FrontPage owes much of its value as a complete solution for web publishing to the innovative approaches that are taken to solving the standard problems faced by the webmaster or author. The FrontPage Editor starts with a complete set of tools for
creating HTML files; the FrontPage Explorer provides excellent site management functions. But the really cool tools are the bots and wizards. These tools are well-implemented, easy to use, and perform their respective tasks elegantly. You'll find as I did
that the only thing FrontPage might be missing is more bots and wizards!
With all the bywords, buzzwords, and TLAs (three-letter acronyms) in the computer industry, what's a few more? You really wanted to learn more about the coolest technology going, didn't you? Well, if you hadn't figured it out by now, this is
the place for that! Thus far in this book, you've seen most of the really cool stuff that makes Internet Explorer the "killer app" for Windows on the Internet. And of course FrontPage has its own share of cool tools to help you
create your window on the Internet and win the next Cool Site of the Day award! Bots and wizards are the subject for this piece of the Internet pie—what they are, how to use them, and even a little about how to roll your own if you're so inclined.
So,
buckle your seatbelt as Mr. Wizard takes you on a journey into the land of FrontPage Bots!
You're going to like this ride as you learn about
One of the distinguishing features of FrontPage is the concept of a WebBot. These tools are somewhat of a hybrid between several existing technologies for producing dynamic Web content. Most existing dynamic additions to Web publishing are done with
the
use of CGI programs that run on the "back end" of a Web server. Tools like VBScript and JavaScript add a client side to the equation, but are in limited but growing use on the Web. ActiveX and Java promise to add another level of interactivity
as
well, but are just now being developed, so their use represents a small but growing new field. Another tool that you might not even be aware of that is in fairly common use on the Web is something called Server Side Includes (SSI). SSI consists of a
defined set of additional tags that are normally used within comment sections of an otherwise normal HTML file. These additional tags make possible the inclusion of content from other files, output of executable CGI programs, or other functions that are
specific to the Web server software being used.
All of these tools are embodied in WebBots. A WebBot can be as simple as the Annotation WebBot, which simply adds comments that are invisible in a browser but visible in the FrontPage Editor. Or a WebBot can be a complex one like the Table of Contents
WebBot, which creates a table of content of your web that is constantly updated. A WebBot encapsulates a single function with a minimum of user intervention to maintain the desired result.
The best way to understand WebBots is to look at a couple of the delivered ones and discuss the similar features. FrontPage ships with the WebBots shown in Table 28.1.
| Name of WebBot | Purpose |
| Annotation Bot | Embeds instructions or comments in templates |
| Confirmation Bot | Responds to results of a form |
| Discussion Bot | Manages a Discussion group |
| Include Bot | Includes another page's content in a page |
| Markup Bot | Inserts nonstandard or new HTML in a page |
| Registration Bot | Enables dynamic user registration |
| Scheduler Bot | Scheduled insertion of images or pages |
| Search Bot | Searches the text index of the web |
| Substitution Bot | Substitutes text from configuration variable |
| Table of Contents Bot | Creates a table of contents of current web |
| TimeStamp Bot | Inserts date and time page was last updated |
Each of the bots in Table 28.1 provides a function that would either require a separate tool or whose implementation differs markedly on different Web servers. With bots, you can manage similar functions in the same manner on any of the supported Web
servers. For example, the TimeStamp Bot essentially replaces a single SSI construct that is in common use with servers that support SSI. Figures 28.1 and 28.2 show the use of the TimeStamp Bot and the resulting HTML source when a TimeStamp Bot is used.
Figure 28.1. FrontPage Editor with a TimeStamp Bot inserted in a page.
Figure 28.2. HTML source for TimeStamp Bot inserted in a page.
When you save this file to your web, the contents of the TimeStamp Bot are replaced with the date and time the file was saved. The resulting HTML source that is generated in the file is simply:
<p>This file was Last Modified on: June 01, 1996 14:04 -0500</p>
Although this is a simple feature and one that provides some useful feedback to your users, the generation of the same information would require either that you use an SSI construct similar to
<p>This file was Last Modified on: <!-- #echo LAST_MODIFIED --></p>
which of course requires that the server you are using supports SSI, and many do not, or that you manually insert similar text information in your documents and make sure you update it each time you edit the page. With the TimeStamp Bot, the
information
is updated any time the page is directly updated or when an included page changes that causes a need to regenerate the update. This bot would be a great addition to any page whose content changes periodically, to give users a good idea of the status of
the
page.
