Lesson 3: Publishing Your FrontPage Web

In Lesson 1 of the FrontPage tutorial, you learned how to use the FrontPage Explorer to create a new FrontPage web, and how to edit its pages by adding text, images, formatted lists, and hyperlinks using the FrontPage Editor.

In Lesson 2, you created a practice page, on which you placed a text file, created a feedback form, made an image map, added a table, and inserted a marquee.

In Lesson 3, you will now return to the FrontPage Explorer to prepare your FrontPage Web for publication on the World Wide Web. Before you publish a FrontPage web, you will want to make sure your pages and files are organized, your hyperlinks are working, and your pages are free of spelling errors. The FrontPage Explorer can help you complete and track these important tasks.

In this lesson, you will learn how to:

• Organize your files and folders

• Check spelling on all pages

• Find and replace text on all pages

• Verify hyperlinks

• View and edit the task list

• Publish a FrontPage web

On This Page

The Folders View
The Hyperlink Status View
Spell Checking
Replacing Text on Pages
The Tasks View
Publishing the Personal Web
Finishing Lesson 3

The Folders View

In Lesson 1, you learned how to use the Navigation view to create the structure of the Personal Web and how to preview and apply professional-looking graphics using the Themes view.

Now that the Personal Web has been created, and you have several pages and files in your web, you will use some of the other FrontPage Explorer views to help you organize your FrontPage web.

You can safely and easily rearrange the pages and files in your FrontPage web using the Folders view, a split-screen display of the files in your FrontPage web. Similar to the Windows 95 (or Windows NT) Explorer, the left side, called the All Folders pane, shows a hierarchical list of the folders in your FrontPage web. Clicking on a folder in the All Folders pane displays its contents on the right side, called the Contents pane.

In the following steps, you will group the Personal Web's image files and move them to the "images" folder.

Normally, moving pages and files from one folder to another would break the hyperlinks between your pages. However, if you move files in the FrontPage Explorer's Folders view, FrontPage updates every page and hyperlink in your FrontPage web to track the new location of files and folders that have been moved.

To Move Image Files to the Images Folder

1. Open the Personal Web you created for this tutorial.

   

   Folders button

2. On the Views bar in the FrontPage Explorer, click the Folders button.

3. In the All Folders pane, select the top-level folder.

4. In the Contents pane, click the Type column label.

   Clicking on a column label sorts the files in the Contents pane by that criteria. The first click on a column label sorts the list in ascending order; clicking it a second time sorts it in descending order.

   The list of files is now grouped by file type, with all GIF images at the top, followed by the HTM files (pages) below.

5. In the Contents pane, click the first GIF image file at the top of the list to select it.

6. Next, while holding down the SHIFT key on your keyboard, click the last GIF image file in the list.

   

   In the Folders view, FrontPage supports all standard Windows selection shortcuts, such as SHIFT+CLICK for selecting ranges of files, and CTRL+CLICK for selecting noncontiguous files.

7. Click and hold the right mouse button while the pointer is over any of the selected GIF files.

8. Next, drag the pointer over to the "images" folder in the All Folders pane.

   

9. When the "images" folder is selected, release the mouse button and choose Move Here from the shortcut menu.

   FrontPage moves the selected GIF image files to the "images" folder and automatically updates all hyperlinks to the files in the current FrontPage web.

Similarly, you can choose to group sound files, movie clips, and other types of files in their own folders. You can create new folders in the Folders view as needed.

To Create a New Folder

1. In the All Folders pane of the Folders view, click the folder in which you want to create a new subfolder.

   Folders can be expanded and collapsed in the All Folders pane to bring their subfolders into view. Click the plus (+) and minus (–) signs next to a folder's name to display or hide its subfolders.

2. On the File menu, point to New and then click Folder.

   FrontPage creates a new folder with a temporary name.

3. While the folder's temporary name ("New_Folder") is selected, type a new name for the folder, then press ENTER.

   The new folder is renamed and you can now drag and drop files into it.

