Frontpage 2000

CHANGE THE ORIENTATION OF A NAVIGATION BAR

Once you've placed a navigation bar on a web page, you're not stuck with it the way it is. If you decide you'd rather have it displayed vertically, running down the side of the page, rather than horizontally, it's easy to change it.

In Page View, double-click the navigation bar. Select Vertical under Orientation And Appearance. Click OK.

Tip-in-a-tip: If you change a navigation bar in a shared border, the change will affect all pages using that border.

ADD A NAVIGATION BAR TO A PAGE

Whether or not you use it, a roadmap is always a good item to have when you're exploring new territory. This holds true for exploring Web pages, too. It's nice to know how to get around, and a navigation bar, which usually has links to the site's home page and main pages, does the job. So why not add a navigation bar to your web?

In Page View, position your cursor where you want to put the bar--for example, at the top of a page. Click Insert, Navigation Bar.

Select the type of hyperlinks to add to the navigation bar under Hyperlinks To Add To Page. To add links to pages on the same level as the current page, choose Same Level. Select the Home Page check box under Additional Pages to add a link to your home page, too.

Under Orientation And Appearance, choose Horizontal if you want your navigation bar to run across the top of the page, or Vertical if you want to it run down the side. Choose Text (unless you're using a theme for your page--then you can select buttons). Click OK to create your navigation bar. If you're using a theme for your web, button navigation bars will use fonts, colors, and other style elements from the theme.

Tip-in-a-tip: If you add a navigation bar to a page that uses a shared border, the change will affect all pages using that border.

CHANGE WHICH PAGES ARE DISPLAYED ON A NAVIGATION BAR

In the previous tip, you learned how to add a navigation bar to a page in your web. But what if you want to change the hyperlinks on a bar? Let's say, for example, that rather than having a link to all your main pages, you want a bar that displays buttons that say Back, Next, and Home.

In Page View, double-click the navigation bar. Under Hyperlinks To Add To Page, select Back And Next, and select the Home Page check box. Click OK.

Tip-in-a-tip: If you change a navigation bar in a shared border, the change will affect all pages using that border.

EXCLUDE A PAGE FROM NAVIGATION BARS

In the last two tips, you've learned how to add a navigation bar to a web page. When you choose which hyperlinks to add, however, you can't specify individual pages, only pages on a certain level, right? Wrong. You can go back and exclude specific pages from the navigation bar, but it does take a few extra steps.

To exclude a page from a navigation bar (when you've selected the other pages on the same level), switch to Navigation View. Right-click the page you want to keep out of the navigation bar, and clear the Included In Navigation Bars check box on the shortcut menu.

Tip-in-a-tip: If you change a navigation bar in a shared border, the change will affect all pages using that border.

EASY ON THE NAVIGATION

Beginners often organize their pages so that their sites are hard to navigate. If your site has more than two levels, you should give some thought as to how your visitors navigate it. Nobody likes wandering from link to link with no idea what is where or having to follow ten links to find one piece of information. Keep the relationship between your pages simple. Make clear which links are internal to your own site and which go out to other sites. Provide a site map or a common menu. And make navigation work consistently throughout the site.

NAVIGATIONAL EASY STREET

If you've ever driven a car in San Francisco, you know it's not what one would call a user-friendly city. One-way streets, nosebleed hills, and elusive parking make driving in San Francisco a daunting experience for the first-time visitor. Your Web site should be just the opposite. Your site must be easy to navigate the very first time around. Guide your visitors with clearly categorized information and thoughtfully placed links. Break information into manageable bits, keeping pages short and easy to read. If your visitors get lost, give them a map containing links to all the pages in your site or, even better, set up the site so that visitors can search your site for keywords.

LATE BREAKING NEWS

The sites on the Internet that report the most hits are those that change most frequently, thereby keeping visitors coming back for new content. Even small changes can make a big difference, especially if viewers know to look for them. Keep your site fresh and dynamic, and let viewers know when to come back for more. If you always make changes to your site at the same time (every Friday morning, for example), viewers have a specific date to look forward to and are more likely to come back on a regular basis. Dynamic sites grow quickly, however, and generally require even more planning than static sites.

(OB)SCENE, BUT NOT HEARD

Ever heard of the "seven dirty words" made famous in a routine by comedian George Carlin? The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has banned them from being uttered on TV and radio broadcasts. However, the FCC does not regulate the Internet. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act, which sought to regulate "obscene" communications on the Internet. Then the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was passed by Congress, but it was struck down in federal court.

Now, there's the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in late 2001. It requires schools and libraries to filter pornography, obscenity, and other material deemed offensive to children. Of course, the Act is subject to court challenges.

ADD OFFICE STUFF TO YOUR SITE WITH FRONTPAGE

FrontPage comes with three Web components that enable you to add Microsoft Office functionality to your Web site in the form of working spreadsheets, charts, and PivotTables. These Web components are best reserved for use on an intranet site because they have specific server and browser requirements:

The site must be published on a server that has FrontPage Server Extensions installed.
Visitors must be using Internet Explorer (version 3.0 and later) and have Microsoft Office (version 2000 and later) with Office Web components installed on their computers.

If your publishing environment meets these conditions and you'd like to know more, visit the FrontPage Help system for details. To get there, in the upper right corner of the FrontPage window, type Office Web Component in the Ask a Question list box, and then press Enter.

JUGGLING PAGES

You're just editing your home page when you suddenly think of something you need to add to another page of your site. So you open that second page and make the necessary changes. Ah! What happened to the home page? To jump back to it quickly and easily, go to the Window menu. There you'll see a list of all the pages that are open. Select the home page, and you'll be back to work in no time.

CREATING A RULE FROM ORGANIZE

If you want to create a simple rule to move messages from a particular person into a particular folder--like messages from your boss into a folder called Do It Pronto--you can do it quickly and easily using the Organize function.

Select a message from your boss. Click Organize, then select Using Folders. Under the second bullet point, which starts with Create A Rule, choose the folder to which you want the intended messages saved. Then, click Create to create the rule.

OUTLINE IT

When you were in school, your teacher always told you to write an outline before you started writing a paper. You may not have listened then, but you really should take her advice now: It's wise to map out your Web site before you start building it. One way to do that is-essentially--to create an outline of the site using the Navigation view. Here's how.

First, you need an idea of what you want your Web site to be about. (Sounds simple, I know, but bear with me here.) Let's say, for example, that your Web site is all about your family. So the home page--that's the main page and the first one that your visitors will probably see--leads to all the other pages. You've decided that you want one of these pages to be about vacations, one about the kids, and one about the pets. Keep all that in mind as you go through these steps.

Now, go to the Navigation view and select File, New, Page. A new page, called New Page 1, will appear under the Home Page icon. That means that you'll want your visitors to link to this page directly from the home page. Let's say that that's your page about vacations. Now you'll need to add two more pages--one for the kids and one for the pets.

There may be pages that should be under these new pages. Let's say that each of your three kids wants his or her own page. So the kids' page should have three pages under it. Go to one of the new pages--it doesn't matter which since you haven't named them yet--and right-click on it. From the pop-up menu that appears, choose New Page. A new page will now appear one level down. Add two more so you have a total of three.

To avoid confusion, you'll want to go back and name each of these pages. Click on the name--that's New Page 1, New Page 2, etc.--of each page. Highlight the name and then type in your own. When you're ready to start working on your site, you can just double-click on the pages you've created in this outline and get right to work! Your teacher would be proud. (Ah, shucks.)

TEACHER SAYS MAKE AN OUTLINE--PART 1 OF 5

Remember in grade school when your teacher would assign an outline? You might have hated the assignment, but you have to admit that an outline is a pretty handy tool. Fortunately, FrontPage has a way to let you present outlines on your Web site, without you having to sit and hit tab keys, line everything up, and change all the numbering by hand. It's still a fairly complex process--you're essentially stringing together a series of lists--so it will take a few tips to go through the whole thing.

The first thing to do when you're starting an outline is to position your cursor where you want the outline to begin. Now, select Format, Bullets And Numbering. The List Properties dialog box will appear. Click the Numbers tab. There you'll see several different numerical styles. Pick the one you'd like for the first level of your outlineand click OK.

The next step is to just start typing your outline. When you press the Enter key to select the next level of your outline, you'll notice that it doesn't automatically indent or give you a different numbering system. Don't worry; you'll learn how to apply those formatting tricks in the next few tips.

TEACHER SAYS MAKE AN OUTLINE--PART 2 OF 5

In our previous tip, you started the process of making an outline using FrontPage. But all you have on the screen in front of you are a series of outline points, all with the same lettering (or numbering) system and without indentations. "Not much of an outline," you are mumbling to yourself. Not to worry. Today, you'll learn how to indent everything so it looks more like the outlines you used to make in school.

You've typed in a series of items. Let's say the first line is SUMMER PARTY, and under that you have a series of items that you want to indent, such as: FRIED CHICKEN, LEMONADE, and WATERMELON. (By the way, we'll expect an invitation once you've figured out how to create your outline.) Go ahead and select all the food--in this case, that's all the stuff you want to indent. Now look on your toolbar for the Increase Indent icon; it has an arrow pointing to the right, with a bunch of lines next to it. Click that icon twice, and all your food will be neatly indented for your summer party menu.

TEACHER SAYS MAKE AN OUTLINE--PART 3 OF 5

Well, you've been working on an outline, but in order to make it complete, you'll have to take one more step. Right now, everything's neatly indented, but it all has the same numbering system, which certainly isn't how Ms. Fields in fifth grade taught you how to do outlines. Remember? Each level has a different lettering or numbering system.

So here's how to do it right and get that A. Select the level of the outline whose numbering system you want to change. (Using our previous example, that's the list of food you'll be serving at your summer party.) Select the first item on that sublevel. Right-click and choose List Properties. You'll see that same List Properties dialog box, with different numbering styles. Choose the one you'd like for the sublevel you're working on and click OK. You'll notice that the change is applied to all items in that sublevel. (NOTE: The change won't apply to items on other sublevels. Even if the levels have the same amount of indentation, you'll have to select each sublevel separately to change the numbering.)

TEACHER SAYS MAKE AN OUTLINE--PART 4 OF 5

You're building an outline and you made a mistake. Say you've indented items too far--turns out that your outline has changed and you want to move stuff up a level. Not a problem. Simply select the items you want to move and click the Decrease Indent icon on your FrontPage toolbar. It looks like an arrow pointing to the left, with a bunch of lines next to it.

TEACHER SAYS MAKE AN OUTLINE--PART 5 OF 5

Enough of this outline stuff? Well and good. When you've finished with your outline, just press the Enter key twice to exit from all its intricate list-making properties.

CREATING A NEW PAGE--PART 1 OF 3

Whether you want to create a new standalone HTML page, or add a page to your current web, the process is the same.

Select File, New, Page. The Normal Page template (a blank page) is automatically selected, but you can select any other template you wish. The Preview area will show how each template looks. Click OK.

If you just want to create a blank page, you can simply click the New Page icon on the Standard toolbar, or press Ctrl-N.

CREATING A NEW PAGE--PART 2 OF 3

In our previous tip, you learned the quickest ways to add a new page to your web. But you still have to save it to the current web. Why not add a new page directly from the Folder List? That way, it's already filed correctly.

In the Folder List, right-click the folder in which you want to create the new page, then click New Page on the shortcut menu. Type the name of the new page, and then press Enter.

CREATING A NEW PAGE--PART 3 OF 3

In our previous tip, you learned how to add a new page to your web in the Folder List. If you're one of those people who likes a visual aid while working, you probably spend a lot of time in Navigation view, where you can see a graphic representation of how your web is laid out.

To add a page from Navigation view, right-click a page and select New Page from the shortcut menu. This will add a new page below the selected page.

NAMING PAGES--PART 1 OF 3

Say you're in the Navigation view of FrontPage and you just added a bunch of different pages to create that all-important outline. The only problem is that the pages have non-descriptive names like new_page_1.htm and new_page_2.htm. To change a name, click on the name once. Now click it again so the name is highlighted. (Nope, that's not a mistake. You don't want to double-click--instead of highlighting the name, double-clicking will open the new page so you can edit it.) Once the name is highlighted, you can change new_page_1.htm to something more enlightening, like Favorite Restaurants. If you have a lot of pages, here's a good tip: When you've finished typing in the name of one page, simply use your Tab key to highlight the name of the next page.