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Even if your server supports SSI, its use requires the server to parse the entire file looking for SSI constructs. If yours is a busy web, adding SSI for a timestamp is an expensive process in terms of processing. Because the TimeStamp Bot does not require SSI, it is simpler to implement and results in faster response times to your clients.
Using this simple bot adds a professional feel to your pages. When users see the timestamp information updated on a later visit, they know that you are updating your web in a timely manner and thus will likely revisit. That is the beauty of using bots.
They accomplish a single purpose with a minimum of configuration.
The HTML Markup Bot will probably have a broader usage in your pages. This bot has the distinction of making it possible for you to use new or nonstandard HTML constructs that are not directly supported by FrontPage. Because HTML is constantly being
advanced with new additions, an application like FrontPage needs a way to efficiently handle these changes. The HTML Markup Bot is an excellent tool to handle such changes. For example, Internet Explorer introduces the new <MARQUE> tag. This tag has
not yet been incorporated into the HTML standards, and thus FrontPage does not yet directly support its use. But if you know the format, you can insert this tag into one of your pages using the Markup Bot. To insert a bot into your document, select Insert
| Bot, as shown in Figure 28.3, and choose a bot from the Insert Bot dialog box shown in Figure 28.4. If you wanted to add the <MARQUE> tag to your document, you would select the HTML Markup Bot and enter the HTML code in the HTML Markup dialog box,
as shown in Figure 28.5.
Figure 28.3. Select Bot from the Insert menu to use a bot.
Figure 28.4. Select a bot from the Insert Bot dialog box.
Figure 28.5. Enter new or nonstandard HTML in the HTML Markup dialog box.
When you press OK, FrontPage returns to your document and inserts a placeholder icon resembling <?>, which indicates the presence of a Markup Bot. As with the TimeStamp Bot, when you save the file to your web, the contents of this bot are
replaced
with the actual HTML that you placed in the HTML Markup dialog box. Because of this tool, FrontPage will never be too far behind the HTML standard. You can always use this bot to insert any new extension as soon as you want to use it without waiting for
the next upgrade of FrontPage to be released.
NOTE
FrontPage has an integrated HTML syntax checker that is able to check your HTML code for possible problems. Code inserted using an HTML Markup Bot will not be processed for syntax errors.
With these two examples, you can already see how useful bots can be. But you might be wondering exactly how they work to accomplish this magic. To strip away a little bit of the mystique, the next section looks at one of the more useful bots, the Table
of Contents Bot and shows you exactly how FrontPage creates and maintains a handy index document for your web.
The Table of Contents Bot can be one of the most popular additions to your web. If you have an active web, a Table of Contents page can be hard to maintain. Every time you add a page, you have to add a link to the table of contents. If you remove a
page, you have to change the table of contents again. A page like this quickly takes on a life of its own. It demands more and more time as additional changes are made to the web. And if yours is a large site with sections that are managed by different
users, it's hard to maintain an accurate table of contents without a lot of extra work. This all changes when you have a site managed with FrontPage. All you have to do is create a Table of Contents page and FrontPage will manage its content and add or
delete links whenever the contents of the web are updated.
To start a Table of Contents (TOC) page for your web, you can either use the File | New menu selection to create a new Table of Contents page or use the Insert | Bot menu selection to insert the bot. As shown in Figure 28.6, when you have a bot
inserted in a page, FrontPage automatically displays a bulleted list representing the pages it will add to the table of contents. You determine the settings for this bot when you originally create it, or at any time using the Table of Contents Bot
Properties dialog box shown in Figure 28.7.
Figure 28.6. FrontPage displays a bulleted list to represent your table of contents in your page.
As you can tell in Figure 28.7, when you create a TOC page for your web, you are given the option to choose the file that is to be the starting point for the TOC collection. If you are creating a TOC for your entire web, you would normally choose the
index.htm file in the Root Web for your server as the starting page. If you want FrontPage to build a separate TOC for subsections of your web, you can easily put another filename in this dialog box. Then FrontPage will build the TOC from this file
instead
of for the whole web. Additional parameters that you are able to change in this dialog box include the heading style for the link, how to list links that are referenced by multiple documents, and whether to list orphan pages.