The Hyperlink Status View

The FrontPage Explorer manages hyperlinks automatically when you move or rename files and folders. It also provides commands for testing and repairing hyperlinks in your FrontPage web.

The Hyperlink Status view in the FrontPage Explorer lists the status of broken internal and all external hyperlinks in the current FrontPage web. When you choose the Hyperlink Status view, the status of internal hyperlinks is available at once, but external hyperlinks are not immediately verified because they point to pages outside of your FrontPage web and, depending on network traffic, can take a long time to verify.

Broken hyperlinks are shown with a red "Broken" status and unverified hyperlinks are shown with a yellow "Unknown" status. When an unverified or broken hyperlink has been verified or repaired, it is displayed in the list with a green "OK" status (if Show All Hyperlinks is selected from the View menu).

Note: If you do not have access to the World Wide Web while taking the FrontPage tutorial, you should skip the following exercise. Verifying external hyperlinks requires an active connection to the Internet.

FrontPage Tip

Save and Close Any Open Pages Before Verifying Hyperlinks FrontPage may not be able to determine the validity of hyperlinks on a page if that page is currently open in the FrontPage Editor. Before verifying hyperlinks in the FrontPage Explorer, save and then close all open pages in the FrontPage Editor.

To Verify Hyperlinks in the Current FrontPage Web

1. In the Hyperlink Status view, choose Verify Hyperlinks on the Tools menu.

   The Verify Hyperlinks dialog box is displayed. In this dialog box, you can specify whether FrontPage should check all hyperlinks or selected hyperlinks only.

2. Click Start to begin verifying all hyperlinks.

   The FrontPage Explorer's status bar displays the current hyperlink being verified. External hyperlinks may temporarily change to a yellow "Verifying…" status to indicate that the hyperlink is being verified.

When FrontPage has finished checking hyperlinks, the FrontPage Explorer's status bar will display the total number of broken hyperlinks.

Spell Checking

While the FrontPage Editor can check the spelling of the open page, the FrontPage Explorer can check the spelling of all (or selected) pages in the current FrontPage web.

The Spelling command works on those page elements that can be edited directly on the page. Other text, such as page titles added in the Page Properties dialog box or text contained in FrontPage components, are not included in the Spelling command.

To check the most current version of pages in your FrontPage web, you should first save and then close any open pages in the FrontPage Editor.

To Check Spelling in the FrontPage Explorer

1. On the FrontPage Explorer's Tools menu, choose Spelling.

   The Spelling dialog box is displayed. In this dialog box, you can specify whether FrontPage should check the spelling of all pages or of selected pages only.

2. In the Spelling dialog box, leave All Pages selected and click the Add a Task for Each Page With Misspellings option.

   FrontPage will add a task to the Tasks view for each page on which misspelled text is found. You will learn about FrontPage web tasks in the next section.

3. In the Spelling dialog box, click Start to begin the spell check.

   FrontPage displays the progress of the spell check in the Spelling dialog box.

   When the operation has been completed, "Finished checking pages" will appear and the number of tasks that were added to the Tasks view will be displayed.

4. In the Spelling dialog box, click Close.

   The spell check is complete.

Replacing Text on Pages

The FrontPage Editor's Replace command makes it easy to find and replace content on selected pages in your FrontPage web. Text such as page titles added in the Page Properties dialog box or text contained in FrontPage components is not included in the Replace command.

Before replacing text on pages, you should first save and then close any open pages in the FrontPage Editor.

To Replace Text on All Pages in the Current FrontPage Web

1. On the FrontPage Explorer's Tools menu, choose Replace.

   The Replace in FrontPage Web dialog box is displayed. In this dialog box, you can specify text to be found and the text it is to be replaced with. You can choose to replace text on all pages in your FrontPage web or on selected pages only.

   

2. In the Replace in FrontPage Web dialog box, type the following into the Find What field:

   Welcome to my Web site

3. Next, type the following into the Replace With field:

   Thanks for visiting my Web site

4. Click OK.

   The Find Occurrences dialog box is displayed. In this dialog box, FrontPage reports its progress, as well as the option to proceed with the replacements.

