Book:
FrontPage 2002: The Complete Reference
By Martin S. Matthews and Eric P. Poulsen
Publisher Osborne/McGraw-Hill
I liked this book despite (or maybe because of) its size. It is one of those huge books, with 982 pages presented in 25 chapters and four appendices plus a companion CD and an Index which runs 20 pages and has over 1700 entries. Obviously, I have not read the whole book, but as I continue to use FrontPage I believe I will use more and more of it. The best way to learn a program, and to use this book, is to create a web site, and I have done that, as explained in the sidebar.
|
My
FrontPage learning-by-doing web site is at
https://members.tripod.com/franknjpc It
contains the fifteen reviews of
books and software I have prepared for the NJPCUG over the past 5 years.
You can see that I started with simple subjects and have gravitated
to more complex subjects.
The
NJPCUG review program makes the books and software available for free,
subject to submission of a review for the Newsletter.
Taking advantage of this program has saved me over $900.
By using the new books and software I have learned and expanded my
capabilities and, hopefully, my reviews have served to inform the NJPCUG
membership on the items covered.
The
review program is available to all members of NJPCUG.
No special writing skills are needed - only the ability to explain
a user’s reaction to the product. The program and the material available
for review are shown on the Club web site at http://www.njpcug.org/reviews/reviewlist.htm
Take
advantage of this program. It is
administered by Maureen Shannon.
Thank you Maureen.
It also includes pictures of many members -
so readers might wish to visit the site to see if they are included. |
FrontPage is one of many desktop, web-authoring programs. Several companies have their suite of publishing programs. Microsoft’s publishing programs, in order of increasing complexity, include Word 2003, Publisher and FrontPage. It appears that after FrontPage, MS users would get into the even more complex Developers’ programs. FrontPage 2002 is a full-featured program and it is well-coordinated with MS Office 2002, sharing many of the same toolbars, procedures and terminology.
I have used Publisher to create some personal web pages and have found it useful and user-friendly. Reviewing this book I see that FrontPage is very much more powerful and capable, allowing features I had not known are available to those doing home-based desktop publishing.
FrontPage is a WYSIWYG web editor. One does not need to know HTML or other web programming language. FrontPage makes all the conversions. And FrontPage has many special capabilities, which are well explained in this book. Personally, I like to ability to create Message Boards, to get Comments from site visitors and to get info on those visitors. FrontPage makes it easy to establish and modify the navigation links between pages on the web site and keeps track of all images and other special features so they can be properly placed on the web server. FrontPage is a complex program constructed in a way that serves both novice and advanced web page authors. But, because of the complexity, it requires some instruction for effective use. It deserves a book that is equally encompassing and easy to use. This is that book.
The book describes itself as “ The Most Authoritative Volume Available On FrontPage 2002”. Having gone through a good deal of it I would not doubt that claim at all. And it is an easy read. The writing is almost conversational and there is an illustrative Figure or Table on almost every page. It starts with an overview and then gets into details.
The first chapter generally discusses the Internet and web pages and their contents. It gives some general advice as to what a good web page and web sites should contain and look like. The second chapter, titled “Exploring FrontPage”, is really a general introduction to FrontPage and can serve as a basic instruction for creating a web site.
Chapters 3 and 4 cover using the Wizards and Templates, two powerful aids. Chapter 5 explains how to create a web site without the Wizards and Templates. Chapter 6 discusses Hyperlinks, including Bookmarks, and Hotspots. Tables, Frames and Forms are described in Chapters 7 and 8. These are potent features and their use is well illustrated.
FrontPage has a set of capabilities grouped as “components”. These are discussed in Chapter 9 and include items such as Hit Counters, Search, Photo Gallery, Table of Contents and more. Going through this Chapter shows how to use these features to improve a web site.. Chapter 10 then goes over “Advanced Formatting”, showing how to modify and customize Themes, create Style Sheets and effectively use graphics and colors. I now know the whats and whys of “web-Safe Colors”. Chapter 10 covers “Importing and Integrating Office and Other Files”.
Chapters 12 to 19 discuss a number of advanced features of Web creation such as: HTML, dynamic HTML, XML, Java script and other scripts, Active Server Pages, ASP.NET and Databases. Truthfully, I am not yet ready for these features. Check with me next year. Chapters 20 and 25 cover activating the web site. They explain how to create a Scrolling Marquee which is so useful on the NJPCUG web site. The importance of using a web host that supports FrontPage Server Extensions is explained in detail and a list of these FPSE features is shown for various versions of FrontPage from FP 98 on. It gives URLs for sites which list web hosting sites that support FPSE. Other sites supporting FPSE which can be used for free [with ads] include www.tripod.com and www.netfirms.com.
The last five chapters, 20 to 25, deal with extensions or additions to web sites and include topics such as: adding multimedia including sound and audio files; incorporating security into the site; E-Commerce including Web Store options and marketing on the Web Store; setting up an Intranet of various types, including using the SharePoint for team construction and modification of the site.
There are 4 Appendices. Appendix A covers installation of FrontPage, including Web Servers, Network Setups and the FrontPage Extensions. Appendix B covers all of FrontPage’s shortcut key strokes and this list extends for five pages - illustrating again the extent of the FrontPage program and the useful information in this book. Since FrontPage allows extensive use of templates in creating web pages and web sites, Appendix C discusses creating templates. It is short enough it could have been included in the chapter on templates.
Appendix D discusses the use of the companion CD which contains: the files used within the book; and then an assortment of software programs, some freeware, some shareware and some just demonstrations. A few of these are programs which add features to FrontPage but many are introductory or demonstration versions of e-commerce programs.
The list price of this book is $49.99. It is available on Amazon.com for $34.99
As I stated in the beginning of this review, this is a soup-to-nuts books covering FrontPage 2002. I can’t imagine that there is anything left out. So it can serve as a bible for users of FrontPage 2002 and I expect I will be using it that way and appreciating the help it provides.