NAMING PAGES--PART 2 OF 3

Once you rename those pages in your Navigation view, you might think you're done, right? So, you look over at the Folder List--only to see that your pages still have those useless original names--new_page_1.htm, new_page_2.htm, and so on. You know you renamed those suckers already, but which did you rename what? Can't remember? Go to a name in the Folder List and right-click. A pop-up menu will appear, and the first item on the list should help you solve your problem: Choose Find In Navigation, and the corresponding page will instantly be highlighted. Now, go back to the page in the Folder List and change it so that it matches the new name in the Navigation view.

NAMING PAGES--PART 3 OF 3

What a pain: Once you add a page in the Navigation view, you have to rename it and then rename the same page in the Folder List. But here's a sneaky little shortcut: Add the page in the Navigation view and rename it there right away. Now, double-click on that page to open it. Jump back to the Navigation view and take a look in the Folder List. Whadd'ya see? Your new page--with its new name--is listed correctly in the Folder List, without you having to make any additional changes. And that's a good thing.

PAGE PLANS

The only tools you need to do the planning part of your first Web page are Web access (for doing research) and either a word processing and drawing program or a pencil and paper -- whichever is more comfortable -- for sketching your plans and taking notes.

A few extra hours up front can save you a great deal of time later, helping you produce a better Web page. Yet the planning step is the most frequently overlooked part of the Web publishing process.

To plan your Web site:

Determine the purpose of your site. Is this a personal site? Topical? Business? Entertainment?
Decide on the structure of your site and the layout of your pages. Decide how many pages you'll need. Try to build everything out from your home page.
Decide what links to include. A Web page without links is pretty boring. Provide links to other pages within your site as well as to outside sites of interest. Create a list of possible links. Take a look at the list and see if there's a way to organize them into groups.

THE SLOW AND POKEY PAGE--PART 1 OF 2

A slow and pokey page is something you don't want on your Web site. This is the page that takes forever to download--you know, the one where you can throw in a load of laundry and pour yourself a mug of coffee before everything appears on the screen.

How do you know if your page is too slow? Well, obviously, the more graphics and images you have on a page, the slower it will be. But that's not very scientific. Fortunately, FrontPage has a built-in tool that lets you determine if a page will download too slowly.

Here's how to find out if your Web site includes any such snails. Select View, Reports, Site Summary. In the report that appears on the screen, you'll see a row called Slow Pages. As you read across that row, note the number of pages that are slow and the size of those pages. Now your only job will be to select those pages and cut them down to size.

THE SLOW AND POKEY PAGE--PART 2 OF 2

So you've learned how to find slow pages on your Web site. But here's the catch: Who defines slow? After all, if you know that all your site visitors are going to be using a T1 line, then slow means something different than if you're expecting folks who are still surfing on a 14.4-Kbps modem. FrontPage's default settings are for a page that takes 30 seconds to download on a 28.8-Kbps modem. Wanna change the settings? Easy enough. Select Tools, Options. In the Options dialog box, click the Reports View tab. There you'll see the settings you want to change. You can adjust the amount of time a slow page takes to download, and you can set the assumed connection speed.

PAINT BUCKET BRIGADE

The problem with the Paint Bucket tool (which you can select by pressing G and then Shift+G) is that it's hard to get the Tolerance value just right. You usually end up choosing Undo several times and resetting the Tolerance value until you find the value that colors only the pixels that you want to color. Overall, the Paint Bucket is a poor tool for filling areas in Photoshop. If you select an area in your image by using the Magic Wand tool, which chooses pixels of similar color surrounding the cursor and then fills the area with a color, you produce the same effect as with the Paint Bucket, and you have more alternatives at your disposal.

PARAGRAPH BASICS--PART 1 OF 5

There are lots of tricks you can use when designing the paragraphs of your Web page to highlight text or to create an interesting look. One is to create a border around the paragraph.

To create a border, first select the entire paragraph. Now choose Format, Borders And Shading. In the Borders And Shading dialog box, select the Box option. This tells FrontPage to put a box around the paragraph in question. Next, you'll have to design the style of that box. Under Style, you'll see a bunch of different options. As you highlight them, you'll notice a preview on the right, so you'll have a sense of the change you're making in advance.

Finally, feel free to change the color of the box and/or the width of the line. When you're done adjusting these settings, click OK. A border will appear around the selected paragraph.

PARAGRAPH BASICS--PART 2 OF 5

Borders aren't the only way to emphasize the text of a paragraph. You can also highlight paragraphs by using a shading technique.

First, select the paragraph that you'd like to shade. Then, choose Format, Borders And Shading. In the Borders And Shading dialog box, click the Shading tab. Now look for the pull-down menu called Background Color. Click the pull-down arrow to see the plethora of colors you can choose from. Note that you can also create a custom color, if you so desire. Once you've selected the right color, click OK.

One note here: Background colors can be tricky. You'll want to be sure you use a shade that allows viewers to still read your text easily.

PARAGRAPH BASICS--PART 3 OF 5

Of course, you can emphasize a particular paragraph of your Web page by simply adjusting borders and spacing. To do this, first select the paragraph with which you'd like to work. Now choose Format, Paragraph. Here, you can tinker with such details as the alignment of the paragraph, the indentation of the beginning and end of the graph (as well as the indentation of the first line), and the spacing around and in the paragraph. When you've finished making the appropriate changes, click OK.

PARAGRAPH BASICS--PART 4 OF 5

Once you've created a particular design for a paragraph--like a border, a shading option, or even just indentation--you can continue that design to the next graph. Just press the Enter key to start your next paragraph, and the effects will still be in place.

PARAGRAPH BASICS--PART 5 OF 5

Want to select a given paragraph in a hurry? Move your cursor to the margin on the left-hand side of the paragraph. You want your cursor to look like an arrow instead of a line. When it does, simply double-click. That will highlight the entire paragraph. Easy as pie.

SETTING PERMISSIONS WITH FRONTPAGE

To control who may edit your Web site, you use FrontPage to specify administrators and authors. If you want your Web site to appear only to authorized visitors, you can also create a list of people with browsing access.

FrontPage provides for the following three levels of access:

Administer: Giving someone Administer access makes him or her an administrator, and an administrator can create, edit, or delete Web sites and pages and adjust a Web site's permissions. Every Web site must have at least one administrator.
Author: An author can create, edit, or delete pages but cannot create or delete Web sites or adjust the Web site's permissions.
Browse: A person with Browse access can only a view a Web site with a Web browser; that person can't edit the Web site or even open the site in FrontPage.

PHOTOSHOP COLORS YOUR WORLD

Photoshop 6 Gradient tool enables you to fill a selection with a fountain of colors that starts with one color and ends with another. By default, the two colors are the foreground color and background color.

But Photoshop can do more than create simple two-color blends. You can create custom gradients that blend a multitude of colors and vary from opaque to transparent throughout the blend. Photoshop has five gradient types: Linear, Radial, Angle, Reflected, and Diamond. And the Options bar offers settings that enable you to play with blend modes, opacity, and reversing colors.

Press Shift+Right-click (Shift+Control+click on a Mac) to bring up the gradient palette right under your cursor for quick and easy selections.

ALONG THE PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS PATH

Photoshop Elements gives you a small sampling of Paths with the Shape tools. However, Photoshop gives you a host of tools for drawing your own vector-based paths. Photoshop uses bezier tools for drawing paths, which enable you create shapes by clicking anchor points and dragging control handles. It takes a while to master the bezier tools, but once you do, you can draw any shape imaginable. Once you've drawn a path, you can then convert it into a selection or manage it with the Paths palette.

KEEP IT PLAIN, JANE

Avoid excessive embellishment in the language of your site as well as in its design and gadgetry. Stick to basic sentence structures. Keep sentences, as well as paragraphs, short. Go with just one idea per paragraph and one point per sentence. Say what you have to say to make your point, but say no more than that. Use plain language -- ordinary words like use win out over words like utilize. Plain English is simple, honest, and without hype. Be unambiguous. Use words exactly as they are really, truly defined and use any given word to mean the same thing every time you use it.

PRONUNCIATION PURISTS SQUARE OFF

A dispute rages in the Web publishing community over the pronunciation of the acronym GIF. Is GIF pronounced with a hard G, as in graphic, or is the term pronounced JIF, like the peanut butter? You can actually take your pick between the two, expecting the same results from either choice: Know-it-alls exist in both camps, so matter how you say it, prepare to be corrected. If you really want to confuse the issue, go for the full name: Graphics Interchange Format. People are more likely to understand a pronunciation variation than the spelled-out version.

PUBLICATION SCHEDULING

FrontPage 2000's Publish Status report is a helpful tool for making sure your ship is ready to sail before you push new content. The Publish Status report tells you exactly which Web file you've scheduled for publication, as well as the current status for that Web file. You can change both the file's publishing status (from Publish to Don't Publish) and the review status from this report.

AH, NOW I REMEMBER

It's been a while since you worked on your Web page (no, we won't tell the Web police), and you can't remember where you put the last files you were working on. Rather than dredging through your memory, use this easy trick: If you choose File, Recent Files, you'll get a list of all the files you last had open. Similarly, choosing File, Recent Webs will display a list of all the Web sites you've been working on, if there are more than one.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

Yes, a rose by any other name would still be a rose--but your Web site by any other name could just create a nightmare of broken hyperlinks. Fortunately, you can avoid all those problems if you change a web's name with FrontPage. Start by selecting Tools, Web Settings. In the Web Settings dialog box, select the General tab. There, you'll see a section called Web Name. Go ahead and make your change here.

One note: If you've already published your Web site and then renamed it, you'll have to republish it with the new name.

INDENTING TEXT WITH FRONTPAGE

HTML control over indents is primitive at best. FrontPage has chosen to hide this deficiency by creating two indent options on the Format toolbar that mimic the options available in Microsoft Word. Here's how to handle indentation:

Increase Indent -- Use this button on the Format toolbar to cause a currently selected paragraph to be indented as a block. Click multiple times to increase the quantity of indentation.
Decrease Indent -- This essentially strips an indented text block of its indentations. Click multiple times to remove multiple indentations.

These functions use the HTML <BLOCKQUOTE> tag, which, as the name implies, was designed only as a way of indenting large, block quotes. It was not really envisioned as a general-purpose method of indenting text, so you have no precise control over how much your text is indented. Typically, block quotes are also displayed with an automatic paragraph break.

IMPORT A PAGE INTO A WEB

The best ideas aren't always original ones. Sometimes it makes sense to use a good page from another web in your current web. Then, you can customize it as needed.

To replace one page with another, first open the page you want to replace. Click Insert, File. In the Select File dialog box, navigate to the file you want to import, then click Open. FrontPage inserts your selection onto the current page.

THE WEB IMPORT BUSINESS

Let's say that you were tinkering with Web design long before you invested in FrontPage. And say you came up with a pretty nice Web page that you'd like to incorporate into the Web site that you're now building with FrontPage. Shouldn't be a problem. Just follow these simple steps:

First, you need to create a place to put the Web page you've built. Let's say that you want it to be the new home page of the Web site you're developing with FrontPage. Go to the Navigation view and locate the icon called Home Page. (It's the one with the little house on it. Cute, huh?) Double-click the Home Page icon. You'll notice that two different things change on your screen. First, you're no longer in Navigation view; you've switched to the Page view. Second, you'll see some little yellow icons on your screen--one says "body" and the other says "/body". These are HTML tags; your Web page will go between these tags. Next, select Insert, File. Browse through your hard drive until you find the Web page that you had created previously, the one that you want to insert in your new FrontPage Web site. Remember that the page you created needs to have a .htm or an .html extension in order to work on the Web.

Once you've found the page, click Open. The page will automatically appear on the screen in front of you. You'll notice that you'll see a lot more of those yellow boxes with tags. Don't worry--they won't appear on your final page. Finally, save your page by selecting File, Save. Voila!

PREVIEW A PAGE IN A WEB BROWSER

Since FrontPage is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) program, your Web pages should look pretty much the same in a browser as they do in FrontPage. But it's still nice to see exactly how they'll look in Navigator or Explorer.

If you have installed Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.0 or later on your computer, you can quickly preview the current page by clicking the Preview tab in Page View. The Preview tab is at the bottom of the screen, next to the Normal and HTML tabs.

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF PAGES

Study after study has shown that the best way to present information on a computer screen is in very short chunks -- and on relatively short pages. Readers don't like to scroll, so you're better off creating multiple pages (of short paragraphs) than you are in cramming everything into one super-long scrolling page. Forcing readers to struggle through long paragraphs and long pages increases their annoyance with the material -- and makes it less likely that they'll continue to read all the way to the end.

