What is "Front Page"?

[casbahdance]

Yep, that's the question! Well, the related question is, "How do I get it and what do I do with it?"

Some background . . .

Back in July, I purchased a full-on website from godaddy.com; prior to that, I had merely a "starter page" with them, which was really like a single sheet of paper with zero editing capabilities (no fonts, no font sizes, no bold, etc). That worked for about a year when I decided it was time to do something with it.

So, I bought myself the "real" website and started working on it, using the builder on the host site.

The very first thing I did in my excitement over the whole thing, and which is the cardinal dumb thing to do, was to start typing away directly into the site, rather than do it in Word and copy it over upon completion.

You know, as I re-read this post, I can see those smilies over there; some of them are chuckling, some are shaking their little heads, and some are looking at me like, "I told you so" . . . and then there's that one sleeping over there while I'm having a crisis!

Anyway, I get all this stuff typed in. It's really good. I tweak some of it. It gets better. I'm really excited about how the wording and general tone of the message is all working together. It sounds friendly, but professional.

Now it's time for me to shut down for the evening. So, I look for a way to save the thing. I go to help. I look everywhere. Hoping against hope that it would automatically save, I log out. Then I log back in. Whew! Everything's still there. I perform the final log out and go to bed all happy, except for that nagging feeling I ought to have tried to copy all that good stuff into Word . . .

the saga continues . . .

[casbahdance]

I log on. I decide to be adventurous and add a second page . . . just try it out to see how it works.

MISTAKE!!!

Well, I don't think going to page 2 was a mistake, but something happened that I can't explain.

Mr. Computer was a bit sluggish that evening (I have dial-up, so sluggish is not only terrible, it's scary!) and I decided to get back to page 1 and log out.

As godaddy's site builder provides no information on the status of a keystroke command, I wait and wait and wait. Finally, there's a big flash of colors on the screen. It looks like page 1 and page 2 are trying to display at the same time. In the middle of the mess, a small yellow rectangular box appears. I have just enough time (about 1 second) to see the word "failure" in the box before it vanishes. There are other words in that little box, too -- even a colon -- but "failure" was the one that caught my eye.

I sat there with my eyes and my mouth wide open.

I couldn't -- wouldn't is probably more accurate -- believe what had just happened.

You know this little guy?

Well, he's actually named "confused" but sometimes he looks more like "brain fried" to me, which is exactly how I felt at the moment.

I thought maybe I would cry, but I couldn't. I deserved a good cry, dang it!

Knowing everything was either a big mess (which maybe I could solve over time) or completely lost (in which case I was going to buy some hari kari implements), I logged completely out of the website and logged back in.

Where does one find hari kari implements in south Orange County at 11 o'clock at night? Yep, everything I had moved to page 2 (which was most of the site) was gone. I had a few of my initial lines of text, but the meat of the site was conspicuous by it's absence.

I turned off the computer and walked away.

It took about a week for me to get back to that website. I found it as I had left it, forlorn and sad-looking.

I copied what was on the site over to Word and started working from there. Got alot done. Copied it back to the website. Looked good. Typed some more in Word and copied that to the website. Decided to see what logging out would do (supposedly, it automatically saves). Logged back on; everything I had copied from Word was gone.

Tried again, thinking I had missed a step. Same result.

I figured out what was wrong, but I can't fix it. I am at a loss.

So, I guess what I need now is my own "builder" that I can transfer/copy over to my site, yes?

HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and did I mention that the site builder is called "Web Site Tonite"????

Deborah

[Nat242]

Wow, that really sucks, Deborah!!

If you're interested in Microsoft Frontpage, check out this website, it might help get you on your way:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/fr...647001033.aspx

I've not used Frontpage but I've sat through a tutorial on how to use it and it looks pretty straight forward, but someone on Bhuz with a bit more experience might be more helpful.

Good luck - and don't touch that website builder!!!

[sumayasaahir]

I can attest to its easiness to use. If you end up getting it and need help, let me know.

[sumayasaahir]

People also seem to like Dreamweaver, too, but I dont know anything about that.

[sabrinabellydancer]

i've never used front page. i use dreamweaver all the time and find it very easy.
if you don't know how to code, the wysiwyg editor is really great.

it is possible that your files were corrupted on transfer over dial up. can't really say what happened for sure without seeing your files.

good luck. i also offer my help if you need anything [not front page]

[zorba]

People who know far more about such things than I do say "Stay away from Frontpage!". Even died in the wool Micro$oft apologists say this....