An orphan page is a page that doesn't have any incoming links; that is, a page that is not referenced by any other page in the web. Orphan pages might be pages that remain after an update, or pages that you've placed on the web for other uses. It is
not
likely that you would use this selection for a TOC that is going to be accessible by the public, but if you want a quick look at all the HTML files on your web, this is a good way to have one automatically generated for you by FrontPage. When you save
this
file to your web, FrontPage collects the links from all the pages in your web and generates a standard HTML document with each link shown in a standard bulleted list format. Note that the actual file that is seen by the client is not recreated every time
a
request is made for the file; rather the file is generated when the file is saved to the web and when changes are made to the web by other actions. Another action that causes the TOC file to be updated is using the FrontPage Explorer to recalculate links.
The way FrontPage's bots actually work is something of the beauty of the program, and not quite as magical as it might first appear. Instead of a back end CGI process that dynamically generates new data each time a file with a bot is requested, the end
result of the bot is actually computed when a file with a bot is saved to the web. This means that with careful use of bots, any changes that you need reflected could be scheduled for hours of low usage so that your changes would not adversely affect
users. If you normally roll in new changes to your web over weekends, having a TOC automatically generated when these changes are made will make it possible for you to always have an accurate, useful TOC for your web.
The next paragraphs provide a more detailed look at the way FrontPage keeps track of bots you have installed on your web and how it maintains the contents of the files containing bots. Figure 28.8 shows a Windows 95 Explorer view of a typical web
directory.
Figure 28.8. Windows 95 Explorer view of a typical FrontPage web folder.
Notice all the curious folder names in this example? All the folder names that start with an underscore character (_) are folders used by FrontPage to maintain the details of the web structure. Each of these folders is detailed in the next chapter, but
to get an idea of how bots work, you need a look at the contents of a couple of the folders now. The two folders that we need to examine in some detail are the _vti_cnf and _vti_shm folders, which reveal the real secret behind the two bots already
discussed.
Notice that in this listing there are only three HTML files in the Root Web: index.htm, timestmp.htm, and toc.htm. But, a look at the contents of the _vti_shm folder reveals that there are apparently duplicates of the timestmp.htm and toc.htm files, as
shown in Figure 28.9. And if you look in the _vti_cnf folder, you will find that all three files are seemingly listed there as well. Why all this duplication? Why does FrontPage keep multiple copies of all your files? A comparison of the contents of the
duplicated files should determine what exactly is going on with these files.
Figure 28.9. Windows 95 Explorer view of the _vti_shm folder.
The HTML source for the timestmp.htm file in the Root Web folder looks something like Listing 28.1.
Listing 28.1. Contents of timestmp.htm file from the Root Web.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3O/DTD HTML//EN"> <html> <head> <title>Internet Explorer Unleashed</title> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 1.1"> <meta name="FORMATTER" content="Microsoft FrontPage 1.1"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <p>This is a sample page using the TimeStamp WebBot.</p> <hr> <p>This file was Last Modified on: June 01, 1996 14:04 -0500</p> </body> </html>
Nothing unusual about this file. The "same" file from the _vti_shm folder, however, is much different. Listing 28.2 reveals this difference.
Listing 28.2. Contents of timestmp.htm file from the _vti_shm folder.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN"> <html> <head> <title>Internet Explorer Unleashed</title> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 1.1"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <p>This is a sample page using the TimeStamp WebBot.</p> <hr> <p>This file was Last Modified on: <!--VERMEER BOT=TimeStamp S-Type="EDITED" S-Format="%B %d, %Y %H:%M %Z" --></p> </body> </html>
Notice that this file has the same basic information Listing 28.1, but instead of the Date and Time information, it has the section that starts with <!--VERMEER, which apparently lists the parameters of the TimeStamp bot based on the BOT=TimeStamp
line. When you edit the timestmp.htm file using the FrontPage Explorer and Editor, the file that is actually loaded into the editor is the copy of the file that resides in the _vti_shm folder rather than the file that is in the Root Web. FrontPage
generates the file in the Root Web—the file that is actually seen by clients browsing the web. But what about the _vti_cnf folder? Does this folder reveal more secrets? As illustrated in Figure 28.10, the _vti_cnf folder apparently contains
copies of all three of the files in the Root Web.