FIND AND REPLACE TEXT IN A WEB

In the previous tip, you learned how to search a particular block of text--in this case, your mother's maiden name, which you misspelled--in all the pages in a web. But if you're searching so that you can correct a spelling error or replace text, there's no need to search and then manually fix your mistake. Simply use the Find and Replace feature, and correct your error automatically!

Switch to Folders View. Click Edit, Replace. If you want to search the entire web, click All Pages, or to search only particular pages, click Selected Pages. Type the text you want to search for (in this case, the misspelled name) in the Find What box. Type the replacement text (your mom's correct maiden name) in the Replace With box. Click Find.

FrontPage will search and display the pages in which the text appears. Double-click the first page in the list. You'll see the text highlighted. Click Replace All to fix all the misspelled names in one fell swoop.

CONVERT A PICTURE TO BLACK AND WHITE

Going for that cool art-house look on your Web site? Why not convert your color pictures to black and white?

In Page View, click the picture. Select View, Toolbars, Pictures to display the Pictures toolbar. Click Black And White on the toolbar. Voila, artsy and cool.

PICTURE PERFECT

Why would you ever want to display a picture online at more than 72 pixels per inch and 256 colors? One application would be if you intended for the pictures on your page to be printed on a high-resolution printer. For example, say you created a Web page filled with vacation photos and then directed your friends and family to print those photos for their own use. You'd want those pictures to be configured for optimal printing, not for optimal Web page display.

The same holds if you're presenting extremely detailed pictures on your page, pictures that are likely to be displayed and examined on larger, high-resolution monitors. (Think medical photos, or crime scene photos, or something like that.) If visitors need the detail, provide it to them -- which you do by increasing color depth and resolution.

POSITION PICTURE WITH TEXT

A good Web page designer knows that when it comes to pictures, a Web page isn't just a photo album. You can use a picture in many ways, including as a tool to enhance a block of text. What sounds more interesting: a paragraph about Paris, or a paragraph wrapped around a picture of the Eiffel Tower?

To align a picture with the left side of a paragraph, place your cursor at the beginning of the first line. Click Insert, Picture, From File (or just click the Insert Picture From File button on the Standard toolbar). FrontPage assumes that the picture you want is already part of your web, so it displays the Picture dialog box. If the picture file is there, select it and click OK. If it's not, click Select File and navigate to the picture file. Select it and click OK.

Once you've inserted the picture, click Format, Position. Under Wrapping Style, click Left, then click OK.

FRONTPAGE PICTURE SPACING

FrontPage 2002 enables you to control the amount of breathing room surrounding your graphics. By adjusting horizontal and vertical spacing, you set the amount of space that separates a picture from its surroundings. To adjust picture spacing, follow these steps:

In the page, double-click the picture.
The Picture Properties dialog box appears with the Appearance tab visible.
In the Horizontal Spacing text box, type the number of pixels of blank space that you want to insert to the left and right of the picture.
In the Vertical Spacing text box, type the number of pixels of blank space that you want to insert above and below the picture.
Click OK to close the dialog box and adjust the spacing.

PICTURE THIS WITH FRONTPAGE

If you save a page that was originally opened from a location outside the current FrontPage Web site and that page contains graphics, FrontPage is smart enough to ask if you want to save the associated graphic files as well. If FrontPage didn't take this extra step, the pictures in the page wouldn't show up, because no associated graphic files would be available to display.

When you save a page containing pictures, in addition to saving the page, FrontPage pops open the Save Embedded Files dialog box. This dialog box enables you to save the graphic files as well as change the graphics' filenames and specify the folder in which the graphics are stored. You can also click the Picture Options button in the dialog box to specify details about the graphic file's format details. After you specify your preferences, click OK to save the graphics.

FOCUSING ON THE PICTURE TOOLBAR

In FrontPage 2000, you can't edit a graphics image without first activating the Picture Toolbar. Unlike a number of the other toolbars in FrontPage, the Picture Toolbar does not have corresponding keyboard or menu options. To activate the Picture Toolbar, choose View, Toolbars, Pictures. You can customize the Picture Toolbar to have only the features you want on it. To do so, click the down-arrow button to the right of the toolbar. The Add or Remove Buttons menu, and the entire Picture Toolbar menu appears with a check box next to each icon. Deselect a check box to remove an item from the Picture Toolbar.

SAY IT WITH PICTURES--PART 1 OF 3

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes you like a few words to define your picture. To add some text to your photo, first click on the image once to select it. Now, look at the picture toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Find the icon of the large A. Click on that icon, and a text box will appear in the center of your photo.

Don't worry that the text box is right over the most important part of the photo--just type the text that you'd like to have appear with your picture. When you've finished typing, click once in the center of the text box and hold down that mouse button. Now drag the box to the place you'd like to have it appear on your picture.

Good luck!

SAY IT WITH PICTURES--PART 2 OF 3

Now, plain black text doesn't do justice to that picture of Gramps in his millennium pajamas. Once you have that defining text on your photo, you probably want to jazz it up a little bit. To change the color of the text in the text box, first click once on the text box to select it. Now look at the toolbar at the top of the screen for the Font Color icon. It looks like the letter A with a bar of color under it. (If the text in your text box is black, then the color under the letter A will be black as well.) Click on the little arrow next to the Font Color icon and pick a color from the options presented. The color of your text will change automatically.

SAY IT WITH PICTURES--PART 3 OF 3

Let's say that you want to change the color of the text that's on your photo but you've got a real Martha Stewart streak. None of the standard colors will do: You've got to do it yourself. In fact, you want the color of the text to match the color of the flowers in that vase in the background. No problem.

First, click once on the text box on your photo to select it. Now find the Font Color icon at the top of the screen. (Remember, it's the one of the letter A with a bar of color under it.) Click on the down arrow that's to the right of the Font Color icon and select More Colors from the bottom of the menu. In the More Colors dialog box, you'll see a button labeled Select; it has a little eyedropper on it. When you click the Select button, you'll notice that your cursor turns into an eyedropper. Move your cursor/eyedropper to the photo in question and click once on the color in the photo that you'd like the text to be. You'll notice that the color you click on will appear in the New box. If you like the color that you've selected, click OK. If you don't, click the Select button again and choose another color till you get the one you want. Once you click OK, you'll notice that the text changes to the color that you chose.

YOU OUGHTA BE INTO PICTURES

FrontPage 2002 provides a number of ways to present movies in your Web site, but it does not include tools for creating video. Here a few places that you can try for tracking down digital video to add to your site:

Find them on the Web: You can search for free, downloadable videos in various formats, and find a wide array of videos on the Web.
Create video in an animation program: Programs like Flash, Shockwave, Adobe Premier, and QuickTime are used to design and generate digital video.
Windows ME built-in video tools: While a bit behind Macintosh in built-in video tools, Windows ME does include Windows Movie Maker - not a full-featured movie editor, but acceptable for editing digital video.
Capture video with a digital camera.

PUTTING THE SKIDS ON POP-UPS APLENTY

Given the proliferation of pop-up windows on the Web, it's hard not to be annoying if you choose to join in on the fun. Still, there are things you can do to mitigate the irritation caused by your pop-up windows. Here are a few:

Keep your pop-up windows small, preferably in the 200 x 200 range, but definitely no more than 600 (wide) x 300 (high).
Keep the pop-up window uncluttered by removing most (if not all) of the menus and navigational controls.

Keep the contents of your pop-up window to a minimum; don't force users to sit through long loading times for an already-annoying pop-up. (For example, don't put big graphics inside the pop-up!)

UPSIZING FINE PRINT

If you must present "fine print" information, such as citations typically found in footnotes or endnotes, make sure the text appears at the very end of your page or range of pages. You may even want to consider putting the fine print in a separate page that users have to deliberately open to read.

If you have to display more valuable information at a smaller type size, try to shrink the text as little as possible. Go down to 10 points, but not all the way to 8 points. And make sure that you use a font that's readable at that small size and place it against a clean, high-contrast background; small text is hard enough to read without having a complex background behind it.

For maximum readability, keep your body text in the 10- to 14-point range, with 12 points typically the best size.

PRIVACY PRIMER

Be extremely careful about putting identifying information about your children on your Web page. Just knowing your hobbies and your kids' names and where they go to school might be enough for some no-good-nik to pose as a friend of the family and pick them up after school.

GROWING (WEB PAGE) PROPOSITION

Web pages, like little babies and national deficits, grow. As time goes on, you're bound to add new pages and even new sections to your site. Build some growing room into your site's organization. Minimize repetitive tasks by creating page templates. Use shared borders and the Include Page FrontPage Components to automate the inclusion of standard elements in your pages. Most important, keep the growth of your Web site in perspective by refining your site's purpose and by remaining focused on your target audience.

WITHIN REACH

More reputable e-tailers provide the same type of contact information as do traditional direct mail and catalog merchants. That means that a street address, phone number, and e-mail address (or a mailto: link) should be listed somewhere on your site -- preferably where they're easy to find, such as through a Contact Us link. If you want to go the extra mile, include a Web-based form in addition to these other contact methods, and spend the additional bucks for a toll-free phone number -- and staff it 24/7. (Not all your customers live in the same time zone that you do.)

THE POWER OF RECOMMENDATION

You see billions and billions, if not absolute zillions, of Web sites that display a [Recommend This Site To A Friend] link. You have good reason to include a link like this one on your own site because you can't find a more powerful sales tool than a personal recommendation. If people hear from someone they trust about a Web site that they ought to look at, they're a lot more inclined to check it out. With any other method, you have to ask people to rely on the word of strangers or maybe even just a search engine.

PLAYING THE RENAME GAME

If you're familiar with the way Windows 95/98 enables you to rename files, then FrontPage 2000 will seem awfully familiar, because it works nearly identically. To change the name of a file, follow these steps:

If you don't already have the Folder List open, choose View, Folder list. The Folder list appears.
Right-click the file in the Folder List that you want to change.
Choose Rename from the pop-up menu that appears.
Press Enter.

Whenever you change the name of a Web page, you break the links that connect the page to any other pages in your Web site. Fortunately, FrontPage knows exactly how all your Web pages are linked, so when you change the name of a file, FrontPage asks whether you want to automatically update your other pages as well.

REVITALIZE

If you're only one of many people working on a Web site, how can you be sure that you have the absolutely most up-to-date information? After all, someone else could be working on the page that you're currently viewing.

To stay up to the minute, click the Refresh icon at the top of the page. It looks like a piece of paper with green arrows circling it.

REINING IN SCOPE CREEP

When clients first come to you, they often don't know what is possible with Web technologies. They don't know what you can and can't do or how much anything really costs, so they don't ask for it in their Request For Proposal (RFP). After a project is underway, however, and clients start to see the site take shape, their eyes tend to grow wider and wider with all the cool possibilities.

As clients become familiar with the Web development process, they may often ask you to "throw in" an extra Flash movie here, a personalized greeting there, and all manner of extra features to liven up the site. In Web design circles, these little additions to the project are called scope creep. If you give in to these little client requests, the scope of the project can slowly creep upwards until you are basically working for free -- or worse, going into debt!

ROLLOVER EFFECTS WITH FRONTPAGE

With FrontPage 2002, you can add a rollover effect to a text link to make the link more interesting on the Web page. A rollover is a special effect that occurs when the mouse pointer rolls over the text link. The rollover effect can change the color, size, or style of the font.

A rollover lasts as long as the mouse pointer passes over the text. When you move the mouse pointer away from the text, the link changes back to normal.

FOLLOW THE THREE CLICKS RULE

The Three Clicks Rule states that no important piece of information should ever be more than three clicks away from anywhere else on your Web site. The most important information should be even closer at hand. Some information, such as contact information, should never be more than one click away. Make it easy for viewers to find information by creating a site map and a navigation bar -- a set of links to all the main sections on your site.

SCRIPTING VARIABLES

The building block of all scripting is variables, the named containers that store specific information and enable you both to manipulate and display it whenever you want. If you remember your algebra, where x = y + 4, you're already familiar with variables, because that's what the x and y are in that equation. If you imagine the two variables as boxes that can take on any value, the equation describes a relationship between them. If y is 10, x is 14.

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF SCROLLING

SEARCH NO MORE

If you don't want to wait around for search engines to stumble upon your Web site, you can speed things along by adding the site yourself. Typically, this procedure involves visiting the search engine that you want to add your site to and then digging around the site to find an Add URL or Submit Your Site link. Following the link should take you to instructions and a form for submitting your site. Typically, all you have to do is type in your site's URL. The search engine goes to your site and adds your site to its database.

