Front Page Express

Front Page Express is an excellent tool for creatung complex web pages quickly and easily.  Most pf the issues surrounding the construction and maintenance of your web pages are covered in the Help sections and can be referenced simply by pressing F1 key while Front Page Express is running. 

Helpful Hints:

1. Outline your site first:

Use a notebook or scratch paper to outline exactly what you want to have in your site.   Collect all the images that you wamt to include on your site, or locate them somewhere on the Internet.  Remember, if the image or page exists on the Internet already, use a link to it instead of copying it to your site.  (If you think it may be removed before you're through with it,  you may need to copy it.)

2.  Create your site locally first:

Although Front Page Express will allow you to save your pages to the Internet, you should save your work to a local hard drive while you are still working on it.   Create a sub-directory named website on your hard drive and save all your sites's images, pages, music, ect. there.  Front Page Express will ask you where you want to store them on your site when you upload your pages.

3.  Cheat

Other people have put a lot of work into there sites, why not take advantage of their efforts?  Find a site that uses some of the things you would like your site to have and copy the things you like.

4.  Don't Waste time with fancy graphics, Java, JavaScripts or Active X

Unless you are working on something specialized, chances are Java, JavaScript, and Active X are not needed.  Typically, these additions only complicate and slow-down your site.  Stick to the basics as much as possible. 

A topic not so well covered in the documentation us what  to do with the page once it's created- that is: How do I upload my FrontPage Express document to my personal website using my ISP?

Uploading your FrontPage Express web page to your UR*ONRAMP account:

Step 1:

Once your web document is completed, connect to UR*ONRAMP and select Save As.... from the File menu.  When the requestor pos-up, enter the page title in the place provided and carefully name the "Page Location" so that Front Page Express places your page in the correct place on the internet.

your customer nam is the same as your email name. In the case of this example we will be using ther customer whose email address is "ccmacmil@iwlink.com." His customer name is thus "ccmacmil".  In the example below, we are saving a page named "frontpage.html" on the website of customer "ccmacmil"  within the iwlink domain.   The resulting Unversal Resource Locator (URL) is:

http://www.iwlink.com/~ccmacmil/frontpage.html

IF this were a Home Page,  it would need to be named "index.htm" - the resulting URL would the be:

http://www.iwlink.com/~ccmacmil/index.htm

Step 2:

Once you click on "OK" Front Page may ask you to confirm the location it will be saving any images related to your web page.  The default names(s) chosen by Front Page Express should be adequate unless your just want them to have a more mnemonic name, otherwise just click "Yest to All."

Step 3:

Next, authenticaticate yourself as the account owner of the web account by entering you username and password in the appropriate places.  If this  is a process your will do often, check the "Save this password in your password list" opiton.  Now click "OK".

If you have used the "WebPublishing Wizard" before, after click "OK" your site will be available for all to see at the URL you indicated in Step 1.  Congratulations!  Otherwise, continue with Step 4..

Step 4:

The "Web Publishing Wizard" is relatively painless and brainless way to move your Front Page Expres documents to your websites.   Unfortunately, the wizard does not tolerate mistakes very well.... Click on "Next" to continue.

Step 5:

You may be asked to authenticate yoursel several times throughout the process, you know what to do...

Step 6:

You will be asked to specify a service provider (that's us) so click "Next" and continue.

Step 7:

UR*ONRAMP allows its customers to upload files to its Web servers using the file transfer protocol (FTP).  Select "FTP" from the next requestor to let the Web Publishing Wizard know that you want to use FTP for your website updates.  Click on Next to continue.

Step 8:

Enter "www.iwlink.com" in the text box below "FTP server name" and "public-html" in the text box below "Subfolder containing your Web pages"  to tell the Web Publishing Wizard where you want your files to be sent. Click "Next" to continue.

Step 9:

Verify that you want to publish your files to your website by clicking "Finish" and your files will be uploaded to your site.

Step 10:

you may be asked to verify your username and password.  You know what to do....

Step 11:

Wait as your files are transferred to the Internet Web server...

Step 12:

The gratuituous "OK" messate at the end of the last file transfer indicates a successful session. Congratulations!