No DOCTYPE The <!DOCTYPE> tag is very important for modern web page creation, as it informs code validators and future browsers the type of HTML used on the page. This gives modern browsers more information about the tags used, so that they can act more intelligent. FrontPage 2000 does not insert or support this tag.
Strange Metatags Some strange metatags are included at the top of every FrontPage 2000 document. These are:
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
The purpose is to identify documents created by FrontPage. Why is this important? Firstly, it allows FrontPage to do FrontPage-specific things when editing. Secondly, it allows special spiders (or robots) to determine how much of the web is created by the FrontPage editor.
FrontPage extensions - If you want to use any of the FrontPage special extensions, then you must load (or find an ISP which supports) FrontPage extensions. These are really just a series of routines that you can call from your web pages. FrontPage extensions are really the Microsoft implementation of CGI (at least in concept) as they provide the means that a web page communicates with the server. Unfortunately, they are very insecure, slow, and often not installed by ISPs. My recommendation is to avoid them at all costs.
WebBots - All of the special FrontPage extensions are done via something called a WebBot. Without exception, these are poorly implemented, insecure, result in untransportable code and perform slowly. Personally, I've stopped using anything in FrontPage that produces a WebBot.
Weak CSS Support - FrontPage does have some support for CSS, but it is awkward and difficult to find at all. The support for internal style sheets is fair, but external sheet support is weak and difficult to use. I've just ignored FrontPage's CSS support entirely and code the style sheets myself.
No support of PHP or ASP - If you want to use ASP, you need to purchase a copy of Visual InterDEV. FrontPage does not support ASP coding at all (except in HTML mode). In addition, it does not support PHP (not surprising since PHP is not native to IIS).
No support of JavaScript or VBScript - FrontPage 2000 does not support coding in VBScript or JavaScript at all. Oh, you can use the HTML mode to code it, but that kind of defeats the purpose of using an editor like FrontPage, doesn't it?
Shared Borders - This is one of those features that seemed like a good idea at the time. In fact, it is an excellent idea. The concept that you could maintain the borders (usually containing the site header, footer and navigation) such that changes are common to ALL files in the site is excellent. The implementation is so poor, however, that it's enough to make one cry. Don't use these for anything.
Forms - The forms management system included with FrontPage (and FrontPage extensions) is just downright awful. It creates bloated, horrible code, it slow and tends to be very insecure. Personally, I simply installed my own CGI forms routines and stopped using the FrontPage versions all together.
Templates - Web sites created using FrontPage templates tend to look like they were created by amateurs. You can spot them from a mile away wearing a blindfold. Man, those sites are ugly. And it does not matter how professionally done the site is, who created the templates or how good the webmaster is. The site looks like a FrontPage site. On top of that, templates tend to add a heck of a lot of silly, bloated HTML code, they load slowly and they look terrible.
Tends to change references to hard drive letters - FrontPage 2000 is usually pretty good about understanding when to include a relative or an absolute URL. Sometimes, however, FrontPage becomes extremely annoying and doesn't use either type of reference. Instead, it does something really, really stupid - it includes an absolute DISK reference. This does not translate at all to the web (since the internet usually does not access to your own disk drive).
Editing large web sites can be very, very slow - I've found that FrontPage 2000 is very, very slow when dealing with more than a few hundred pages. In fact, when Internet Tips and Secrets got up to a thousand or so pages, it became intolerably slow. I finally stopped using FrontPage as a web editor, and instead now just use it as an HTML page editor. It's just too slow.
Creates lots of tiny files in obscure directories - One of the real annoyances of FrontPage (any version) is the tendency to create special directories (all starting with _vti) which contain hundreds or even thousands of tiny files. These files tend to annoy just about everyone, but they are necessary - FrontPage needs them to keep track of the web site.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.