Figure 28.10. Windows 95 Explorer view of the _vti_cnf folder.
The contents of the timestmp.htm file in this folder is much different, as seen in Listing 28.3.
Listing 28.3. Contents of timestmp.htm file from the _vti_cnf folder.
vti_extenderversion:SR|1.1.2.5 vti_cachedtitle:SR|Internet Explorer Unleashed vti_cachedbasedtm:TX|01 Jun 1996 14:04:04 -0500 vti_cachedlinkinfo:VX| vti_author:SW|admin vti_cachedtitledtm:TX|01 Jun 1996 14:04:04 -0500 vti_modifiedby:SW|admin vti_timecreated:TR|01 Jun 1996 14:04:04 -0500 vti_cachedbodystyle:SR|<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> vti_cachedlinkinfodtm:TX|01 Jun 1996 14:04:04 -0500 vti_cachedbodystyledtm:TX|01 Jun 1996 14:04:04 -0500 vti_timelastmodified:TR|01 Jun 1996 14:04:04 -0500
This isn't even HTML at all! What this listing contains is information that FrontPage uses to maintain all the information about this individual file. The information that is most relevant at the present are the vti_cachedlinkinfodtm: and
vti_timelastmodified: lines. These lines reveal the time that the timestmp.htm file was last scanned for links, and the last time the file was modified. This is the information that is used by both the TimeStamp and Table of Contents bots. When you make
changes to any of the files in your web, FrontPage records this information in the _vti_cnf folder. So, when you make a change in one of the files that the Table of Contents Bot is tracking, the TOC will be generated again. If you edit the timestmp.htm
file, the vti_timelastmodified: line will change to reflect the new time, and the vti_cachedlinkinfodtm: line will still reflect the old time. The TOC Bot "knows" that this file has been updated and the file will be scanned for any links. It is
actually the FrontPage Explorer that "knows" about the changes in the web and uses the information in the _vti_cnf and _vti_shm folders to manage the contents of your web.
When you save a page containing a WebBot, the file is actually saved to the _vti_shm folders with the bot information intact. At the same time, the bot is evaluated and a new file is generated with the information that the client browser will actually
see. And all the current information about the file is saved in the _vti_cnf folder. This is how bots operate; the information that they generate is created when the page is saved to the Web or when you Recalculate Links in FrontPage Explorer. The usage
of
each WebBot is detailed in the documentation that ships with FrontPage and in Help, so I won't spend more time with them here. Use the WebBots wherever it makes sense—you will find that they are indispensable tools.
Before you look at Wizards, you need to spend a little bit of time learning about FrontPage's templates. Templates are mentioned in Chapter 27 "Using the FrontPage Editor," but you need to look at some of the details of how templates are
implemented in FrontPage so that you can understand how using them can make your Web tasks a lot easier. FrontPage ships with several templates that can be used as is or customized to fit your specific application. It is usually better to modify an
existing template and save it as a new template rather than change one of the delivered templates. You never know when you might want to use one of the standard templates at a later time.
FrontPage ships with 25 templates. When you create a new page using the New Page dialog box (choose New Page from the File menu), you are given the option of using a template or wizard, as shown in Figure 28.11. Even the wizards use templates as base
files for their operation. All the delivered templates reside in the pages folder under the main FrontPage folder, as shown in Figure 28.12. Each template or wizard resides in a separate folder with the same name as the template HTML file. Templates
reside
in folders named filename.tem and wizards reside in folders named filename.wiz. If you look at the contents of the normal.tem folder, you'll find an HTML file and an inf file, as shown in Figure 28.13. The HTML file is a standard HTML file, although it
might already contain a WebBot, and the inf file is just a text file describing the template.
Figure 28.11. The FrontPage New Page dialog box lists templates and wizards.
Figure 28.12. The Windows 95 Explorer view of the pages folder.
Figure 28.13. The Windows 95 Explorer view of the normal.tem folder.
The normal.htm file in the normal.tem folder is a basic HTML file ready for editing, as shown in Listing 28.4. The normal.inf file simply lists a name and a description; it is this name and description that will be listed in the New Page dialog box.
Listing 28.5 shows the contents of the normal.inf file.
Listing 28.4. Contents of the normal.htm file from the normal.tem folder.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN"> <html> <head> <title>Untitled</title> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 1.1"> </head> <body> </body> </html>
Listing 28.5. Contents of the normal.inf file from the normal.tem folder.
