MS FrontPage 2000 Tutorial 

The left side of the FrontPage Explorer has a column of icons which each represent a different "view" of your Web.

Page View

This is where you actually edit pages. Notice that at the bottom of the editing area there are three tabs: Normal, HTML, and Preview. Most of the time you will be in Normal mode, but you can also view the HTML source code for your page, or view it as it may look in Internet Explorer. (It's always advisable to view your page in the full versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape)

Also notice that in the lower right corner it says something like "5 seconds over 28.8" this provides an estimate of how long it will take your page to download at various network speeds. Click there to change the speed it uses to estimate.

Folders View

This view shows your folders in the left column and files and subfolders in the right column. You can use this view to drag and drop files and folders into other folders, rename folders and files, and open a file for editing by double-clicking the filename.

Within the Folders View you can also use the global spellchecker and search & replace features.

If you move a file from one folder to another (drag & drop), FrontPage will automatically correct any links from other pages to that file so that no links are broken by the move.

Reports View

This view provides 10 different reports that will be extremely helpful in managing your web site as it grows. The broken hyperlinks report will show you a summary of broken links within your web site and let you fix them quickly. Once you have a dozen or so pages in your web site, try out these reports to see how they work and the information they give you.

Navigation View

The Navigation view is intended to assist Web developers in designing the navigational hierarchy for their Web sites. You can drag and drop pages onto the Navigation View to add an icon for the page and place it in the hierarchy wherever you wish. Once you've set up the hierarchy, you can use the Navigation View to create navigation bars on all the pages within your site.

This is a great concept, but somewhat better in theory than in practice. You should get familiar with other aspects of FrontPage and before trying to use the Navigation View. It can be confusing, and it's difficult to customize the navigation bars to get them to look just the way you want them.

We recommend you do not use the automated navigation features such as shared borders.

Hyperlinks View

This view provides a graphical look at the file relationships (links) within your Web site. When you switch to the Hyperlinks View, click on any file in the left column to see a picture of all the links to and from that page in the right column.

Different icons represent different types of links: links to other pages within your FrontPage Web, links to sites/pages elsewhere on the Web, links to e-mail addresses, etc.

You can click on the + icons to expand the view to show more layers of links. If the blue line connecting two pages is broken, it indicates that the link does not work and you need to fix it.

Tasks View

The Tasks View can be used to keep a list of the chores that need to be done within your Web site. These might include updating the calendar, correcting a typo, etc.  

When you use the FP Explorer to spellcheck your entire Web, you can have it add the errors to your task list to be corrected later. 

Tasks can be assigned to specific page maintainers, but they have to remember to check the list to see if they have any tasks to do.

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Kate Akers, kate@oseda.missouri.edu Webmaster, University Outreach and Extension Last modified: 08/27/02