5. In the Find Occurrences dialog box, select "Home Page" in the list of pages and click Edit Page.

   The FrontPage Editor opens the home page and displays the Replace dialog box.

6. Click Find Next to find the search text, then click Replace to replace the text.

   The greeting on the home page should now read "Thanks for visiting my Web site!"

7. In the Replace dialog box, click Cancel.

   Clicking Cancel closes the Replace dialog box. It does not undo any replacements that have already been made.

8. Save the page and close the FrontPage Editor.

   The greeting on the home page has been successfully changed.

The Tasks View

The Tasks view displays the list of all outstanding tasks associated with a FrontPage web. Tasks are items that need your attention before you publish a FrontPage web.

In the previous exercises, you added tasks to a list when you deferred certain actions. For example, when you checked the spelling of the pages in your FrontPage web, you chose to add a new task for each page containing misspellings. By adding tasks to the list, you can complete corrections all at once.

If you are working in a web development environment, such as an intranet, the Tasks view makes it easy to track tasks and assign them to the correct authors.

To Complete a Task in the Tasks View

1. On the Views bar in the FrontPage Explorer, click the Tasks button.

   

   Tasks button

   The task list is displayed.

2. In the task list, click the Modified Date column label.

   The list is sorted by the date the tasks were modified.

   You can sort tasks by Status, Task, Assigned To, Priority, Linked To, Modified Date, and Description.

3. Find the first task on the list that reads "Fix Misspelled Words" and double-click that task to open it.

   The Task Details dialog box is displayed. This dialog box provides a summary of the task you're viewing. You can set the priority of the task, assign it to another FrontPage author on your network, or complete the task and remove it from the list.

4. In the Task Details dialog box, click Do Task.

   The FrontPage Editor is displayed and the first misspelled word is highlighted.

5. In the FrontPage Editor, correct the spelling on the page, then save and close the page.

Although it is not required that you complete every task before publishing your FrontPage web, it is a good idea to review this list when you are finished making changes to your FrontPage web. The Tasks view helps you manage your FrontPage web by flagging important reminders for you.

Publishing the Personal Web

When your FrontPage web is ready to be published on the World Wide Web—or on your company's intranet—the FrontPage Explorer makes it easy for you to transfer the pages and files to the World Wide Web while automatically verifying the addresses of pages and the paths to your files.

Note: If you do not want to actually publish the Personal Web to your Web server, you can use the following exercises as reference without actually completing the steps.

To Publish the Current FrontPage Web

1. Close all open pages in the FrontPage Editor.

   

   Publish button

2. In the FrontPage Explorer, click the Publish button on the toolbar.

   The Publish FrontPage Web dialog box is displayed. In this dialog box, specify the location on the World Wide Web or your corporate intranet to which you want to publish your FrontPage web. You need Internet access through an Internet Service Provider before you can publish to the World Wide Web.

   

   Your Internet Service Provider can tell you this information. See also "Create Your Web Site with Microsoft FrontPage 98".

3. In the Publish FrontPage Web dialog box, click OK.

   The FrontPage Explorer publishes the FrontPage web from your computer to the intranet Web server or World Wide Web server you specified.

If FrontPage detects that you are publishing to a Web server that does not have the FrontPage Server Extensions installed, it will launch the Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard to publish your FrontPage web via the FTP file transfer protocol.

If the Web server to which you are publishing your FrontPage web has the FrontPage Server Extensions installed, your FrontPage web will have full functionality when it is published.

If you publish your FrontPage web to a Web server that does not have the FrontPage Server Extensions installed, certain FrontPage Components, such as the Search component, will not work.

Finishing Lesson 3

Congratulations, you have successfully completed the FrontPage tutorial. You are now ready to create and design your very own FrontPage webs.

To Close Microsoft FrontPage

1. On the FrontPage Editor's File menu, choose Exit.

   The FrontPage Editor closes.

2. On the FrontPage Explorer's File menu, choose Exit.

The FrontPage Explorer closes.