[info] title=Normal Page description=Create a blank web page.
Each of the templates that FrontPage uses will reside in the pages folder and include an inf file with a name and description, as in Listing 28.5. Any new files you saved as a template will also reside in this same folder and include the information
that you enter when you save the file.
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If you save a file as a template that references inline or background images, you can have FrontPage save the images in the same folder so that the images will be available for future uses of the template. This is not automatic; to force FrontPage to prompt you to save these images, you will have to edit the image in some fashion before you save the file. Simply selecting an image and changing one of its properties will force FrontPage to give you the option to save the image.
If you spend any time at all creating a page that you might decide to use again, save it as a template so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel each time you need a similar page. And if you are part of a team of content creators, share templates so
that a standard look and feel can easily be maintained for the whole site. The templates that ship with FrontPage can be divided into five main groups that cover most of the areas you might need. These templates and their uses are listed in Tables 28.2
through 28.6.
| Name of Template | Purpose |
| Normal Page | New untitled blank page |
| HyperDocument Page | Page for hyperlinked manual or report |
| What's New Page | Simple What's New page |
| Frequently Asked Questions | Standard FAQ page format |
| Hot List | Favorites or Bookmark page |
| Name of Template | Purpose |
| Employee Directory | Alphabetical list of employees |
| Employment Opportunities | Available job listing |
| Directory of Press Releases | Sorted directory of press releases |
| Press Release | Standard single press release |
| Product Description | Standard product description |
| Product or Event Registrations | Registration form |
| Software Data Sheet | Product features and benefits |
| Office Directory | Page listing all company offices |
| User Registration | User registration form |
| Name of Template | Purpose |
| Meeting Agenda | Meeting agenda format |
| Lecture Abstract | Description for lecture |
| Seminar Schedule | Main page for a seminar |
| Name of Template | Purpose |
| Table of Contents | Table of contents for group of pages |
| Bibliography | Standard bibliography format |
| Glossary of Terms | Alphabetized glossary |
| Name of Template | Purpose |
| Confirmation Form | Form to confirm users' input |
| Feedback Form | Standard comments or feedback form |
| Guest Book | Maintains a log of visitors |
| Search Page | Searches text database of web |
| Survey Form | Standard form for online surveys |
| Name of Template | Purpose |
| Normal Web | Creates web with empty page |
| Empty Web | Creates web with no pages |
| Customer Support Web | Create Corporate Support pages |
| Personal Web | Supports personal web presence |
| Project Web | Creates a detailed project Web site |
As you can see, FrontPage includes most, if not all, of the templates you might need to create a corporate site on the Internet or an intranet. The last group of templates are only accessible from the FrontPage Explorer and have the
capability to automatically add tasks to the To Do List as well. Remember that you can use any of these templates as is or you can modify them for your own specific use.
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FrontPage includes templates for individual pages and whole webs. You can only save individual files as page templates. The FrontPage Software Development Kit (SDK) is required to create whole-web templates. Web templates are stored in the web folder instead of the pages folder.
If you have used any Microsoft product, you are already familiar with wizards. When you installed FrontPage, you used a simple installation wizard. Wizards provide a user-friendly approach to a set of related tasks. It may be for installation of
software or the creation of a set of pages for a web—wizards make a complicated set of tasks much easier to accomplish. FrontPage uses wizards to create a simple page, frames, or an entire a corporate Web site. The use of wizards is the same whether
they involve a complicated series of tasks or just a couple of tasks. Wizards can use templates or create an entire HTML file from scratch. Because wizards use OLE Automation to communicate with FrontPage, you can easily create your own wizard using
information from the FrontPage SDK. The FrontPage SDK enables you to create templates and wizards that can be freely distributed without paying royalties.
NOTE
OLE Automation is a method of interapplication communication between Windows programs. An application exposes interfaces and methods that enable other applications to drive the application using standard OLE commands.