I wouldn't use Word either, but I'm an ABM kind of guy...

[*Shira*]

I STRONGLY recommend staying AWAY, far far AWAY, from any Microsoft product for web authoring purposes. This applies to FrontPage, Word, Publisher, and anything else Microsoft may produce that does html generation.

I mean it. If you use a Microsoft product, you will incur your rightful punishment.

I know a dancer who published her class schedule on the web using a Microsoft product - and anyone whose browser was NOT Internet Explorer (read: anyone who was using Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, Safari, Opera, America Online, or any other browser) saw ONLY a blank page. Only people using Internet Explorer could see the class schedule. She lost prospective students as a result.

Also, every Microsoft product creates hideous, impossible-to-read html for even the simplest pages. It's horrid. Positively horrid. If you ever have anyone else help you with your web site, they'll throw up their hands in despair (or just throw up, all over your keyboard) at the mere sight of the awful html generated by those Microsoft products. I break out in a rash at the mere sight of Microsoft-generated html, and I've been personally done ALL web work on www.shira.net for the last 10 years, ever since the site was "born" in July 1997.

Microsoft products INTENTIONALLY insert Microsoft-specific stuff into your page that only Microsoft's own browser will be unable to read. This means that your page will look perfectly nice in Internet Explorer, but in any other browser the graphics, page layout, colors, and fonts will all look ugly.

Microsoft products insert special features into your page called Front Page Extensions. In general, these work ONLY on web sites that are hosted on a computer running Windows. I don't know what godaddy runs today, but if they suggested Front Page then they probably run on Windows. The problem is that if you ever decide you want to move your web site to another hosting company, you must either 1) choose another that runs Windows-based servers, or 2) modify your entire web site to remove all the Microsoft-specific Front Page extensions because most Linux/UNIX web sites don't support them.

And finally, when you install a Microsoft product, it comes with a "feature" that inserts a Microsoft advertisement at the bottom of each and every page that it creates for you. (I know this was true when a friend used Microsoft Publisher, not sure about Word or FrontPage.) Their hope is that you won't notice, and will leave it there, and they will get lots of FREE advertising at YOUR expense. There is a way to disable that feature, but that requires you to notice that it's there and figure out how to make it stop, which many novice web site authors don't do.

Okay, I'll quit ranting now.

[Nepenthe]

Originally Posted by zorba

People who know far more about such things than I do say "Stay away from Frontpage!". Even died in the wool Micro apologists say this....

I wouldn't use Word either, but I'm an ABM kind of guy...

Well, I'll give you this perspective.

I used to write my own websites in notepad, straight up HTML. I was vehemently opposed to frontpage because it wrote messy code that was hard to read. For years, I wrote all my own code - even getting into cgi scripts and stuff.

But then I needed to get a pretty website for myself up & fast - and since my hobby of dance now leaves no time (nor desire) to sit in front of a computer and code (plus I do that all day at work) - I used Frontpage. It's been pretty easy to manage. It did help me get it up fast, and I Love the fact that I can easily change the "theme" without a lot of re-coding. I also love that I can add a new page to the list without having to go back and change menus on all the pages - just on the navigation. As for the code - sure some of it is quite complicated, but I can see around it enough that if I need to quickly add an event listing, I can do it.

So from an IT professional's perspective, Frontpage is a very good tool for getting a website up quickly, especially if you do not have time/inclination to learn HTML.

...

But Shira is right that you will need Frontpage Extensions if you use any of the unique-to-Frontpage tools. Also, mine doesn't have an advertisement but a non-commercial version might. I guess, Frontpage could let you dig your own grave. Since I knew about its evils, I was able to work with it. If you already own it, go for it - but I wouldn't go out and buy it when other good website development tools are out there.

[afra14]

If you cannot afford to invest in Dreamweaver (which is great) there are some good freebies around that will allow you to do WYSIWYG if you don't want to lean html right now. I recommend Nvu which is opensource. You can download it here http://www.nvu.com/ . OTH If you can afford Dreamweaver then I can highly recommend it.

Ditto to everyone's comments about FrontPage - avoid it at all costs!

