPage: A love-hate relationship
by Manohar Kamath
July 18th, 1999
Everyone seems to be scared of FrontPage. Well, not everyone,
just the ASP programmers. And I understand their plight fully well. Those who don't like
FP tell me that it does more than what it is supposed to do. How can I argue?
FrontPage was Microsoft's answer to the rest of the HTML editors
and Site management tools. In version 1, it was probably the worst tool I had ever seen -
hard to use, harder to know what it was doing. Back then I was perfectly happy with a few
HTML editors I had - HotDog, HoTMetaL and a myriad of other shareware/freeware editors;
Life was easy.
When FrontPage 97 came to market, I still did not need it. So, I
continued with my already-expired-but-still-can-use set of editors. HomeSite was a good
alternative, and I started using it (I still do). But there was something about FrontPage
that other editors were missing - the ability to show you (almost) exactly what you will
get.
But then, one day I was developing some ASP pages and a friend
told me that he was seeing some strange "HTML" in the pages. I took a look and I
saw some bots being inserted in the page. I knew FP would do this, so I just used the
"panacea for all editing needs" (in other words - Notepad) to take this
"HTML" out and FTPd it back to the server. The "HTML" showed up again,
even without touching the page! I was irritated beyond my tolerance level, and vowed never
to use FP again.
Enter FrontPage 98
I did not, for a long time. I created my site (www.kamath.com)
with notepad and Homesite. When FrontPage 98 came along, I did not use it for sometime
until I had to redesign my site all over again.
I have mixed feelings towards FP 98. For one, it is a great
WYSIWYG editor - no two thoughts about it. However, it still does the things it wants to,
and does not listen to you. You have not much control over the HTML code it produces.
Despite that, I was able to completely redesign my site with Frontpage alone (some
HomeSite involved here and there). There are some great advantages using FrontPage 98:
Since the browser controls most of HTML, you don't have to
worry about ending tags and using the standard <HTML> and <BODY> tags
You can easily create a template for your entire site. So, any
page you create will have the standard tags and includes.
I prefer tables in my pages - tables are very easy in FP.
If there is one thing I like most - it is STYLES! With FP 98,
applying styles to elements is as easy as 1-2-3!
So, you may ask, how the hell do you create ASP pages with
FrontPage? Well, I just don't! FrontPage, to me, is a great layout and content editor and
not a development tool. If I am developing ASP pages, I do the initial cut (layout,
colors, styles etc) with FP and then use Visual Interdev or such tool to create my ASP
pages. My site is a content driven site, so I did not need any fancy ASP scripts, so FP 98
fit the bill perfectly. I still use FP in most of my site work, as long as the work is
limited to content and not scripting.
Epilogue, FP 2K
FrontPage 2000 came out sometime in June 99. I have used it to
some extent, but they took one feature away that I loved most - applying styles to any
component. With FP 98 you could apply the style to a part of the paragraph (<SPAN>)
but not anymore. I am still getting used to this fact, and meanwhile I am using FP 98.
However, FP 2000 has its own advantages. I liked that fact for
the first time FP lets you choose who is control of HTML underlying the page. |
|
|