FrontPage's wizards amount to instant Web pages. Just by answering a few questions or filling in some simple forms, you can begin the creation of an entire Web site. After you have created a web using one of the wizards, you can use the FrontPage
Explorer and the To Do List to complete an entire Web site in record time. The remainder of this chapter looks at the all wizards that ship with FrontPage, explains a little about how they operate, and shows you how to create a wizard of your own. The
wizards in FrontPage can be divided into two sets—those that are accessed from the FrontPage Editor (see Table 28.8), and those that are accessed from the FrontPage Explorer (see Table 28.9).
| Name of Wizard | Purpose |
| Form Page Wizard | Step-by-step form creation |
| Frames Wizard | Frames creation |
| Personal Home Page Wizard | Personal home page creation |
| Name of Wizard | Purpose |
| Corporate Presence Wizard | Creates an entire corporate web |
| Discussion Web | Creates a threaded discussion page |
You might wonder what the difference is between using wizards with the Editor and with the Explorer. When you use one of the Editor wizards, you create a single file or, in the case of the Frames Wizard, a set of files. These files are
not part of any web until you save them as such. On the other hand, wizards used with the Explorer result in an entire new web being built. The key feature of webs created with the Explorer is that all the FrontPage web management folders mentioned
earlier
are created in addition to the HTML files. The next sections look first at a wizard that is accessed using the Editor, and then at one that can only be accessed using the Explorer.
Frames are a new HTML construct that enable a web designer to define separate discrete sections within the visible browser screen. These sections can contain the contents of entirely different files. Frames can be used to create a top-level menu of
options which, when selected, display their contents in another frame while leaving the menu window intact. In the past, the only way to accomplish something similar was to carefully lay out successive pages so that it looked like menu selections were in
the same spot on the page. This required repeating the code for the menu in the same format on each page that required the menu. It is this type of problem that frames address very well. (See Chapter 23 "Tables, Frames, and Style Sheets" for a
detailed discussion of frames.)
The main problem with frames is that the creation of a set of framed documents requires a good sense of both the overall layout of the pages involved and the general frames concept. Because they are a relatively new construct, they haven't been in
widespread use, but with the release of Internet Explorer 3.0 the popularity of frames should begin to increase. The Frames Wizard automates the creation of frames with an easy-to-understand interface.
To begin a new set of framed documents, New from the File menu and select the Frames Wizard from the New Page dialog box, as shown in Figure 28.14. The Frames Wizard opens with the dialog box shown in Figure 28.15, which asks you to select from a set
of
templates or enables you to define a custom grid. If you are an experienced user of frames or have a clear idea of how you want to lay out your page, use the Custom Grid option. If you choose one of the templates, you are presented with five standard
layouts that provide a good start to your adventure with frames. Figure 28.16 shows the Pick Template Layout dialog box with the first template selected.
Figure 28.14. Selecting the Frames Wizard for a new framed document.
Figure 28.15. The Frames Wizard provides choices of prebuilt templates or custom design using grids.
Figure 28.16. You can choose from five prebuilt templates from the Frame Wizard.
One potential problem with using frames is that some browsers do not support frames. But the frames specification takes this into consideration by the inclusion of a <NOFRAMES> section in the framed document. This section is the only section that
a non-frames-aware browser will "see"; thus, the Frames Wizard enables you to point to another document as the alternate page to display in this instance (see Figure 28.17). You are then presented with a dialog box where you can name the
document
set, as shown in Figure 28.18. This will become the base document for the set—the new pages will be created when you click on the Finish button. As illustrated in Figure 28.15, this example has three distinct regions that need frame documents, so the
result is one master document called frameset.htm and three documents for the Banner, Contents, and Main section of the master document. The other documents are named with an fr as the first two characters of the filename so that they are easily
distinguished from other files. In this case, the files that are created are frbanner.htm, frconten.htm, and frmain.htm, as shown in Figure 28.19. You then edit each document separately in the Editor.
NOTE
When I refer to the Bannner, Contents, and Main sections of the document I am using FrontPage's default names for these sections of the "framed" document. You can use your own names for these sections when you use the Frame Wizard.
Figure 28.18. The Frame Wizard prompts you to name the master frameset document.
If you edit the master frameset document, you are presented with the contents that a non-frames browser would see so that you can change this document as necessary for those browsers. In other words, FrontPage opens the master frameset document and
displays only the contents of the <NOFRAMES> section. To edit the contents of the individual frame sections, you need to open each of these files in turn using the menu selections File | Open from Web; the "Current Web" dialog box as shown
in Figure 28.20 will then enable you to select the individual file.
Figure 28.20. The Current Web dialog is used to select the Banner Frame file for editing.
