Microsoft Frontpage?

[Social Experts]

Anyone use Microsoft Frontpage? Anyone have any problems with it like with the layers or anything? I think it's a great piece of software so yeah. What are your views?

[vetzkov]

Generally I have a positive opinion on Microsoft's products (yeah I know I am retard) but especially for Frontpage - I am not a fan. I worked in a big webhosting company and FPE (frontpage extensions) was one of the 3 most common issues when you should have in mind that less than 5% of all customers were using them.

If you have your own server and you are able to administrate it - OK, go ahead. If your hosting company has great 24 hour support - OK, go ahead.In the other cases I think its too much of a burden to deal with...

Best regards,
Vetskov

[mbacak]

Personally, I love it. I've built everything I've
done online with it. I just moved over to a Mac
this week and am totally wishing I could use it
on the Macbook with out needing Parallels.

[mmurtha]

I found DreamWeaver to be better to use in the long run - at least for my needs. It has more functionality, and DW's code isn't all funcky like FP's is. And yes, I happen to have both apps.

[toivo]

You hit the nail on the head murtha....key word being "needs". As for funky, there is alot of it in FP and I tend to learn more about HTML by editing out the funky junk in FP so maybe FP has been a blessing in disguise in some ways. Let's put it this way, my pages are all getting indexed and that's about all I care. Good gettng your input!

[Kenster]

I use Expressions Web often and it works great for me. I think its the newer version of Frontpage???

They offer a free trial if any of you are interested

[Kevin Reynolds]

I used FrontPage for several years and while it is easy to use, it creates terrible code. It also does a very poor job with tables. A good free program is Kompozer. It is a visual editor and has features that are closer to Dreamweaver. Give it a try. Free download at kompozer.net

[GavinLively]

I gave up front page as soon as I started using WordPress heavily. But from what I remember, it was dead simple, although I always did have some issues with using layers and tables and getting them to display correctly across all browsers...

Gavin

[skullzzz]

I used Frontpage when I first started building sites about 3 years ago. I found that there would be coding added to what I was trying to do with the visual editor that I didn't need or want. When I tried to add additional elements, like video, I had all kinds of issues.

That being said, when I just went for the coding, it did pretty well.

For the last 6 months, I've been using Dreamweaver. Love it! Much easier to use and you don't have to enable extensions on your server, etc. I really like the FTP functions, also.

[bsmith2]

I personally love frontpage, I use it to customize everything I do. As of yet I haven't had any problems.

[Craig Desorcy]

I love Front page!

Use it all the time for simple HTML.

For complicated stuff I will use Wordpress.

Craig

[Lloyd Buchinski]

I use Notepad++ mostly for myself but had to use Frontpage for work on a large site for a non profit that was put together with it. They supplied a copy. It does have a couple of things I really don't like but some really impressive capabilities too.

Then the non profit went over to using Expression Web and that one is amazing. You can get it (download version) directly from MS for $100, but only if you have a US postal code. They keep the registration key on file so that's all the back up you need.

A part of it is called Super Preview. It has a built in copy of IE6. I have a couple of pages that weren't working well with IE 6 and this was so handy. I could make a single small change in the css or html and click the refresh button of SP and see what the change did in both IE 6 and 8 at the same time. I've used that feature so much I now have a separate shortcut on my desktop for it.

For keeping a large site organized both FP and EW have a capability that is amazing. If you take a smilie and move it into a different folder and do it within EW, it will change every link in the site so that it still hooks up to the smilie.

Expression puts a lot of emphasis on valid code which is a really nice turn around from FP. Any code that you open with it has a light highlight if it isn't valid, and a note about why. (The note appears on hover if I remember right.)

I've seen 2 different people at webhostingtalk.com mention that they have switched over from using Dreamweaver to Expression Web. It doesn't surprise me at all. I am really impressed with it.

best wishes, lloyd
.......__o
.......\<,
....( )/ ( )...

[Marty S]

I tried it once a few years back and remember wasting half a day. I thought it was kind of prehistoric even then, compared to what else is available. Microsoft has discontinued this product for a few years now, so that should tell you all you need to know.

[dsmpublishing]

Hi guys

Personally i love it - i especially love it for when im adding text boxes to my blogs as i can use it to create a nice little text section without worrying about learning html and then just copy the html over into the text box on wp.

Its also very easily to learn as a beginner so i find a lot of people use it.

Though i do get shouted at a lot of the wf by designers who say ive lost my marbles for using it so im expecting a few PMs!!!

