Microsoft FrontPage 2003 [OLD VERSION]

Along with FP2003, I strongly recommend Jim Buyens Inside Out book. It is so very complete and is written for the slightly-beyond-beginner to advanced. Amazon link: http://snurl.com/30lg
Along with this excellent book, head over to Jimco Addins at http://www.jimcoaddins.com for some truly wonderful and useful plug-ins to make much more of the FP experience.

Overall, a truly great piece of progress in the Frontpage chronology.


Reply for: Not for a large commercial site!!!   November 15, 2003
 20 out of 52 found this review helpful

This is a typical answer for someone who does not understand how to use the software. Just another case of some person expecting the carpenter's tools to do the work instead of the carpenter having any skills before using the tools.


Not for a large commercial site!!!   October 27, 2003
 29 out of 65 found this review helpful

Frontpage proved easy enough to learn. I bought the book Frontpage Inside Out which is a thousand-page bible for its use. The book was well-indexed so I could hop around and master the tasks which I wanted to accomplish. The problem for me was that I was building a graphically-intense commercial site with thousands of photos. My site worked well until I had about 500 products listed, then save times became unbearable. Frontpage also became increasing unstable and, at one point, it crashed and lost 3,000 of my photos. The real problem was that it worked well in the beginning and I continued to go down a blind alley with this software which eventually made it impossible to use. If you intend to make a large commercial site, Frontpage sucks! I also used Microsoft Access in conjunction with this as my data base. Another mistake.... I'm not a developer, just a guy out making a living on the web with a reasonably successful idea. Frontpage left me high and dry at the worst possible moment. If you want to make a site to show birthday photos and anniversary pictures, it would be great. It has no place, however, in the real world of e-commerce unless you're planning to fail from the start. I wish that one of the IT pros I spoke with had told me this from the start. Unfortunately, the thing most missing from this Information Age is reliable information you can count on. As a novice, I wish you luck in not paying some steep tuition to learn about all this. The problem is that geeks seldom communicate well with people, so asking often does no good. If they could communicate they wouldn't be geeks.


A MUST GET Upgrade or full version   October 27, 2003
 35 out of 37 found this review helpful

I have been used FrontPage since version 1. Every version gets better and better. If you are a Do It Yourselfer, you should REALLY checkout this new version. Though it is not perfect and there are some thinks that are needed, you will be hard pressed to notice the short comings. Over all a great job and you will soon be hearing more about this must have product for web developers.

One of the best features is the split pane view for CODE and DESIGN veiws, this way you can type code and see your results as you type. I am not the best tyist or th ebest coder, so FP 2003 really makes my life simple by letting me just type what I want and putting this there.

The new FTP to servers with FtontPage Extentions has gotten a much need overhaul. Well I can go on and on.

If you want to design / develope Internet or Intranet webs, you NEED FrontPage 2003!


Excellent Website Design Product   October 2, 2003
 280 out of 284 found this review helpful

Microsoft Office FrontPage is Microsoft's website design package. FrontPage allows you to easily create websites using basic or advanced web technologies.

One of FrontPage's major advantages is that it is part of the Microsoft Office family. FrontPage's uses the same interface as other Microsoft Office products. If you are familiar with Office, navigating around FrontPage is no problem.

FrontPage 2003 creates fairly clean HTML code. It allows the user to easily use advanced technologies such as ASP.NET in their websites. Beginners are able to be more productive in FrontPage than most other website design packages.

If you use some of FrontPage's features, your hosting company will need to have FrontPage extensions installed on their server. If they do not have FrontPage extensions, features such as the counter will not work.

Another drawback is that FrontPage does not support PHP natively. PHP is frequently used to create more interactive websites. A plug-in was available for previous versions of FrontPage, but I am unaware of any plug-ins for this version.

Overall if you are looking for an easy to use package, and have access to the FrontPage extensions on your host, this is an excellent package for you. If you are looking for a more professional package supporting all of the major technologies, Macromedia DreamWeaver MX is a much better option.