When FrontPage creates the files for the frame, it automatically inserts an Annotation Bot to walk you through the creation of the content for the files. If you want to get a better idea of how the files correspond to the layout in Internet Explorer,
just load the frameset.htm file in the browser, and you will see a page similar to the one in Figure 28.21. As you can see by this example, creating frames with FrontPage is much easier that coding them with any other tool. You will probably begin to see
the real utility that frames bring to the layout of information as you experiment with this tool.
Figure 28.21. Internet Explorer showing the layout of the FrontPage generated frameset.
The next section takes a look at one of the wizards that you use within the FrontPage Explorer. As you can see in Table 28.8, there are only two wizards that you access from within the FrontPage Explorer. Both of these require a running Web server with
the FrontPage server extensions installed.
If you want to easily create all the files that might be necessary for a new corporate Web site, the Corporate Presence Wizard is for you. Not only does it build all the appropriate files, but it also adds tasks to the To Do List so that you can assign
sections of the new web to individual authors and track the progress. This might just be the quickest way to get your Web site on the Net! If you are an Internet Service Provider (ISP), this might be just the tool you are looking for to easily turn out
customized corporate Web sites for your clients.
To start a new Corporate Presence, select File | New Web. . . and choose the Corporate Presence Wizard from the New Web dialog box shown in Figure 28.22. Then you are asked to enter a name for this web in the New Web from Wizard dialog box (see Figure
28.23). This process actually creates an empty web by creating all the private _vti* folders, and then loads the actual Corporate Presence Wizard, as shown in Figure 28.24.
Figure 28.22. The New Web dialog box with Corporate Presence Wizard selected.
NOTE
When you enter a name for the web in the New Web from Wizard dialog box, this name will be used to create a directory for the web. This name must conform to the naming conventions of the file system of the host server.
The options presented in Figure 28.24 are typical of a wizard. If all you want to do is create simple templates, you can simply press the Finish button and FrontPage will generate a set of pages for the Acme corporation that you can then customize as
you wish (see Figure 28.25). The wizard automatically adds tasks to the To Do List as shown in Figure 28.26. But you probably have a better idea of what you want to include in your Corporate Presence Web, so let's look at all the options that this wizard
offers.
If you want to use the full features of the wizard, you need to step through all of the dialog boxes and make selections appropriate to your specific situation. You've already seen how to access this wizard, but if you choose Next instead of Finish in
the dialog box shown in Figure 28.24, you are presented with the dialog box shown in Figure 28.27. This dialog box gives you a few additional options concerning the file that you want FrontPage to include in your web. To complete the new web, use the Next
button to progress from dialog box to dialog box and make whatever optional selections seem useful to you. Figure 28.28 shows the options that you can select for the main Corporate Home Page for your web. You are even presented with several style options
(see Figure 28.29) to help you decide on the image you want to present with your Web presence.
Figure 28.27. The Corporate Presence Wizard offers many options to customize your web.
Figure 28.28. You can choose the features that will be created for your Corporate Home page.
Figure 28.29. You can choose from four styles for your corporate pages.
When you've made all the selections, you can step back through your selections using the Back button or just click the Finish button to complete the creation of your new corporate web. When the pages are complete, you can tell FrontPage to
automatically
load the To Do List so that you can start to add the content to the new pages or assign tasks to your team.
I'm sure you'll agree that this wizard is a very detailed example of just how powerful wizards can be. Using this wizard is simple, but enables you to easily create a whole Web presence with a minimum of difficulty.
This look at FrontPage WebBots and wizards is nearly complete. The next section touches very briefly on the subject of creating your own wizards using the FrontPage SDK. With this free tool, you can get even more creative and exploit the full potential
of FrontPage.
NOTE
Although the next section provides an example of the use of the FrontPage SDK, it does not teach you how to program. The SDK requires programming knowledge that is beyond the scope of this book.
The FrontPage Software Development Kit (SDK) is designed to assist in the creation of additional wizards and templates to extend FrontPage beyond the delivered configuration. Without the SDK, you can only create templates for single pages. With the
SDK,
you can create complete Web templates and wizards to create single pages, whole webs, or other special documents. The SDK is also the best source of details on the use of OLE automation to drive FrontPage from another application. For example, using the
information in the FrontPage SDK, you could create a Microsoft Excel macro to create an HTML document using the Internet Assistant for Excel and automatically post it to a managed web using OLE. With the SDK, you could build an entire web generation
machine using any Windows application with OLE support.
