Something to please everyone - almost (MS FrontPage 2000)

Member Name: Meddi

Product:	MS FrontPage 2000
Date:	30/09/01 (111 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great for newcomers, WYSIWYG, Easy to use

Disadvantages: limited for html users

This program enables you to create and manage a web site. It is equally useful for people with no html or programming experience and for those people that do.
It provides a WYSIWYG interface a bit like a DTP package and an html interface.
Because it is part of the Microsoft Office suite it has many of the same features e.g. shared toolbars. It also includes a gallery of design themes and step by step wizards.

Installing
I had no problems installing it, the instructions were simple and clear.

Learning to use it
It come with a book that includes a detailed tutorial. The tutorial takes you through step by step creating a fictional web site. This hands on approach I found really useful as building a web page is a hands on task.

Organising
This was great as it encouraged me to get organised! which you need to be if you have a large site. It has a navigation facility where you create a structure for your site. It looks a bit like windows explorer with files. Having a well organised structure for web sites is a good web design habit.

Designing and creating a site
Frontpage allows you to easily include those flashy things that you see on other peoples web sites! Well most of them...
A range of design themes are available and these can be customised for a more personal look. You can include frames and applets and javascript etc. You can preview your site to see what it will look like.
Another great feature is the site summary that checks your web site before you publish it warning you of things like broken links and download times. This takes away the grief of uploading your site only to find loads of errors.

HTML
If you prefer to write a web site in html then you can with Fontpage. It provides a competent editor. Beware however of creating a site in the WYSIWYG interface and then trying to edit the html as it leaves messy code behind and its a nightmare. It is however useful for generating the
html for boring or complicated stuff that you can then cut and paste into your html.

Intergration
AS Its a Microsoft product you can include Access, Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents in your web site.

Publishing
If you've never published a web site before Frontpage offers some help, it will determine the best transfer method and remembers your details, it also tells you what info you need off your ISP.

Overall a brilliant program if you're new to web site design, if you're used to html it has its uses but is ok not brilliant.

Summary: