FrontPage 98 Tips - 2

Tip 1 Space Saver

When you create blocks or items of text (such as bullet-points with the <LI> tag) and want a new font to highlight your list, use only one <FONT> tag to style the entire list. If you use separate <FONT> tags for each bullet-point, many browsers will add unwanted space between the items.

Tip 2 Prevention of the 'right' to click

How to prevent users from right clicking on a page

There is a script that can be used however if you use it you deny your visitors the use of the rest of the right click menu, this results in visitors leaving and not coming back.

The script is useless anyway. This is because you can get around it in several ways the easiest being to just turn the JavaScript off in the browser and you can right click once more.

So the best solution to this script is not to use it.

Tip 3 How to use a hover button within a framed page

By Clicking on a hover button in one frame you can change the contents within another frame. To do this simply add the following code to the list of parameters between the <applet> and >/applet> tags.

Tip 4 Clearing your cache

FrontPage 98 stores all its temp files (cache) in its own subdirectory, which is usually stored at
...C:\Program Files\Microsoft FrontPage\temp...

FrontPage 98 does not clear these automatically so sooner rather than later your hard drive will be bulging!

To clear out these temp files
Select Windows Explorer to locate the FrontPage Temp subdirectory
Select and delete all its contents (but don't delete the temp subdirectory itself)

Or you can:

Press Start
Select Find | Find Folders under the Name and Location tab | Named box enter first:

*.tmp

Press 'Find Now' and wait till all the files are located Go to the menu bar and click Edit | Select all. Right click in the window pane on the files under the 'Name' column and select Delete in the pop up menu, click yes when the recycle bin asks if you want to delete them.

*.chk

Do the same with .chk.

Note: FrontPage 2000 has a built-in provision for deleting the contents of the temp subdirectory.

Tip 5 End it!

Position your cursor at the text you want to highlight
Press SHIFT and END then the text is highlighted

Plus if you continue to press shift and press the down arrow key subsequent text is also highlighted.

Tip 6 Setting White as Default Background Colour for all New Pages

It is very common for web-developer's to overlook turning their page background colour to white because it already appears white in the FrontPage Editor, when it is actually set to "default" in the Page Properties. If your default background color is set to white in your browser, you may not catch it when you view your pages, either.

To thwart this in the future, you can modify your "normal page template" in FrontPage to always have white set as the background colour automatically when you create a new page. Here's how to do it.

Open the FP Editor:

Press
File
New
Normal
Do Not tick "add task"
Click ok

To make background and other changes

Click
Format
Background

Then change the background, fonts and hyperlinks to the colours you wish to choose, you can change the margins, with this dialog box as well if you wish...and also enter meta tags that you wish to use globally.

Now you are ready to save:

Click
File
Save As (Not Save)
Change the text in the url and title boxes to normal

Click
"As Template"
Check the url and title say normal
Click ok twice.

From now on you will have a blank page with the colours you have set up. For Background that should be white, for text black and for hyperlinks whatever you wish, this depends on how you generally use your pages. If you prefer dark backgrounds choose hyperlink colours that are going to be visible.

Tip 7 Hover buttons not working

If your hover buttons don't work on the Web, chances are good that you didn't upload the Java applet files to your server. There are two files, fphover.class and fphoverx.class, and they must be in a directory called _fpclass within your root web.

However, do NOT put the HTML page that includes the buttons in that directory.

You also need to have the FrontPage 98 server extensions installed.

Tip 8 Discussion Group- New messages go to message 1

This error is caused by using upper case characters for the name of the folder (the default name of this folder when first using the Discussion Wizard is "_disc1") in which the articles are stored.

Make sure your discussion web folders are all lower case.

Tip 9 Want to make sure your really refreshing the site?

Instead of typing www.myurl.com, just type myurl.com. Doing so tends to force the browser to reload the page from the server.

