Using the Integrated Environment
Before jumping headfirst into FrontPage, you should become familiar with its different views. Microsoft FrontPage is composed of multiple functions all integrated into a single workspace. You work in the workspace to manage your entire Web site, including the files and folders, user permissions, and tasks.
Tip from 
If you want to maximize the amount of room available to edit a page's HTML directly, choose Window, New Window to open a new window to the same Web site. Then hide the Views Bar and Folder List so that you'll have a full window for editing your pages.
The FrontPage workspace is divided into several screen areas. The Views Bar appears at the extreme left (see Figure 36.1). Use the Views Bar to quickly change between the major functions of FrontPage. You activate each view by clicking the appropriate icon in the Views Bar.
Figure 36.1. Select your function by using the view icons.
Tip from 
If you have a small monitor and want to optimize the layout of your workspace, you can right-click over the Views Bar and choose Small Icons. If you prefer not to display the Views Bar, right-click and choose Hide Views Bar: You can then switch among the different FrontPage views by using the View menu.
To the right of the Views Bar is the Folder List. It appears as soon as you open a Web site. Use the Folder List to navigate your Web site's files and folders. The Folder List is not used for the Reports view or the Tasks view, so it disappears when using those views.
When FrontPage communicates with the Web server, you'll see the arrow icon spin in the status bar. In Page view, the status bar indicates the expected download time of the page.
Managing Files in the Folders View
Use the Folders view to manage the individual files and folders of your Web site (see Fig- ure 36.2). In the Folders view, you perform Web site file operations, such as deleting files, moving files, and renaming files. You can also use the Folders view to visualize the overall file structure of your Web site.
Figure 36.2. Use the Folders view to manage the file structure of your Web site.
Note
Resist the urge to perform file operations on your Web site outside the FrontPage environment. When you perform the operations within FrontPage, FrontPage can actively help you manage the links between pages and can watch for dynamic components that need to be updated, such as the search engine index or the table of contents pages.
FrontPage creates hidden files and folders on your Web site to maintain information such as the state of each file and your Web site preferences. To see these files in Folder view, choose Tools, Web Settings, and click the Advanced tab. Check the Show Hidden Documents check box to see these hidden folders and files.
Editing Pages in Page View
Page view enables you to create and edit individual pages, and modify page formats and themes. You use Page view to design the page, choosing different styles and page layouts. You can choose simple page-by-page layouts or sophisticated frame-based layouts. In Page view, you also insert images, tables, hyperlinks, and automated components.
Double-click a page in any of the other views to open and edit a page in Page view. While editing in Page view, you can use three alternate views: Normal, HTML, and Preview. The Normal view enables you to edit pages directly, without digging into the HTML.
In Normal Page view, you can choose View, Reveal Tags (or press Ctrl+/) to illustrate the effect that each HTML tag has on the page content (see Figure 36.3). Reveal Tags mode is especially useful if you are new to HTML and want to see how each HTML tag affects the page.
Figure 36.3. Reveal Tags mode displays the effect that each HTML tag has on the formatted page.
In HTML Page view, you can edit the HTML directly. HTML Page view also supports Dy namic HTML, JavaScript, VBScript, Active Server Pages scripts, and XML (see Figure 36.4).
Figure 36.4. Use the HTML Page view to edit the HTML directly.
In the Preview Page view, you see how your page will actually look in the Internet Explorer Web browser. Although Normal view provides a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editing environment, the Preview Page view (see Figure 36.5) helps you visualize how some special effects and styles cooperate to format your page. In Preview Page view, you can actually interact with your page and browse to other linked documents.
Figure 36.5. Preview Page view shows you precisely how the page will look and act while inside Internet Explorer.
Using Reports View
Reports view, shown in Figure 36.6, provides a comprehensive set of tabular reports about the status of your Web site. With Reports view, you can monitor important site information, such as the following:
Figure 36.6. Use the Reports view to find any hidden problems with your Web site.
The total number of pages in your Web site
The total size of your Web site
Pages that are considered too slow for 28.8Kbps modem users
Recently added or changed pages
Old pages that might need updating
Files that are not linked within your site
Broken links to other pages within your Web site and locations to other sites
Unfinished pages with assigned authors and each page's review status
The Reports view provides a useful Summary report that can highlight specific problem areas of your Web site, such as broken links or pages that might take too long to download. When you find a problem area or a specific report item that needs closer inspection, click the item to see further details. The Reports view can help you isolate specific problem pages and correct them interactively.