NOTE
The FrontPage SDK is available directly from Microsoft's FrontPage Web site in a 500KB ZIP file. The file contains all the information and sample code to help you create templates and wizards for your use. Point your browser to
http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/freestuff/fs_fp_sdk.htm
to retrieve the FrontPage SDK. The fpdevkit.zip file contains embedded folders that must be extracted using a ZIP tool that preserves the folder structure.
The FrontPage SDK includes sample code for use with Visual C++ and Visual Basic 4.0 as well as several example templates for single pages and entire webs. In addition there are several utilities that you can use to learn more about FrontPage's OLE
interfaces or take a web and turn it into a template. Table 28.10 details the complete contents of the SDK as available in June 1996.
| Folder | Contents |
| \CGI | Files to assist in creating Common Gateway Interface programs |
| \TEMPLATE | Files to assist in creating page and web templates |
| \UTILITY | Utility programs to assist developers |
| \WIZARDS | Files to assist in creating page and web wizards |
The \CGI folder includes sample C code to create CGI programs for the Personal Web Server that is part of FrontPage. This includes a sample application to use to provide compatibility with the Windows CGI standard. This popular CGI
format allows for the use of Visual Basic as back end CGI scripts for a Web server. Another example in this directory is an application to facilitate CGI interaction with an OLE Server DLL created with Visual Basic.
The \TEMPLATE folder contains a sample of each type of FrontPage template— page, web, or frameset. The included documentation for the SDK details the features of these different templates and gives good tips to help you modify these sample files
to
create your own templates. The sample frameset template is a special template; unlike the other two templates, a frameset is only used by the Frames Wizard.
The \UTILITY folder contains an example Visual Basic application that is used to demonstrate each of the OLE interfaces that is available to interact with FrontPage. Because the source code is included with all of these examples, you can modify them as
needed to create your own version of the application. When you run the APITEST application, you can exercise each of the interfaces, as shown in Figure 28.30.
As you can see from this illustration, you can directly access key FrontPage functions using standard OLE commands. For example, if you were to click on the Open Web button in the APITEST application, the dialog box shown in Figure 28.31 would open,
enabling you to enter the server, name of the Web to open, and the authorized username. Each of these examples in the APITEST is fully documented in the SDK documentation so that you can exploit each of the interfaces that FrontPage exposes.
Figure 28.31. The sample APITEST application exercise the available OLE interfaces to FrontPage.
The \WIZARDS folder contains C++ and Visual Basic examples to help you create your own wizard. The source code for the sample applications is fully commented and the SDK documentation gives more than adequate information to assist you in using the
examples to create your own wizard. One of the sample Visual Basic applications is a wizard to create calendar pages for your web.
The Calendar Wizard is a page wizard—it only creates a single page at each invocation. But because you have the source, you could easily create a version of the application to make multiple months or even whole year calendars. Figure 28.32 shows a
portion of the code that is used to store the names of the months. When you run the application, it looks like other wizards you've seen, as shown in Figure 28.33.
Figure 28.32. A section of the source code for the Calendar Wizard as seen in Visual Basic.
Figure 28.33. The Calendar Wizard looks like other wizards you have seen in FrontPage.
As you step through each of the dialog boxes, the Calendar Wizard enables you to choose a month and year for your calendar, and when you are finished, the wizard creates a standard HTML file as shown in Figure 28.34.
With this brief tour of the FrontPage SDK, you have seen how you can use the SDK to create your own templates and wizards. The sky is really the only limit to the applications you can create with this SDK and FrontPage.
This chapter has presented a whirlwind tour of all the tools available in the FrontPage Editor and Explorer. You've learned about the features that you are most likely to use over and over again. You've also seen how many of the best features of
FrontPage operate to help you understand the underlying structure that FrontPage depends upon for its operation. Finally, this chapter has looked at the FrontPage Software Development Kit to illustrate the tools that are available if the delivered
templates and wizards don't take you far enough.
In the next chapter, you will learn a little about the Personal Web Server that ships with FrontPage and also use some of the tools you've learned about so far to redesign the Sams.net home page. You'll see how the whole product fits together into a
complete publishing system for the Web.