Tip 10 Butt what a table

When you have two tables butted together vertically, it can be hard to insert a line between them. To do so, place the cursor after the content of the top table's last cell and press [Ctrl][Enter].

Similarly, to put the insertion point before a table at the top of your document, place the cursor before the content of the first cell and press [Ctrl][Enter].

In FrontPage 97, if this cell is empty, you'll have to type
a character in it before hitting [Ctrl][Enter].

Tip by Inside Microsoft FrontPage, a ZD Journals publication.

Tip 11 My navigation menus have disappeared, fear not, we have the answer.

open FrontPage Explorer
click file, open
when the 'Getting started' dialog box comes up you click on the 'More Webs' Tab.
In the 'Open FrontPage Web Dialog box under 'Select a Web server or disk location' you type in the address of the web you want
i.e. members.tripod.com/promotebusiness/
Click the 'List Webs' Tab.
(You will probably be presented with a dialog box asking for your username and password, type them in and click ok.
You wait awhile for this to do...Your web site then downloads into your FrontPage Explorer, intact with navigation view.

You go to folders view and look for default.htm
delete this...(doing this while connected to the net as you are then working on your web site live)
close this web

File, open again..bring up your LOCAL site on your hard drive and publish it...keep a sharp lookout for what the dialog boxes say..if one says delete index.htm off the server say no...
then everything should be back to normal...

Tip 12 Bullets like to go single

Sometimes getting a bulleted list to go single spaced works and sometimes it doesn't...the trick to this, is to make sure that the Left Justification button on the FrontPage Editor toolbar is not activated...Simple when you know how <g>

Tip 13 Pointing to the graphics app

If your default image editor is Image Composer, but you want to use another application, you need to reconfigure the settings and point to the one you want.

1. In FrontPage Explorer, select Tools + Options.
2. In the Options dialog box, click the Configure Editors tab.

A list of different file types and the editor--or program--that FrontPage uses to work with that type of file appears. Because you're working with image files, the most important types of files are GIF and JPEG.

3. Highlight the GIF file type and click Modify; then browse to find the photoediting program's executable file, select it, and click OK.
4. Highlight the JPEG file type and click Modify; then browse to find the photoediting program's executable file, select it, and click OK.
5. When finished, click OK to exit the Options dialog box.

Tip 14 Which is which

If you're a little confused as to which file is which. The best way to find out which is the executable file is:

1. Selecting the file you think is the correct one, right-click the filename and choose Properties.
2. In the next dialog box, you see a listing with the DOS name of the program. If the name has the .EXE file extension, it's an executable file. The dialog box also mentions that the file is an application.
3. Click Cancel to exit this dialog box and then select the application to be your default photoeditor.

Tip 15 To Create a Verified Hyperlink

Creating a verified hyperlink is the most accurate way of doing so because you actually visit the page the hyperlink will point to.

1    Type Microsoft FrontPage and then press ENTER.
2    Click and drag the mouse over the words you just typed to select them.
3    On the Insert menu, choose Hyperlink.

The Create Hyperlink dialog box is displayed.

4 In the Create Hyperlink dialog box, click the World Wide Web button.
5 The FrontPage Editor launches your Web browser.

When you visit the page that the hyperlink should point to and then switch back to FrontPage, the URL field will contain the address of the target page.

6 In your Web browser's Address (or Location) field, type http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/FX010858021033.aspx and then press ENTER.

The Web browser displays the Microsoft FrontPage home page, where you can learn more about FrontPage, download new software, and find solutions to common questions.

7 On your keyboard, press ALT+TAB (or click the FrontPage Editor tile on the Windows task bar) to switch back to the FrontPage Editor's Create Hyperlink dialog box.

The URL of the Microsoft FrontPage home page is now entered into the URL field in the Create Hyperlink dialog box.

Click OK.

On your keyboard, press the DOWN ARROW key to deselect the text.
The words "Microsoft FrontPage" are now underlined to indicate the hyperlink.