Kind regards


sam
X

[toivo]

Interesting to hear the feedback regarding FP. I am not sure I can make a transition to another web editor now anyway....I have over 3000 images archived throughout a catalog that's divided into over 30 categories. To pick it all up via using a new editing program, then learning it would take waaay too much time. That besides the fact that all of my pages are well ndexed and as the old saying goes, if it aint broke, don't fix it.
So far as server extensions are concerned, I agree, they are an additional hassle, but I find that all it takes on my behalf or a web hosting comany's behalf is a minor "update" on settings or a tweak and the site is good to go. So no big deal there either.
I offer a free web cartoon for web designers/webmasters that updates automatically through a pho script and can simply upload a year's worth of images into my FP site on the hard drive, save it and publish to my web host and the new year's worth of images automatically begin showing...so it's a good editor for my needs. Like I mentioned, "needs" is the key word I guess

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Marty S

Microsoft has discontinued this product for a few years now, so that should tell you all you need to know.

They essentially renamed it to Expression Web and moved it from their Office group to their development tool group. Expression is a considerable improvement over the older versions of FrontPage.

[Lloyd Buchinski]

Originally Posted by toivo

I am not sure I can make a transition to another web editor now anyway....I have over 3000 images archived throughout a catalog that's divided into over 30 categories. To pick it all up via using a new editing program, then learning it would take waaay too much time.

Expression Web is really careful about backwards compatibility with FrontPage sites. You can even keep server extensions, but can't create new sites with them. I didn't have any problem at all switching over.

That might be partly because I was a lot more impressed with Expression and became really eager to get into it. You can get a list of all the keyboard shortcuts from the help menu. That gives you a nice list of what it can do and if a button is in a different place you don't even have to find it. Just use the keyboard shortcut. Not that it's happened to me so far. I guess there's a lot of similarity between editors anyway.

I can't agree that Expression is updated Frontpage. This was started from a completely different angle, that valid code is important.

Another concern for me would be that hosts supporting FrontPage extensions are dropping off rapidly. You could wind up stuck paying a bundle if your host realizes he is the last one and decides that the situation deserves a price increase.

[morris451]

Does Expression require Front Page Extensions?

[Lloyd Buchinski]

Originally Posted by morris451

Does Expression require Front Page Extensions?

No it doesn't at all. I don't think you can even have it create them for a new site. It will import them and preserve them if you import a site created with FrontPage. This was just to keep it backward compatible.

My sites are on an Apache server. It will do just straight code html and css sites, no problems at all.

[morris451]

Thanks. I've been thinking about upgrading from my old FrontPage, which has served me well - didn't want to have to continue messing with the extensions thing.

[toivo]

This thread seems to be percolating, so I am curious, since I have a site running off FP2002, what is the next step to take it to Expression web? Keep in mind, Express Web is void of the built in photogallery component that initially made FP02 so appealling to me in the first place . . . there's the rub again - NEEDS. Am I going to have to learn how to build a photogallery separately and incorporate it into EW if I go from FP to EW then? Curious....

[seasoned]

Frontpage is MESSY! It has security problems.

Steve

[toivo]

Steve:
You're being vague. Please describe in detail what security issues. It would really assit the other FP users here.

[SrinivasPrabhakar]

Thanks everybody for your useful suggestions. Well I have used FP 2000 and Dreamweaver both. As far as I am concerned both are similar and easy to use, however Front page have the marquee function whereas dreamweaver doesn't.
All together both have same functions.

[redfoxseo]

I am surprised so many people are talking about FP extensions being a hassle. I have been using Frontpage for years without extensions. I just upload in FTP mode which is an option on Frontpage. Never had a problem ...

[Gavan]

I used to use just Frontpage 2003 to build my affiliate sites because it was recommended by James Martell in his ebook. Now I mainly use XSitePro and some Wordpress blogs.

[Paul Barber]

I'm still using Frontpage 2000 (since 2000!). Find it very easy to use but I only do very basic stuff. Tried Dreamweaver as a designer had done a site for us using it, What a nightmare, far too complicated and hard to learn. I will not be using that again. Will be looking at a trial of Expression when I do my next main site.

[Social Experts]

Wow, didn't expect this much replies! I use frontpage 2003 and it has never failed me. If you're having problems with the layers not conforming with other browsers. Change the coding for the layer from 'absolute' to 'relative'

[David Neale]

I mostly use Dreamweaver (CS3) in Code mode. FP WYSIWG blows Dreamweaver out of the water though. I often copy my code over to FP to work on tables etc. and generally work about twice as fast.

I mourn that FP is gone.... over the years it has made me lots of money. That said I would never recommend EVER using any of their extensions.... just a straight editor then FTP your files.

[francoza]

Front page works best for me. It is very easy to use and the best thing is that it involves no HTML expertise. Therefore anyone can make a website with this. There are many tutorials also available.