HAVEN'T I SEEN YOU SOMEPLACE BEFORE?

If you looked at FrontPage 2000 and then turned your head away really quickly, you might think for a moment that you'd just seen a copy of Microsoft Word 2000. That's because FrontPage 2000 closely mimics Microsoft Word 2000, right down to the menus and toolbars. Microsoft believes that providing a familiar and integrated approach to Office 2000's various product interfaces helps you, the Web builder, have an easier time getting a handle on using the products.

JUST RIGHT SELECTIONS

Ever have to select an entire page and spend so much time scrolling that your mouse finger hurts? Well, here's a quick and easy shortcut that prevents carpal tunnel syndrome: Click on the section of your web page where you want the selection to begin. Now press the Shift key on your keyboard. Hold down the Shift key while you find the place where you want your selection to end. Click at the end of the selection, then release the Shift key. The whole section will be highlighted. By the way, this neat trick works in other Microsoft programs, like Word.

FRONTPAGE SERVER EXTENSIONS: IMPORTANT STUFF

Certain FrontPage templates and wizards make use of unique FrontPage features such as keyword site searches and interactive discussion groups. For these and other fancy FrontPage features to function properly, the host Web server on which you eventually publish your Web site must have FrontPage Server Extensions installed. FrontPage Server Extensions is a set of programs that works together with the host Web server. Although you can just as easily publish FrontPage Web sites on servers that don't have FrontPage Server Extensions installed, you can't take advantage of certain extra-cool FrontPage goodies.

FRONTPAGE SERVER SAVVY

Suppose that you are developing your Web site using a drive-based Web or a server that doesn't have FrontPage extensions, but you plan eventually to publish your Web site to a server that does have FrontPage extensions. If you are using a server without FrontPage extensions, you can still install (non-working) components. In this scenario, do not disable components. You can still place them on Web pages -- you just can't test them or use them in a Web site until you publish to a FrontPage-friendly Web server with FrontPage extensions.

On the other hand, if you are developing your site using a disk-based Web, but eventually plan to publish it to a server with FrontPage extensions, you have to turn on the features that require FrontPage server extensions. Do this by choosing Tools, Page Options, and selecting the Enabled with FrontPage Server Extensions checkbox in the Compatibility tab of the Page Options dialog box. In this scenario, you are fooling FrontPage, telling it that your site is published to a FrontPage Web. Remember, some components won't work until you actually publish your site to a FrontPage server.

TO SERIF, OR NOT TO SERIF

When it comes to selecting fonts, the rules are different for the Web than they are for print. Blocks of serif "body" text are easier to read in print because the serif of one letter leads your eye smoothly to the next letter. Serifs help give type distinctive shapes, thereby increasing readability. But on the Web -- or more accurately, on the screen -- type is made up of pixels, not continuous lines. Serif fonts are more complex due to the nature of how they are displayed on the screen. The smaller the typeface, the fewer pixels there are to display the letter. The bottom line? Sans serif fonts with a high x-height are the most legible onscreen.

HERE TO SERVER YOU

To understand Web design, you first need to understand the basic relationship between clients and servers on the World Wide Web. The client-server relationship is the yin and yang that keeps the Internet running. A server is any computer that contains and distributes information. A client is the program that requests and processes or displays that information. Web servers store and serve Web pages, and Web clients (more often referred to as Web browsers) display the pages on your screen. Clients and servers are useless without each other, much like separate halves of a piece of Velcro.

HERE TO SERVER YOU

A Web server is usually rated by the number of connections -- brief communication sessions between two machines -- that it can handle in a given period of time. The number of connections that the server handles depends on how quickly the server establishes a connection, deciphers the request, sends the requested file, and terminates the connection. Most people assume that the most time-consuming step in this process is the speed with which files are transmitted. Surprise! When small files are transmitted, the bottleneck is usually not how fast the files are transmitted, but how quickly the server's hardware and software establish connections for each of the file transfers and terminate them.

Here's a really technical tip: Engineers and hangers-on, such as people who write computer-related books, like to call the cause of a bottleneck a gating factor. The gating factor in serving simple Web pages is the speed with which the server can connect and disconnect, not the speed with which data can be sent over the wire.

HERE TO SERVER YOU

When readers view your Web pages, information transfers from the Web server to their computers. The amount of information that transfers depends on the number of people who view your Web pages and the file size of your pages. Most Web presence providers limit the amount of information that can transfer in one day. If more information is transferred, you may have to pay extra. You should choose a Web presence provider that allows at least 50 MB (megabytes) of information to transfer in one day.

SERVERS YOU RIGHT

E-COMMERCE SHOPPING CARTS

To facilitate online shopping, designers and programmers have come up with a shopping cart metaphor that enables people to pick out things to buy and add them to their virtual shopping basket. Shopping carts are not tangible -- you don't buy a particular piece of software and plug into your Web site to create a shopping cart. A shopping cart is more of a user interface design metaphor that enables people to pick out multiple things as they shop, review their items, make changes to their order, see how much everything costs, and then make purchases with their credit card.

To orchestrate all these features, a series of Web pages, online server scripts, and databases work together. The Web pages use programming languages such as ASP, JSP, CGI, or Perl to connect with online scripts and databases to process a customer's order and credit card information.

SHY AWAY FROM SHOWSTOPPERS

Animation is almost a no-no in business sites. Clever spinning buttons and animated characters look silly or unprofessional in most business sites. Multimedia can also bog down pages and create problems for users.

Yet motion can be fascinating and attractive. So use it correctly -- consider creating a simple animated sequence that shows your product in use, or include a multimedia clip of the head of the company talking about what the company does. These elements can be easily skipped or avoided by those who don't want to use them, but will go far to make the site more interesting for everyone else. Putting an animation up as an introduction that users can't easily skip is a no-no.

SETTING YOUR SITE ON CONTENT

On a content-driven site -- one that offers "editorial" content such as text, images, or media that a user can peruse as its main purpose -- the content is the text, images, or media. On a site that distributes downloadable software, the downloadable software is the site's main content, although any text, images, and other elements that support the download process are also content. Even the error messages contain content; small pieces of content such as the text in an error message are often called microcontent.

GETTING STARTED WITH YOUR SITE

Because Web sites are collections of Web pages, you can start either by designing the site structure or by creating the page content. If, for example, you are designing a site that will include many Web pages created in other Office 2002 applications, you may not need to do much with page content, and your entire task may be orchestrating and organizing all of these pages into a Web site. In another scenario, you may be creating the entire Web site, including its content, from scratch.

GENERATE A SITE SUMMARY

Whenever you're working on a project--Web related or not--it's a good idea to sit back every once in a while and take stock of your work. It's easy to do this in FrontPage by generating a site summary.

Click View, Reports, then click Site Summary. The summary will display a complete inventory of your web--the number and sizes of files and pictures, number and types of hyperlinks, number of incomplete tasks, and so on.

TEST DRIVE YOUR SITE

As you design and test your Web site, think of each panel that the user sees and what actions the user may choose next. Which choice in each panel looks most interesting? What do you want the user to do? What would you do if you were the user? Then have a few friends try your site. Which path do they follow through -- or out of -- your site, and why? Finding the answers to these questions, and revising your site accordingly, can place you way ahead of most Web publishers.

SO, WHAT'S YOUR (SITE) TITLE?

Although every Web page should contain unique and useful information, all Web pages must contain a descriptive title at the top of every page. The title should identify not only the specific contents of the page but also the Web site itself. A descriptive title is important because some users may not enter your site through your home page. Instead, they may go directly to one of the content pages in your site. In addition, many users bookmark pages for quick access at a later date - and a bookmarked page titled "My Home Page" doesn't exactly encourage repeat visits. (A page titled "Sarah Bellum's Definitive Guide to Lemurs," on the other hand, helps users remember why they bookmarked your page in the first place.)

YOUR SITE'S LEVEL BEST

As you design your Web site structure, put yourself in the shoes of someone visiting your Web site. One convention used by many Web site designers (and programmers of all types) is to present visitors with between three and five options at each level of the Web site. Therefore, for example, you might welcome visitors to your site at your home page, and present them with three options. Each of those options might have three, four, or five sub-options.

Keep in mind that your Web site can run many levels, but in general, you should limit the number of pages at each level of the site to between three and five.

SETTING YOUR SITES IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

Your Web design should include a road map (often called a site map) that tells you what's where in every individual HTML document in your site, and the relationships among these pages. If you're really smart, you've kept this map up-to-date as you moved from design to implementation. (Things always change when you go down this path.) If you're merely as smart as the rest of the online world, don't berate yourself -- update that map now. Be sure to include all intra- and inter-document links.

A site map provides the foundation for a test plan. Yep, that's right -- effective testing isn't random. Use the map to

Investigate and check every page and every link systematically.
Make sure everything works as you think it should -- and that what you built has some relationship (however surprising) to your design.
Define the list of things to check as you go through the testing process.
Check everything (at least) twice. (Red suit and reindeer harness optional.)

GETTING INTO THE SLING OF THINGS

If your video shooting demands a lot of hand-held operation, you can eliminate some camera shake by assembling a simple sling for your arm. Take an adjustable strap and attach some sort of small sling for your elbow to rest in when your arm is bent up toward your face, as it would be if you were pointing a camera. Put the strap around your neck as you would any other sling. Adjust the size of the loop so that when you rest your elbow in the sling, your neck and shoulders carry the weight of your arm with the camera in it. With your elbow wedged against your body and the sling holding the weight of your arm and the camera, you can walk around hand-holding the camera much longer, and much of the shake that comes from the muscle fatigue of just trying to hold the camera still can be diminished.

SIZE COUNTS

There are many, many reasons that you may want to know the overall size of your Web site. One good one? You may have free space on a Web server--up to a certain size. How to determine if you're under the limit? Choose View, Reports, Site Summary. Check the top line of the resulting report--it's labeled All Files. In the Count column, you'll be able to ascertain the number of files in your Web. The Size column will tell you the total size of all those files combined. Neat, huh?

SIZING IT UP

By default, visitors to your Web site will be able to resize frames on their screen (that is, if your Web page uses frames). This is handy, especially since users will generally come to your site from different browsers and with different-sized monitors. However, if you want to turn off this feature for some reason, simply right-click on your frame page and select Frame Properties from the pop-up menu that appears. In the Frame Properties dialog box, look under the Options section and deselect the Resizable In Browser check box.

SIZING IT UP

One of the well-known rules of Netiquette is that you shouldn't clutter your site with lots of data-intensive graphics because it will take visitors too long to download the page, right? Well, how do you know how long it will take folks to download the page, anyway? Here's how you can tell: Open the Web page in question and then take a look at the lower right-hand corner of your screen. There you'll see an hourglass with something next to it like 115 seconds over 14.4

(To be sure you're looking at the right place, hold your cursor over the hourglass; you should see a context-sensitive box that says Estimated Time to Download.) Now, this info is all well and good if you think your mom is going to be looking at the page, since she's still gimping along with a 14.4-KBPS modem. But if you want to check how long it will take your brother to see the page--and he has a T1 line--that's simple enough, too. Simply right-click on the little hourglass and choose the connection speed you'd like to see.

GROOVY BACKGROUND SOUND

Ever select a page that has some nifty background sound that plays while you peruse? Well, you can add your own sounds to your page. Here's how.

Select the page where you'd like to attach a sound and right-click. Choose Page Properties from the context menu. In the Page Properties dialog box, click the General tab and look for the Background Sound section. In the Location box, enter the name of the sound file you'd like to play. The easiest way to do that is to click the Browse button, search your files until you find the sound file you'd like to add, and click OK.

The last step is to set the number of times you'd like your sound file to repeat. In the Loop section, you'll see the Forever option, which is enabled by default. What that means is that your sound file will keep replaying and replaying and replaying, as long as your visitor is looking at your page. If that feels like overkill to you, deselect the Forever option and enter a specific number of times that you'd like the sound file to repeat. Finally, click OK.

SPELL THAT

Does your Web site have dozens of pages, all in need of a spell-check? Rather than doing the job page by page, use the secret shortcut and spell-check the whole site at once.

First, go to the Folders view. Now click the Spelling button on your toolbar. (It looks like a check mark, with the letters ABC above it.) The Spelling dialog box will appear. Click the button that allows you to check spelling of the entire Web. Before you click the Start button to begin the spell-check, decide if you want to add a task for each page with misspellings. This might be a good idea if you think you're going to run into a whole pile of misspelled words and you don't have a lot of time. By selecting this option, you can wait until later to make all the changes. Click Start and let the spell-check begin!

SPELL THIS

There's nothing less professional than misspellings. So, here's a tip: Go to Tools, Spelling before you post any Web page for the world to see. People will definitely think more highly of your work.

CHECK SPELLING AUTOMATICALLY AS YOU TYPE

Okay, so you're not the world's greatest speller. Not to worry--that's why there's spell-check, one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. As with Microsoft Word, you can have FrontPage automatically check your spelling as you type. Misspelled words are indicated a red wavy underline.

Click Tools, Page Options. On the General tab, select the Check Spelling As You Type check box. Then, click OK.

CHECK SPELLING IN A WEB

In the last tip, you learned how to have FrontPage automatically check your spelling as you type. But what if it's too late for that? Not to worry--you can also ask FrontPage to check the spelling in your entire web.

In Folders view, click the Spelling button on the Standard toolbar (it has a check mark with the letters ABC over it). Under Check Spelling Of, choose Entire Web. Click Start. When FrontPage finds a misspelled word, it will add an item to your task list, so you can correct it later.

PUTTING YOUR OWN SPIN ON WEB SUCCESS

Before you design and create your Web page, define what you believe will make it a success. For an initial effort, simply putting up something on the Web that clearly conveys basic information is probably enough. For follow-up work, get more specific. Are you trying to reach a certain number of people or type of people? Will measuring hits -- the number of times that people access some piece of your site -- be enough, or do you need some other measure of response, such as having people send e-mail or call an 800 number? Do you want to create a cutting-edge site in terms of bell-and-whistle features like fancy graphics and animation -- and if so, are you willing to invest the time and money to make this happen? Talk to people who do advertising and marketing in the real world, as well as to people who work on the Web, and get a sense of what goals they set and how they measure success in meeting their goals.

SPELL SQUIGGLE--PART 1 OF 2

You're typing along and suddenly, under the word synergy, this squiggly red line appears. Oops! You've made a typo. You typed synerge instead of synergy. Aren't sure how to correct it? Easy. Go to the line with the red underline and right-click. You should get a list of choices for correct spelling. Click on the word you were looking for, and FrontPage will automatically correct the spelling on the page.

SPELL SQUIGGLE--PART 2 OF 2

That little red squiggly line that appears under your typos can be handy: After all, it keeps you from writing absurdities like "hoq noq veoqn xoq" when your fingers get off the right keys. (Honest, it happens to the best touch typists. And, by the way, that should be "how now brown cow.") But oftentimes those little red squiggles are simply an annoying distraction. If you'd rather type without them for a while, here's how to make them disappear.

Select Tools, Page Options, and on the General tab, you'll see a Spelling section. Then, deselect the Check Spelling As You Type check box and click OK. All red squiggles will disappear. Fair warning: Just because the red squiggles are gone doesn't mean the spelling errors and typos have disappeared. It's probably a good idea to run a spell-check when you've finished working on your page.

UNDERSTANDING STANDARDS

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an organization that develops standards for a variety of Internet-related technologies, such as HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The W3C also supports initiatives and standards for increasing the accessibility of the World Wide Web to people with disabilities.

The W3C refers to their standards as recommendations. Among these is the XML recommendation. XML, like HTML and CSS, is an open standard. An open standard is shared and available to all. A proprietary standard, on the other hand, is not shared and is held as a secret.

WHO CARES ABOUT STATUS

FrontPage automatically includes a status bar at the bottom of the screen. This status bar gives different information in different views; for example, it will provide you with the exact path to a file if you select it in the Folders view. But you might think that this status bar is just so much more clutter on your screen. To remove it from sight, select Tools, Options. In the Options dialog box, click the General tab. There, under the General section, you'll see a checkbox labeled Show Status Bar. Deselect the checkbox and click OK. The status bar will automatically disappear from your screen.

STATUS QUO CHECK

PUT THE GOOD STUFF FIRST

Imagine the Web as a giant magazine rack and the person surfing the Web as someone scanning the front covers of all those magazines. People who see your Web page decide whether to stay at your site or go elsewhere based largely on what they see when your page first comes up.

If your purpose is to provide information or links, put that information first or, at most, one click away. For example, to create a site that provides information about your company, make getting the contact information -- your company name, address, phone number, and fax number -- easy for people. To create a personal site that is attractive to potential employers, make clear what employment field you're in and make your resume easy to access.

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT STYLE

Over the past few days, you learned a lot about how to use style sheets. But there's one important thing you should keep in mind: In order for style sheets to work, a viewer's browser has to support them. Newer browsers--specifically, Internet Explorer 3.0 and later and Netscape Communicator and Navigator 4.0 and later--do support style sheets. If a viewer is using a different browser, however, he or she will see only the default style for that page or any enhancements you've made after you applied the style sheets.

JUST YOUR STYLE (SHEETS)

When you use style sheets, you can make changes to your Web page (s) in one centralized location. This prevents you from having to change each tag on your Web page(s) individually and helps maintain a consistent appearance for your Web page(s). For example, you can change the font, size, and color of every heading that uses the H1 tag in your Web pages at once.

ADD A CAPTION TO A TABLE

Left on their own, tables aren't all that exciting visually, though they often contain crucial information. So don't leave your site users hanging by making them guess what a table contains--give it a caption! FrontPage makes it easy to place a caption either above or below the table.

To add a caption to a table, click anywhere in the table, then select Table, Insert, Caption. FrontPage will add a centered caption just above the table. You can type the appropriate text at this point. If you want to move the caption to just below the table, select Table, Properties, Caption, then select the Bottom Of Table option.

YOUR TABLE IS READY WITH FRONTPAGE

You've decided that you want to add a table to your Web page. With a Web page open in Page View, you can insert a table by following these steps:

Click to place your insertion point at the spot where you want the table to appear in your Web page.
Click the Insert Table button in the Standard toolbar.
Click and drag to the right in the Grid palette to add columns; click and drag down to add rows.

CREATING TABLES FOUR WAYS

FrontPage 2000 bends over backward to make tables accessible to the neophyte Web publisher. FrontPage offers no less than four methods -- all of them easy -- for creating a table.

Choose the table creation method that suits your personality:

You like instant gratification. Use the Insert Table button.
You are a perfectionist. Use the Table, Insert, Table command.
You are creative. Use table-drawing tools.
You would rather be using a word processing program right now. Convert regular text into a table.

SERVING UP TABLES--PART 1 OF 5

Sometimes, the easiest way to present information is in a table. Fortunately, FrontPage makes it easy to add tables to your Web. Here's how:

Begin by choosing Table, Insert, Table. In the Insert Table dialog box, specify the number of rows and columns you want your table to have. If you aren't sure of the number, don't worry. You can always make adjustments once the table has been added. Now, click OK. The new table will appear on your page.

Simple enough? Now fill in those rows and columns!

SERVING UP TABLES--PART 2 OF 5

Want to add a row or column to a table on your Web page? Simply right-click on the table. In the context menu, you'll see the options Insert Row and Insert Column. These will do the trick.

SERVING UP TABLES--PART 3 OF 5

You're Martha Stewart at heart: What you really want to do is make your table look beautiful. Nope, not the table where you eat, but the table you have on your Web page. To make changes to a table, right-click on the table and select Table Properties from the context menu. In the Table Properties dialog box, you can make all kinds of changes to your table. You can change the table alignment so it's centered on your page or all the way over to the right. You can adjust the width of the lines bordering the table and change the color of the lines. You can even change the background color of the table itself, or add a background image. Don't hesitate to fiddle around with different options. Remember, you can always undo something if you don't like the effect.

SERVING UP TABLES--PART 4 OF 5

Here's an important table tip (like the rest of them aren't?!): When you go to insert a table on your Web page, you have the option of specifying the width of the table. And you can set the width either in pixels or in a percentage of the total width of the page. Skip the pixel option and go with the width of the page. Why? Well, it's not just because measuring in pixels seems a little absurd. It's also because different viewers have different-sized screens, and you'll be able to set the size of the table so it's appropriate for anyone looking at it--and that IS important.

SERVING UP TABLES--PART 5 OF 5

Let's say you want the top cells of your table to all look a little different from the other cells: You want them to stand out as header cells. Easy enough. First, position your cursor in the cell that you want to have stand out. Now simply right-click on your table and choose Cell Properties from the context menu. In the Cell Properties dialog box, select the Header Cell option and click OK. When you type in that cell, you'll notice that the text is bold compared to the other text in your table.

TABLES AND TRIBULATIONS

FrontPage contains a bug (or is this quirk actually a feature?) that makes it possible to set the width of table columns to a number not equal to the total width of the table. For example, if you set the width of a two-column table to 100 pixels, you can also set the width of the table's columns to a number totaling more or less than 100. FrontPage's display also gets confused if you set different widths for individual table cells (as opposed to entire columns of cells), especially if the table is complex. The solution is to keep your table relatively simple. At the very least, preview your page in a Web browser (preferably, more than one model) to see how your table looks to your visitors.

TABLING CAPTIONS

A caption is a short phrase that is associated with a table in FrontPage. When you select the Insert Caption option, Editor automatically places it above the table. If you would prefer that the caption be under the table, select the table caption and select Table, Caption Properties to display the dialog box. This dialog box enables you to designate the location for the caption, either at the top or the bottom of the table. Although you can format caption text normally, exactly how it displays (how far away from the table it is, how it's aligned to the table, and so on) is up to the browser. For this reason, you may want to ignore captions.

TAG, THE HORIZONTAL RULE'S IT!

The Horizontal Rule (HR) tag is easy to understand. A stand-alone tag (it has no corresponding closing tag), it inserts a horizontal line at the desired location. You can use it to separate sections of text, as in this example:

<P>Section of text
<HR>
<P>Another section of text

The HR tag is easy to overuse. Most designers favor using white space, not horizontal rules, to separate sections. But used in just the right place, a horizontal rule can look great.

CREATE A TASK

If your mother didn't drill it into your head, we will. The best way to stay organized is to make a to-do list, and then follow it--even those annoying little sticky notes are effective--just like mom always said. This adage still holds true when you're designing Web pages. That's why Microsoft, in all its wisdom, included a Tasks list in FrontPage. You can assign tasks, prioritize them, and link them to pages, pictures, sounds, other Office documents, or any other files in your web.

Click File, New, Task. Type a name for your task in the Task Name box. In the Assigned To box, type or select the name of the person or workgroup you want to assign the task to (or leave this box blank if you're the only one working on the project). Type a description in the Description box. Click OK.

STAYING ON TARGET

Establishing a purpose for your Web page can be daunting unless you concentrate on your most important visitors: your target audience. Just as Seventeen magazine targets teenyboppers and Wired directs its pitch and pulse toward technology addicts, your site must target a specific group of people. The first step: Visualize your target audience. Ask yourself the following questions: "Are they technically savvy? How old are they? What kind of information do they want?" The more answers you come up with, the better you can communicate your message to your visitors.

PRIORITIZE A TASK

In the previous tip, you learned how to create a new task. But since "Add new link to the links page" probably isn't as important as "Make sure the home page has the right logo," you might want to prioritize your tasks.

To prioritize a task when you create it, simply click a priority of High, Medium, or Low in the New Task dialog box, and click OK. If you don't prioritize a task, FrontPage automatically assigns the task a priority of Medium.

Now when you want to make sure you're taking care of the important stuff first, simply sort your tasks by priority by clicking the Priority column heading.

TALK IT UP!

If you want to add an element of interactivity to your Web site, FrontPage 2000's Discussion Web Wizard may be the answer. This tool features:

Threaded messages and replies
Table of Contents
Customizable Submission Form
Confirmation Pages with Confirmation Field Components
Searchable index
Protected discussion messages

Although it has many steps, the Discussion Web Wizard is quite easy to complete. Just keep in mind that some features are worth including when you first create the discussion forum, while others -- such as frames -- may be implemented more easily and flexibly later, should you want to include them.

TALKIN' TECHIE-SPEAK

If you play "my hard drive is bigger than your hard drive" with your friends, use your Web site to become king or queen of the technical hill. Download obscure Java applets and ActiveX controls -- or better yet, write your own applets -- and install them in your Web site. Create a hot list of favorite Web destinations and include links to the home pages of Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, and the Official Star Trek Fan Club. Cultivate a vocabulary full of Web-publishing buzzwords and use them often.

THE TAXMAN COMETH

In 1998, the U.S. Congress passed the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA), a three-year moratorium on Internet-related taxation. Although the three-year time period was subsequently extended, other legislation is in the works that may affect your e-commerce efforts. The Streamlined Sales Tax Project, for example, is a coalition of 38 U.S. states that hopes to simplify tax structures so that they may be applied uniformly to e-commerce. (In other words, this coalition hopes to ease the complexity of the current taxing structure that compelled the passage of the ITFA in the first place so that the government can begin taxing e-commerce sites in earnest.)

WOUNDING WITH TECHNO OVERKILL

The less new technology you use -- and the more compatible your site is with older browsers and slower connections -- the less annoying the overall online experience will be, especially to non-cutting-edge users. You can also go to the effort of building two sites, a high-tech one and a low-tech one, and redirecting users to the appropriate site either automatically or by choice (by forcing users to click a link before entering). This latter approach, while time-consuming, may be the better way to both show off your bleeding-edge expertise and retain compatibility with less-tech-savvy users.

SET THE TEXT ALIGNMENT

Centering text is a quick and easy way to set it off from the other text and images around it. Say you're designing your family Web site and want to highlight a particular part of your last vacation.

You begin by selecting the paragraph (or paragraphs). Then, you click the Center button on the Formatting toolbar. (It's sandwiched between the Align Left and Align Right buttons.) The alignment setting affects all text in the paragraph.

FIND TEXT IN A WEB

Once you've got an entire web designed, it can get pretty complex. It's difficult to remember on which page a particular phrase or block of text appears. So what do you do if you suddenly need to find a block of text? Say you've put together a site with your family tree and history, and you suddenly realize that you've misspelled your mother's maiden name throughout the site. If you don't want a family squabble on your hands, you'd better fix your mistake. Luckily, FrontPage makes it easy to search for text throughout an entire web.

Switch to Folders View. Click Edit, Find. If you want to search the entire web, click All Pages, or to search only particular pages, click Selected Pages. Type the text you want to search for (in this case, the misspelled name) in the Find What box. Click Find.

FrontPage will search and display the pages in which the text appears. To open a page to fix the error, double-click that page in the list.

And remember, misspelling family member names can lead to all sorts of problems. So be careful!

REMOVE TEXT FORMATTING

Hey, mistakes happen. Sometimes perfectly good Web designers go overboard with bold, underlined, italic, and colored text. If you decide after hours of work that you just can't stand the formatting on a page, don't worry. There's a quick and easy way to get rid of it. When you remove formatting, the text conveniently reverts to the default settings of its style.

In Page view, select the text. Click Format, Remove Formatting. You can also press Ctrl-Shift-Z.

GRAPHIC TEXT VERSUS HTML-GENERATED TEXT

Web pages contain two types of text: graphic text (which is really an image) and live HTML-generated text (which is generated with HTML tags). HTML-generated text is considered live because it is fully editable -- just like the text in your word processor. You can apply various font and size settings to HTML-generated text and you can update it easily. Graphic text, however, is just an image. To make corrections to the text, you must re-do the graphic. In addition, graphic text has a larger file size than its equivalent in HTML-generated text, so it can take longer to download.

For these reasons, using more HTML-generated text than graphic text on your Web site is best. Because HTML-generated text is so much more efficient, you may be wondering why you should use graphic text at all. Together, these two types of text offer different levels of design flexibility. Because graphic text is an image just like a photograph, the possibilities are endless in terms of font, color, and even texture choices (such as placing an image of a sunset inside the letters).

RAISE OR LOWER TEXT

Back in the old days of Web publishing (like a few years ago), there was just one kind of text: plain text. There was no bold, no italic, and no underlining. And there certainly weren't any footnotes with raised or lowered text. Thankfully, we've come a long way since those dark ages. Now you can raise or lower text to your heart's desire.

In Page View, select the text you want to raise or lower. Right-click on it, then click Font on the shortcut menu. Click the Character Spacing tab, and in the Position box, choose Raised or Lowered. Enter a number to specify how much you want to raise or lower the text in the By box. (Some Web browsers will raise text only to a fixed amount, regardless of the number you enter.) Click OK.

And just think, in a few years our publishing practices will probably be from the "dark ages." Kind of scary, huh?

THEMES

Themes are a great way to both liven up your Web pages and provide a consistent look and feel to your site. And while FrontPage offers lots of different themes that will suit almost any taste, you may want to customize a particular theme. Luckily, there are some easy ways to customize without requiring you to be a graphic designer.

In Page View, open the page to which you want to apply a theme. Click Format, Theme. Under Apply Theme To, choose Selected Pages (select All Pages to apply the theme to the entire web). Click the theme you want to apply from the list. A preview of each theme is displayed under Sample Of Theme.

Now comes the easy customization. To use a brighter color scheme, select the Vivid Colors check box. Ta-da--you've got the same theme, but with different colors. To use a lively set of banners, buttons, bullets, and other graphical elements, select the Active Graphics check box. For example, select this check box if you want to use hover buttons instead of plain buttons. Clear the check boxes to use the normal graphics set. Click OK.

CHANGE THE COLORS USED IN A THEME

If you like the layout of a theme but don't care for the colors, take heart. You can free your inner artist and change the colors used in any theme. For example, active hyperlinks in the Romanesque theme are green--you can change this color to red. You can also change the colors of other page and text elements, such as the color of body and heading text, banner text, navigation bar labels, table borders, and the background. As you can see, your options are wide open.

Click Format, Theme. Select the theme you want to modify. Click Modify, click Colors, then click the Custom tab. Under Theme Color Set, specify whether you want to change colors in the normal or vivid color set. In the Item box, click the item for which you want to change the color--for example, choose Hyperlinks to change link color--and then in the Color box, specify the color you want to use. Repeat for each item you want to change. Click OK. Click Save As, then type a new name for your theme (you can't rename an existing theme).

CHANGE COLOR SCHEME USED IN A THEME

In the previous tip, you learned how to change the colors used by a theme by choosing one item at a time, then changing the associated color. You can also modify colors by changing the entire color scheme for the theme.

Click Format, Theme. Select the theme you want to modify. Click Modify, click Colors, then click the Color Schemes tab. Here you'll find 55 existing color schemes. If you still can't find one you like (picky, picky), click the Color Wheel tab and make up your own color scheme. Click OK twice.

APPLY A THEME TO THE CURRENT PAGE

Nothing's more boring than a Web page that's merely text on a white background. Even a picture thrown in here and there won't liven things up. Luckily, FrontPage includes themes you can apply to your pages. A theme is a collection of unified design elements and color schemes created to jazz up that painfully boring web page.

The theme's styles, colors, and graphics will replace those that are currently being used. After applying a theme to the current page rather than to the web, the page will no longer use the web's default theme setting.

In Page view, open the page to which you want to apply a theme. Click Format, Theme. Under Apply Theme To, select Selected Pages. Click the theme you want to apply from the list. A preview of each theme is displayed under Sample Of Theme. Click OK.

WORKING WITH FRONTPAGE AUTO THUMBNAILS

An Auto Thumbnail is a handy tool that enables you to create a miniversion of a picture. This tool is particularly useful if you want to use an image as a button that then links to a larger version of the picture. To create an Auto Thumbnail, select an image and click the Auto Thumbnail button on the Pictures toolbar.

After you create a thumbnail and go to save the page, FrontPage prompts you to save the new thumbnail image. After you load the page in a browser, you see the thumbnail rather than the original image. Then, after you click the thumbnail, the larger version appears in the Web browser by itself.

THUMBNAILS--PART 1 OF 2

You've put a slew of photos on your Web page, but you don't want to be rude and make people download the whole kit-and-caboodle. The solution? Create thumbnails of each image. That way, if folks want to see that larger-than-life photo of little Johnny eating his first sweet potatoes, they can click on the thumbnail to get the oversized version. Best of all, it's a really easy process.

First, click on the photo in question once to select it. At the bottom of the screen, look for the picture toolbar. Hold your cursor over the third icon from the left. When a context-sensitive box appears that says Auto Thumbnail, you know you're in the right place. Click the Auto Thumbnail icon once. Presto, chango! Your image is now thumbnail-sized.

THUMBNAILS--PART 2 OF 2

In our previous tip, you learned how to make a thumbnail of an image, but what if you don't like the way that thumbnail looks? File it! (Just kidding.) But, really, you can change it.

First, select Tools, Page Options. In the Page Options dialog box, click the AutoThumbnail tab. You can make a few different changes here. You can set the width, height, shortest side, or longest side of the image to a fixed number of pixels. (Pixels are basically the number of dots on your screen--very tiny.) The other sides will be automatically adjusted so the proportions of the image stay the same. You can change the border thickness around the thumbnail and can also add a beveled edge to the image. Tinker to your heart's content. When you're done, click the OK button.

Keep in mind that any changes you make won't affect thumbnails you've already created.

ADD A TIME STAMP TO A PAGE

Have you ever visited a Web site and wondered if it had been updated in the last year or two? Nothing's more useless than outdated information. Give visitors to your site the satisfaction of knowing that you care enough about your site to update it now and then by adding a time stamp. A time stamp will display the date the page was last changed.

In Page View, position your cursor where you want to place the time stamp. Select Insert, Date And Time. Specify which format you want the time stamp to use. Then, click OK.

KEEPING TABS ON TIMESAVERS

Just like its Microsoft Office buddies, FrontPage boasts a number of timesaving features. Don't forget to take advantage of these tools:

Undo and Redo
Cut, Copy, and Paste
Drag and Drop
Find and Replace
Spell checking and Thesaurus
Customizable toolbars
Right-click pop-up menus
Tool tips
Personalized desktop setup

SOME LIKE TOOLBARS . . . THEIR WAY--PART 1 OF 5

See those handy toolbars at the top of FrontPage? You know--the ones that let you do stuff like print and undo and insert a table with the click of a button? Well, did you know that you can customize them so they look pretty much just like you want them to? Here's how: First, move your cursor to the end of the toolbar to the little arrow that points down. When you hold your cursor steady, you should see a More Buttons pop-up box. Click on that little arrow, and you'll get a menu with one choice: Add Or Remove Buttons. When you move your cursor over the arrow next to the Add Or Remove Buttons option, you'll see a list of all the different icons on that toolbar. All of them should have check marks next to them. If you want to remove a particular function, simply click on the check mark, and you'll notice that that icon will disappear from the toolbar at the top of the page. To finish the job, click anywhere on the page outside the pull-down menu.

SOME LIKE TOOLBARS . . . THEIR WAY--PART 2 OF 5

In our previous tip, you learned how to customize your toolbar so it looks just like you want it to look. But what if you decide you don't like the changes you made? Ah, how fickle is . . . no, I won't say it. Anyway, FrontPage 2000 makes it easy for you to change your mind.

Go back to the little arrow at the end of the toolbar--you know, the one that says More Buttons. Click on it and move your cursor over the Add Or Remove Buttons option that appears. At the bottom of the menu that magically appears, you'll see an option called Reset Toolbar. Click on that option, and your toolbar will look just like it did when you first installed FrontPage.

Good luck!

SOME LIKE TOOLBARS . . . THEIR WAY--PART 3 OF 5

"Where? I can't see it." If you're a little myopic and it's getting you down, here's a way to make FrontPage a little easier to navigate. Once again, click on that little arrow at the end of your toolbar. When you see the Add Or Remove Buttons option, go ahead and move your cursor over it. Now, look at the bottom of the menu that appears for the option called Customize. Click Customize, and you'll see a dialog box that's called--yup, you guessed it--Customize. Now click on the Options tab. Under Options, you'll see a section called Other; under Other you'll see a choice called Large Icons. Click on the check box next to Large Icons and--whoa! Now everything's clear. Click the Close button to finish the job.

SOME LIKE TOOLBARS . . . THEIR WAY--PART 4 OF 5

You know how you have to dig through menus to do certain jobs in FrontPage? Take inserting a photo, for example. You have to select Insert, Picture and then choose From File, blah, blah, blah. Wouldn't it be much easier if you could just click an icon on a menu, the way you can if you want to save or print something? Ah! Your wish is FrontPage's command!

Go to that little arrow at the end of your toolbar. (Yes, one more time.) Click once. When you see the Add Or Remove Buttons option, move your cursor over it and then mosey on down the menu options and choose Customize--you'll find it way at the bottom. When the Customize dialog box appears, click the Toolbars tab. You'll notice a whole list of options--and, most likely, only the Standard and Formatting toolbars are selected. (Those are the toolbars that are at the top of your FrontPage screen.) If you want the Pictures toolbar--so it's easier for you to insert pictures into your Web page--click that toolbar option. You'll see the new menu appear automatically. Play around a little and click the different menu options to see what they do. When you're done and you've decided on the toolbars that you'd like to have on your screen, click Close.

SOME LIKE TOOLBARS . . . THEIR WAY--PART 5 OF 5

Okay, okay. Only one more thing about toolbars!

Instead of going to that little pull-down arrow at the end of your toolbar, here are two new-and-exciting ways to make any toolbar changes. You can either

Access the Customize dialog box by selecting View, Toolbars, Customize

Use the super-speedy way and press Shift-F10 on your keyboard.

By the way, if you use this method and change your mind before you select anything from the menu, simply press the Esc key to make the menu disappear.

CONSERVATIVE TRACKING

If you're a conscientious developer, you probably should make minimal use of cookies; track only the most essential data, and don't track anything that could offend hypersensitive privacy hounds. You can also add a blurb about your use of cookies to your site's privacy policy; this way, interested users will at least be aware of what you're tracking.

LET FRONTPAGE DO THE TYPING

You've started building the company Web page and you're worried about one particularly daunting task: getting all those already-written forms, brochures, and spreadsheets onto the new site. Don't worry--you won't have to hire a whole passel of temps to re-key every word. Instead, FrontPage lets you import most document formats into your Web site and does the HTML for you.

Start by opening the page view of the page where you want the imported information to appear. Place your cursor where you want the information to begin. Select Insert, File. When you see the Select File box, you'll need to find the file you want to import. Sounds easy enough, but you'll have to keep one thing in mind: When the Select File box first appears, FrontPage is only looking for HTML files. But chances are good that your brochures (or whatever) aren't in HTML format. So click on the pull-down arrow next to Files Of type, and you'll see a list of all the different file formats that FrontPage can easily import. If you don't want to cull through the whole list, just pick All Files.

Now, find the file you want to import and click Open. FrontPage might say that it can't currently import that file type. "But it's just a Word document," you start to stutter. DO NOT PANIC! All you have to do is follow the onscreen instructions, which should ask you politely to insert your FrontPage disc into your CD-ROM drive. (See how cordial and civilized the whole thing is?) Once you do this, FrontPage will load a bunch of instructions that will help the program translate this type of file--in this case, a Word document--into the HTML that it can better understand. In a few moments, that Word document will appear--unscathed--on your FrontPage web.

Best of all, you won't need your FrontPage CD every time you want to insert a new document. Once FrontPage has learned how to import a Word document, it can do them all. Of course, if you then try to import an Excel spreadsheet, or something like that, you might need that disc again--but next time around, you'll know just what to do.

MUCH UNDO ABOUT SOMETHING

The Undo feature is the most comforting and important feature in any program because you know that if you make a mistake, you can go back and change it! To undo an action, choose Edit, Undo or press Ctrl+Z.

To undo numerous actions, repeat Ctrl+Z over and over again until you have hit your limit. Flash 5 expands this feature -- you can now set up to 300 levels. The levels you set reflect the amount of times Flash allows you to cancel out of or reapply your last action.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

You can quickly create a feedback form that collects comments from readers about your Web pages, products, or company. FrontPage 2000 provides a wizard that asks you a series of questions about the type of form you want to create and then uses your answers to create a customized form. To create a form using the wizard, perform these steps:

Click File, New, Page. The New dialog box appears.
Click the General tab. This area displays the templates you can use to create a Web page.
Click Feedback Form. You can see a description and a preview of the feedback form.
Click OK. The feedback form appears, with a temporary name that you can change when you save the form.

To replace the sample text with your own information, drag the mouse I-beam pointer over an area of text to highlight the text and then type your own information.

COMING TO TERMS WITH VARIED VOCABULARY

Many people use the thesaurus to replace a word that appears repeatedly on a Web page. Varying language can help add interest and clarity to your writing. Using the thesaurus included with FrontPage is faster and more convenient than searching through a printed thesaurus

LET FRONTPAGE DO THE WALKING

Here's another way to save your fingers from extra work. Set FrontPage to automatically open the last web you were working on when you relaunch the program. This is a particularly handy trick if you know you'll be working on the same web over and over again.

To set this up, select Tools, Optionsoption Open Last Web . In the Options dialog box that appears, select the Automatically When FrontPage Starts in the Startup section. Then click OK. Now your web will automatically launch when you open FrontPage.

VARYING VARIABLES--PART 1 OF 3

Here's a scenario: You're just about to launch the Web site for a new company, but that company is going to be moving its brick-and-mortar location soon. And the company address is plastered all over the Web site, so you know that you're going to have a lot of updating to do once the move is final. But FrontPage has a shortcut that will help you save some time. Instead of just adding the company address to the site, make the address a variable. By defining it as a variable, you can simply make one change--to the variable--and it will update itself over the entire site.

To create a variable, begin by choosing Tools, Web Settings. Next, click the Parameters tab. To create the variable, click Add. In the Add Name And Value dialog box, you'll do just that--add a name and a value. In our example, the name would be something like "address" and the value would be the actual address of the business. When you've finished, click OK. Congratulations! You've just created a variable for your Web site.

VARYING VARIABLES--PART 2 OF 3

In our previous tip, you learned to add a variable to your Web site, but you still need to learn how to put your variable on your Web page. (For those of you who are joining us a little late, a variable is content that may change. You define a variable and then simply make one change to the value of the variable in order to update that information over your entire site.) So, once you've created your variable, here's how to display it on your site.

First, position your cursor where you want the variable information to appear on your page. Now select Insert, Component, Substitution. In the Substitution Properties dialog box, you'll see a white bar with a pull-down arrow on the right. Click on the pull-down arrow, and you'll see a list of variables. Choose the variable you want to add and click OK. It's just that simple.

VARYING VARIABLES--PART 3 OF 3

Way back in June we talked about creating variables... Now, here's the thrilling conclusion! The reason you created a variable in the first place is because you knew you'd have to update information. For example, you knew your company was moving and you'd have to change the address listed on the Web site, or you knew you were going to be changing a product name. To edit the variable you've created, first select Tools, Web Settings. Then, click the Parameters tab. Now highlight the variable you want to change and click the Modify button. Once your changes are complete, click OK.

STORING VALUABLE VIDEO

Video files can gobble up hard disk space faster than even Windows itself. Fortunately, monster-sized hard drives are ridiculously cheap these days, so giving yourself a bit more space is easy on the wallet.

Think about investing in a second hard drive that you use exclusively for video storage. Most computers can have more than one hard drive installed, so consider buying a big one (20GB or more) exclusively for digital video storage. Hard disks are so cheap that computer retailers seem almost to be giving them away.

Avoid using an external storage device, such as a Zip drive, for Movie Maker files. External storage devices are usually a lot slower than hard drives, meaning that you'll end up with jerky video and poor sound when you try to work with files stored there.

DOIN' IT YOUR WAY

Some things just seem like they always have been and always will be a certain way. For example, when you're navigating through a Web site, you click Back to go back to the last page and Next to go to the next page. But the labels don't have to say these exact things: You CAN buck the trend. To change the way the labels appear on your navigation bars, select Tools, Web Settings. Next, click the Navigation tab. Make your customizations and then click OK.

WE GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS

Thanks to a reader for the following advice:

Rather than creating an outline in FrontPage, use Microsoft Word instead. Then, when the outline is complete, copy and paste it into your FrontPage web. It should be several steps easier than starting the outline from scratch in FrontPage itself.

DIVERSIFY YOUR WEB BUSINESS REACH

You can come up with plenty of ways to sell your goods and services. The smart online businessperson makes a Web site part of an overall business plan rather than its sole focus.

Just because the big players in e-commerce design huge Web sites with database back-end systems, personalization, and cookies, that doesn't mean you have to assume that's the only way to sell what you have to offer. Sell some of your goods at auction; open a storefront-office where you can sell your wares in a physical location as well as online; open a virtual storefront in an online mall; build your telephone sales skills; cultivate your existing customers through giveaways and other promotions.

WEB COMPONENTS ADD FUNCTIONALITY

FrontPage 2002 comes with three Web components that enable you to add Office functionality to your Web site in the form of working spreadsheets, charts, and PivotTables. These Web components are best reserved for use on an intranet site because they have specific server and browser requirements: The site must be published on a server that has FrontPage Server Extensions installed, and visitors must be using Internet Explorer (version 3.0 and later) and have Microsoft Office (version 2000 and later) with Office Web components installed on their computers. If your publishing environment meets these conditions and you'd like to know more, visit the FrontPage Help system for details. To get there, in the upper right corner of the FrontPage window, type Office Web Component in the Ask a Question list box, and then press Enter.

OPTING FOR CONSISTENCY IN YOUR WEB CREATIONS

One way to build unity into your Web site is to always place photographs or illustrations in the same relative position on each page and always treat them the same way. One strong variation to placing graphics in the same location is to arrange them against a different colored background to the left or right of text columns. You also can create unity in the way you handle scanned photographs by always placing the same colored border, image-edited borders, or shadow effects around your photographs. Just be sure that you don't inadvertently insert a photograph and forget to modify the border or background. After you establish a standard, stick with it!

ADD A GROUP OF FILES TO YOUR CURRENT WEB

When you're inserting pictures in your page, it's easier if those picture files are already part of your web. And at some point, you'll need to have all the files associated with your web in one place, or you'll have broken links when you publish. But there's no need to add them all at once. You can import a group of files into your web at the same time.

Switch to Folders View. Click File, Import. Click Add File in the Import dialog box. You should now see the Add File To Import List dialog box. Navigate to the directory where your graphics files are located. Select them (remember, to select multiple files, hold down Ctrl while you click on the files). Click Open, then click OK.

CONSISTENCY COUNTS IN WEB DESIGN

Each page on your site should have the same logo. Certain links should go on each page (such as a link to your home page) and be in the same place on each page. If you have other links, such as Search, E-mail, and so on, these should also be consistent throughout your site.

Text color, fonts, hyperlinks, backgrounds, buttons, and so on should all be consistent to avoid confusion and error.

Your URLs and page headings should also have a consistent theme. URLs should be as simple as possible, and headings need to be complete and clear. Viewers often see headings out of context, such as in the results of a search engine or in your table of contents. For example, if you're selling used CDs, don't use Jazz at the top of one page and Looking for some Classical Music? at the top of another. Instead, put Used JazzCDs on the first page and Used Classical CDs on the next. These headings are simple, complete, and consistent.

If you're combining HTML and Flash content, use consistent fonts and colors for both.

ADDING RADIO BUTTONS TO WEB FORMS

When creating radio buttons on a form with FrontPage 2000, you need to specify the following three types of information:

Group name. The name identifies the overall group of radio buttons, as stated on the Radio button Properties dialog box. The name that you elect to enter will not show up on your Web page.
Value. The value describes the selected radio button in a term that relates to a characteristic of that button, such as a number range (for example, if the button calls for varying age ranges. The value for 30-39 could be "thirties.")
Initial state. This specification determines whether or not you want a radio button to appear selected on your form. Only one radio button in a group can appear selected at any time.

WHO SAID MY WEB PAGE WAS BORING--PART 1 OF 5

Put 'em up! Calling someone's Web page boring? Them's fightin' words. But if you take a careful look, you may just have to admit to yourself that it's true. After all, if your page simply consists of text with a few pictures thrown in for color, you're going to have to jazz it up. The best way to do that? Add themes.

Themes are basically design features that you can add to your site. FrontPage has a number of different themes you can use to add color and flavor to your site. Here's how:

First, open your home page. Then, select Format, Theme. In the Themes dialog box, select the option Apply Theme To All Pages. Now's the fun part. As you click on the different theme names--from Artsy to Sumi Painting--you'll find different design options for your Web page. Once you find one you like, click the OK button. The theme will automatically be applied on all pages of your Web site.

WHO SAID MY WEB PAGE WAS BORING--PART 2 OF 5

Last time, you learned how to apply a theme to your Web site, but what happens if you don't like the options that FrontPage offers? Well, one solution is to get additional themes from the FrontPage CD. You see, FrontPage doesn't load them all onto your computer because it doesn't want to suck up too much space. But if you want to check out other options, it's easy enough to do.

Simply choose Format, Theme. In the list of theme choices in the Themes dialog box, click Install Additional Themes. FrontPage will prompt you to verify that you want to install the themes. Once you do, FrontPage will install a plethora of other options--including ones like Saturday TV Toons and Tidepool--from which you can choose.