[laura 2]

Casbahdance, if it makes you fee any better, the same sort of thing thing happened to me. I was rebuliding my teacher's website, using her hosting company's (website builder 1 and 1.com) website builder. I worked on it for weeks, and had the whole thing ready to go, but it wouldn't publish. I called tech support for help, anf they said they would look into it. The next thing I knew, I logged in and my website project was GONE. Because I didn't use a 3rd party application, just their online builder, I have to start all over from scratch with another hosting company (we decided to leave 1 and 1 due to their appalling customer service). What kills me is I didn't save any of the text, or print it out, so I have to recreate the editorial content, which was about 80% for the work.

[casbahdance]

As always, Bhuzzers come through!

I just remembered exactly what I was doing when I lost most of my content:

I was creating a back up! I won't be doing that again any time soon, let me tell ya!

I am a complete user; that is, I don't know what to do with anything having to do with coding, HTML (I'm only just now getting a handle on what it is), etc.

I do want wysiwyg technology.

I want very straight forward directions and examples. For example, I learned MS Publisher by reading the book and by trial and error, but at least Publisher has wizards to get you started and a pretty decent help menu -- I can't tell you how many times I consulted the manual when I was making up my first class flyer!

I want to click in a content box, type my text, insert my images, change the fonts and their sizes -- IOW, do all that input and editing -- just as quickly and easily as I do in Word.

Is that asking too much?

Does dreamweaver do this stuff?

ACK! This is maddening . . .

Again, thanks for the help and keep it coming!

Deborah

[beafarhana]

Originally Posted by casbahdance

For example, I learned MS Publisher by reading the book and by trial and error, but at least Publisher has wizards to get you started and a pretty decent help menu -- I can't tell you how many times I consulted the manual when I was making up my first class flyer!

You can make a website in Publisher, as far as I recall. Yeah it's still MS but if you can use it, you can make your own site up.

[asim1]

Originally Posted by casbahdance

I am a complete user; that is, I don't know what to do with anything having to do with coding, HTML (I'm only just now getting a handle on what it is), etc.

I do want wysiwyg technology.

Try Dreamweaver, or the new Microsoft Expressions Web; unlike FrontPage, it appears (from my readings & very limited testing) to produce sane, readable HTML and CSS. Really Frontpage is far more of a headache than you want to try, in the long run. Trust me, I'm a Professional. :)
Nvu is kind of rough, but it's free, does the WYSIWYG bit, and also produces pretty clean HTML. It's worth a shot.

[zorba]

I'd love to have DreamWeaver, but its so darned OBSCENELY expensive, so I still do mine in a text editor....

[amity]

I can do Html/xhtml, but for those people who don't have any experience with any, I highly recommend it because it is a microsoft product and it works like anything in Microsoft office. I have never had a problem with it and it's easy for the novice to use. You can still do html in it and not use the frontfrontpage extensions by using the regular html coding header at the top but use the rest of frontpage for laying out the page. Works great!

[shahravar]

I don't think the public understands just how much love and work goes into a Belly Dancers web site. Wouldn't it be nice to just pay somebody to style it????
Good Luck! Shah

[zorba]

Originally Posted by shahravar

I don't think the public understands just how much love and work goes into a Belly Dancers web site.

Probably not! And Belly Dancers have beautiful WebSites, I'm always amazed at the amount of talent and artistry I see among my dance sister's sites!

[sabrinabellydancer]

why don't you download the trial version of dreamweaver and see if you like it. you could probably get the main part of your site done before it expires. then, if you like it, sign up for a class [any class] at your local junior college. it should be really cheap. then you can have the student pricing on dreamweaver and any other software you need. then you can drop the class.

i know lots of people who do this and it saves a ton of $ on software. and the student version will do more than you will ever need.

i second the opinions which say "stay away from frontpage". this is my professional IT opinion as well

good luck with the site. let us know how it goes

[Lauren_]

I tried frontpage, I HATED it. But YMMV.

Actually, it sounds to me like the website creator software from your host is a good choice for you. I've never found a program that offers the simple interface of the online sitebuilders for people who don't want to learn about coding or do anything complicated.

Seems like the only issue you've got with it is this glitch with adding a second page. I know you're mad as heck at it right now -- I would be too! But you can pay hundreds of dollars for a program and you're still going to run into maddening glitches. Does your host have an 800 number you can call for support? Get some help with this problem.

I think you're on the right track with using Word to type out what you want on your site, then copy/paste it where you want it in your template. That way you'll have a back up of your text, and you can keep it in a folder along with your website photos and you've got everything in one place for backup. When you update the site, get in the habit of opening the word file and making your changes there, then copying them to the site so you've always got an up-to-date backup.

[amity]

I agree with the word-document back-up!