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Microsoft FrontPage 2000

Microsoft FrontPage 2000

Early versions of Microsoft FrontPage were decidedly subpar. They would produce nearly indecipherable HTML and terrible JavaScript. The program contained no editor to change the code it generated, making many Web pages it developed unusable.

The newest version of the program, FrontPage 2000, has fixed a lot of the problems that plagued earlier versions. It is a topnotch HTML generation program that makes for easy editing. This new version includes some of the more advanced HTML features like dynamic HTML and CSS (cascading style sheets). Like the AppleWorks program is to Macintosh, FrontPage is to PCs, allowing an incredible degree of interactivity with companion Microsoft Office programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. For people who want to generate online sales presentations, you can now develop them (or use existing presentations) in PowerPoint and integrate them into your Web site using FrontPage. Using FrontPage’s interactivity with Microsoft Access, database functions are made easy.

One of the best things about this new version of FrontPage is that it now offers you three ways to view the page you are generating: Normal, HTML, and Preview. This allows for easy switching between WYSIWYG, code, and the final appearance of the page.

Although it is a much improved program over the original, there are still some drawbacks to FrontPage. In order to use many of the more advanced features FrontPage 2000 has to be hosted on a Windows NT server. NT Web servers are becoming more and more prevalent nowadays, but if your hosting company (or your own server) is running on Win95, 98, or Unix, you will be out of luck. Also, FrontPage requires a lot of clicking around to make changes. There are few shortcuts, and when you make a modification, the program closes the window. Every modification requires you to reopen the window, which makes delicate fine tuning more of a chore than it needs to be.

* Source - Everything Online Business Book
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