WHO SAID MY WEB PAGE WAS BORING--PART 3 OF 5

What? Even with a new and fabulous theme, your page doesn't look right to you? Okay, so you need to do a little more tweaking. This is not only possible, it's easy. Once you've added a theme, changing colors, graphics, or text isn't rocket science.

Once again, choose Format, Theme. In the Themes dialog box, at the bottom, you'll see a button labeled Modify. This is your ticket. Once you click that button, three other buttons will appear: Colors, Graphics, and Text. Click these buttons and fiddle around with the appearance of the theme.

Here's an important note: When you've finished fiddling, click OK and then--back in the Themes dialog box--you'll see the option to save this newly constructed theme. Don't do it. Instead of clicking the Save button, click the Save As button. This way, if you decide later that you don't like the changes you made, it's easy enough to go back to the original theme and start again. Now that's using your head.

WHO SAID MY WEB PAGE WAS BORING--PART 4 OF 5

Generally when you apply a theme, you want to apply it to your entire Web site. But there may be times when you want to apply it only to certain pages. Here's how:

First, go to the Folders list and highlight only the pages that you want to have the new theme. (Tip in a tip: If the folders aren't next to each other, hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard so you can select them.) Next, choose Format, Theme. When the Themes dialog box appears, make sure the option Apply Theme To Selected Page(s) is selected. Then, select the theme you want, and it will be applied only to the pages you chose. Don't forget to click the OK button to finish the job.

WHO SAID MY WEB PAGE WAS BORING--PART 5 OF 5

Enough! Thirty-one flavors is sometimes a beautiful thing--and sometimes, plain vanilla is best. Wanna change your page back to boring by removing the theme(s) you've added? No problem. First, choose Format, Theme. In the Themes dialog box, make sure that All Pages is selected. Then, choose No Theme and click OK. Any themes you applied will be erased automatically.

TITLING YOUR WEB PAGE

At some point, you will (presumably) publish your page on the World Wide Web. When search engines like Yahoo!, Excite, and others display information about your page, the main link to your page is its title. Therefore, you always want to give your page a good, descriptive title. This title doesn't appear anywhere within the page itself, only in search engines, in the title bar of FrontPage Express, and in the title bar of most Web browsers. To title your page, follow these steps:

From the FrontPage Express menu bar, choose File, Page Properties.
On the General tab, type a title in the Title text box.
Click OK.

You won't see any change to the page itself. However, the FrontPage Express title bar displays your page's title where it previously showed Untitled Normal Page.

ENJOYING THE (WEB PAGE) VIEW

You can view the source of any Web page you visit by using your Web browser. In Microsoft Internet Explorer, choose View, Source from the menu bar. In Netscape Navigator, choose View, Page Source.

TOPPING AND TIGHTENING YOUR WEB PAGES

Always display the most important information at the top of each Web page. Some readers may not scroll through a Web page to read all the information. These readers will miss important information if you do not display the information at the top of the page. Also, Web pages should not be too short or too long. If a Web page is shorter than half a screen of information, try to combine the information with another page. If a Web page is longer than five screens, try to break up the page into several shorter pages

CASTING A WEB SITE TO THE WIND

Remove those dusty old Webs lurking in the corners of your computer, You know -- the ones you no longer use. You're rewarded with a tidy hard drive and lots of extra disk space. To delete a Web site that's currently open in Explorer, follow these steps:

In the Explorer, choose File, Delete FrontPage Web. The Confirm Delete dialog box warns you that if you delete the Web, you can't change your mind later.
Throw caution to the wind and click Yes! But click Yes only if you're really sure that you want the Web gone for good. If not, click No. Responding to a Yes order, FrontPage 98 will delete the Web.

DELETING A RESIDENT WEB SITE WITH FRONTPAGE

Remove those dusty old Web sites lurking in the corners of your computer. You're rewarded with a tidy hard drive and lots of extra disk space.

To delete a Web site that's currently open in FrontPage, follow these steps:

In the Folder List, click the Web site's top-level folder and then press the Delete key.
The Confirm Delete dialog box appears and warns you that deleting a Web site is a permanent action (in other words, you can't decide after you delete your Web site that you want it back -- it's kaput).
In the dialog box, click the Delete This Web Entirely option button and then click OK.
The dialog box closes, and FrontPage deletes the Web site.

When you delete a Web site, you delete its subwebs, as well.

To delete a subweb, first open the parent Web site in FrontPage. In the Folder List, click the subweb's folder icon and then press Delete. In the Confirm Delete dialog box that appears, click Yes.

You can also delete FrontPage Webs by deleting their folders using Windows Explorer. The benefit here is that deleted Webs go into the Recycle Bin, so you can restore them if you later change your mind.

LINKING TO OTHER WEB SITES

The simplest way to create a hyperlink in your Web site is to first type some text for the hyperlink, as well as any other descriptive text that you feel is appropriate, Select the text that you plan to use as the actual hyperlink, and click the Create or Edit Hyperlink button to convert to the text to a link. A dialog box titled Create Hyperlink appears. Type the URL of the page you want to link to into the URL textbox of that dialog box. Or you can cut and paste a URL into the textbox.

WEB TOOLS VERSUS WEB SERVICES

A Web publishing tool, such as a text editor, is a program that helps you prepare content for the Web. A Web publishing service is a support function that handles part of the process of Web publishing for you, such as hosting your Web page(s) on a server.

WEBMASTERING: A BIG ROLE

In a first-things-first world, the one, true Webmaster is the person who keeps the technical underpinnings of the site shiny and running smoothly. This person may be responsible for overseeing the server (or maybe even servers if the site is a very big one), for keeping the connection going, for seeing to it that any database back ends are nicely integrated into the site systems, and for reading the log files and responding to any problems that may occur.

The tech-type Webmaster may also be called on to do programming, coding, scripting, database development, and search-engine configuration, or to spec and buy hardware and software or get bids from vendors. (Whew!)

WALLOWING IN WINDOWS

You've probably been to Web sites where you clicked a link and, instead of the next page opening in the same browser window, the page appeared in a new window that was launched on your desktop. If you're a neat freak, this is irritating because the new window interferes with the undoubtedly orderly appearance of your desktop; even if you're not that neat, you'll soon be overwhelmed by all the new windows that keep opening up every time you click a link. (Plus you'll be using up valuable system resources on your PC. Open up enough windows, and your machine will crash!)

WIZARD ME THIS--PART 1 OF 2

You've got this burning question about FrontPage--let's say it's about doing a spell-check. And you can't figure it out--your manual is lost in the stack of papers on your desk and today's tip doesn't seem to be about spell-checks. What to do? Turn to the Answer Wizard. No, this isn't a guy in a purple cloak who might show up in the next volume of Harry Potter. This is a handy little trick you can use to find the answer to your questions. Look at the toolbar at the top of FrontPage. See that little question mark in a cartoon-style dialog box all the way on the far right? Click once on this magical icon, and FrontPage Help will appear on your screen. You'll see three tabs: Contents, Answer Wizard, and Index. You're here to see the wizard, so make sure that tab is selected. (It probably is.) Under the Answer Wizard tab, it says

What would you like to do?

In the white box, type in your question, or even just a word. If you type

spell check

you'll get a list of answers, each one about performing a different kind of spell-check. Select the answer you want, and the information will appear on the right-hand side of the screen.

WIZARD ME THIS--PART 2 OF 2

In our previous tip, you learned how to use the Answer Wizard, but let's say you then have this problem: When you return to FrontPage to actually follow the instructions, you can't read them all. You do manage to get both FrontPage and FrontPage Help on the screen at the same time--which, admittedly, is pretty cool--but you still can't see all the instructions. No problem. You simply have to resize the FrontPage screen a little bit.

Got both FrontPage and FrontPage Help on the screen together? Good. Now look at the lower-right corner of the FrontPage screen. You should see a few faint diagonal lines. If you put your cursor over these lines, your cursor will turn into a black line with an arrow at each end. Click and hold your left mouse button, and you can now drag the FrontPage screen to any size you want. Resize it so you can read all your help instructions.

Alternatively, you can also tinker a little with the FrontPage Help screen. Go to that page, and you'll notice that there's a vertical bar separating the Answer Wizard from the actual instructions. Put your cursor over that vertical bar, and you'll see that same black line with the arrow on each end. Click and hold your mouse button, then drag the line to the right to make all the instructions fit into a slightly smaller space. Now when you jump back over to FrontPage, the instructions should be more readable.

Use one or both of these techniques to make the Answer Wizard work best for you.

WIZARD OUTTA THE WAY

When you open Drumbeat, you're faced with a simple initial choice: create a new site or open an existing site. If this is your first time, you're obviously creating a new site. Before you click that OK button too fast, though, consider these strong words of advice: Turn off the Use Wizard option and banish the Wizard. If you fall under the Wizard's spell, you may have to walk through not one, but two separate Wizards (the New Site Wizard and the Publish Settings Wizard) with a minimum of 18 separate dialog boxes -- more if you make certain choices along the way. Be assured that there's nothing in the Wizard you can't set later within Drumbeat and no choice you make is ever irrevocable.

WRAPS--PART 1 OF 2

Once you insert a picture or photo on your Web page, you might want to wrap text around it so you have a polished look. Here's how.

First, you need to insert your photo. To do so, place your cursor where you want the photo to appear. Then, select Insert, Picture, From File. In the Picture dialog box that appears, find the photo you want on your page. Highlight the name of that photo and click OK.

When your photo shows up, it will be glued to the far-left margin of your web page. Let's say, though, that you want it to appear on the right, with your text wrapped around the left-hand side of the image. To do this, first click once on the image, essentially highlighting it. Now choose Format, Position. In the Position dialog box, under Wrapping Style, you'll have a bunch of different options. In this case, you'll want to click on Right--which means that your photo will appear on the right-hand side of the page with text to the left.

Finally, click OK, and your changes should appear on the screen.

WRAPS--PART 2 OF 2

In our previous tip, you learned how to insert a photo and then wrap text around your image using a series of menu choices. But today you'll learn the secret, back-route shortcut: Once you've inserted your image on the page, click on it. Now look at the toolbar at the top of the page. You're looking for three different icons--one where a bunch of lines are all aligned to the left; one where the lines are all neatly centered; and one where the lines are all aligned to the right. If you hold your cursor over these icons, the pop-up boxes that appear will read Align Left, Center, and Align Right, respectively. Found them? Good. Now, say you click the Align Right icon. Your photo will move to the right side of the page, and the text will wrap around it on the left. Couldn't be easier.

THE EVER-VERSATILE XML

With XML (Extensible Markup Language), you can create -- and therefore structure -- your own markup. For those who have been struggling with random tags and browser capability problems when using HTML, XML is a welcome change. Understanding your data is key to providing useful information.

What helps make XML so powerful is its capability to give form and structure to any type of data -- no matter how abstract. Your document is self-describing and if coded correctly, anyone can understand it.

XML AND JAVA: ANY PORTABILITY IN A STORM

In case you're not convinced that both XML and Java enjoy cross-platform portability, look over these facts about the two technologies:

In its brief lifetime, XML has become the worldwide standard for representing structured, self-describing data.
The XML registry [ http://www.xml.org ] lists over one hundred XML data formats. They include formats for financial data, healthcare, arts and entertainment, human resources, multimedia, and many other domains. The XML standard encapsulates almost any kind of data in a way that's flexible, extensible, and easy to maintain.
Java runs as bytecode on a virtual machine.
A "compiled" Java class file that runs on Windows will run the same way on Linux, on Windows, or on whatever platform supports the Java Virtual Machine.
With Java, there's no such thing as platform-specific code. When you go from a .java source file to a .class bytecode file, you don't lose portability. To run the .class file, all you need is an operating system that can support a Java Virtual Machine. And versions of the Java Virtual Machine are available for at least twenty different operating systems.
Java is based on object-oriented programming technology.
Java code is reusable. You can call methods from existing classes, extend classes, or stretch and bend classes to meet your specialized needs. If someone writes a wonderful XML-handling package in Java, and the package has bits and pieces that you can use in your own work, you can import the package and extend the classes to solve exactly the problems that you need to solve.
This cooperative model works both ways. When you create a package for your own anticipated needs, other developers can adopt your package, enhance your package, and spread the good word about your code.

Taken together, these factors eventually ensure that software written in one environment can run in all other environments. Instead of reinventing the wheel, programmers reuse the wheel. This ideal -- the seamless integration of parts from many sources to build large, reliable software systems -- has been the Holy Grail of computing for the past several decades. Now portable code and portable data put the ideal within reach.