While in the Reports view, you can use the Reports toolbar to perform several actions:
Choose the Specific Report of Interest— Each report offers multiple levels of information. The Summary report is a good place to start.
Choose a Report Setting— Some reports enable you to refine the report criteria. For instance, in the Older Files report, you can select the age cutoff in days that divides older files from newer ones.
Edit Hyperlinks— Some reports indicate broken links. In those reports, you can select a line of the report and choose the Edit Hyperlinks button. Doing so invokes a dialog box that enables you to perform sitewide corrections of the broken link.
Verify Hyperlinks— To track the status of links to external locations, click the Verify Hyperlinks button. FrontPage tries to connect to each externally referenced page and test the success status. If the external page has been moved or deleted, the link is flagged as broken, and you can fix it in a sitewide fashion.
Note
In general, you should not rely solely on Preview mode. Instead, you should preview your Web pages in as many browsers as you can get your hands on, by choosing File, Preview in Browser. Each browser renders HTML differently. For example, Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer do not display paragraphs with a background color the same: IE shows the color the full width of the window, whereas Netscape shows it only the width of the text.
Commanding Your Site Layout in Navigation View
Use Navigation view to define how users will navigate through your Web site (see Figure 36.7). Navigation view does not actually rename your files or move them from folder to folder; it defines the hierarchical relationship of your pages.
Figure 36.7. Use Navigation view to define your Web site structure.
In Navigation view, the home page of your Web site appears as a rectangle at top center. To add other pages, drag them from the Folder List to the Navigation view. As you drag a new page to the view, a connecting line appears, illustrating the relationship to the other pages. Drag the page rectangle to the desired location, such as a sibling or child of the home page. You can reposition any page in a similar manner, drag it to the preferred location, and confirm the connecting-line relationship.
Navigation view works hand in hand with FrontPage link bars, the navigational aids that FrontPage supports to give a user access to the sites she needs most. A typical link bar might have links called Home, Search, Products, and Contact Us—clicking each of the links in the link bar would propel the viewer to the appropriate page in your Web.
You can build a custom link bar manually or have FrontPage create one for you, based on the structure shown in Navigation View.
Caution
If you want to create a link bar with Back and Next links, or if you want to create a custom link bar and have it maintained by FrontPage, your Web server must be running Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions 2002.
→ For more information about link bars, see "Using Link Bars to Make Navigation Easier".
If you maintain page titles in Navigation view religiously, you can use FrontPage's page banner feature to automatically generate titles for each page. To put a banner on a Web page, choose Insert, Page Banner. Then, when you change the page title within Navigation view (right-click and choose Rename), the page reflects your change automatically without you having to edit the page directly.
While in Navigation view, you can use the Navigation toolbar to perform two important actions:
Reference an External Link in Your Navigation Structure— Select a current page and click the Add External Link button to insert the link. External links appear as rectangles with small Earth icons in the lower left.
Choose to Include or Exclude a Page from the Navigation Bars Within Your Web Site— Select a current page and toggle the Include in Navigation Bars button.
Using Hyperlinks View
Use Hyperlinks view to see the link relationships among pages within your Web site (see Figure 36.8).
Figure 36.8. Use Hyperlinks view to visualize how pages are linked together.
In Hyperlinks view, choose a file in the Folder List to display the links to and from the file. The selected file appears in the center To the right, you'll see arrows representing links going out of the page. To the left, you'll see arrows representing links going into the page. Dashed lines indicate broken links.
Tip from 
Right-click a page icon and choose Move to Center to see all the hyperlinks going into and out of the chosen page. Click the + (plus) icon in the top left of a page icon to show the links to which that page links, and click the – (minus) icon to collapse those links. Using these selections, you can quickly navigate through your entire Web site.
By default, Hyperlinks view displays the filenames of your pages. To change the information that is displayed, right-click and choose one of the following options:
Repeated Hyperlinks— To see whether a page has multiple links to the same file
Hyperlinks Inside Page— To see links to bookmarks on the same page
→ For more about chasing down broken links, see "Maintaining Accurate Hyperlinks".