Amazon.com Review
Geared toward novices as well as power users,
FrontPage 98 Bible thoroughly explains every aspect of Microsoft's Web-site creation tool. The authors discuss the entire range of features, guide you through projects using files on the accompanying CD-ROM, and offer plenty of screen shots and illustrations. Icons in the margins indicate features new to FrontPage 98 as well as usage tips, cautionary remarks, and notes on additional information. While FrontPage 98 works with Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, the authors refer primarily to the former platform.
Section one, "Building a Basic Web," starts off by teaching you the essential elements of building a Web site. The second section of the book, "Enhancing the Look and Feel," guides you through importing and manipulating graphics in the FrontPage Editor and adding and changing a page or site's Theme. This section also shows you how to use Image Composer, the image-editing tool that comes with FrontPage, to create and edit images and backgrounds and build GIF animations.
"HTML Layout and Design," the third section, guides you through the process of working with tables and frames to fine-tune page layout. This section also teaches you HTML-editing techniques, tips about the HTML editor, and the HTML-markup dialog. It finishes by introducing you to using FrontPage's Designer HTML files and creating Style Sheets.
"Adding Interactivity," section 4, shows you how to create and implement forms, use FrontPage Components, add a text-search feature, and build a discussion forum. Section 5, "Programming Elements," explains how to produce scripts via JavaScript and VBScript and work with plug-ins, ActiveX, Java, and databases. In section 6, "Administering and Maintaining Your Site," you learn how to manage your site, add and manage tasks, check the site for spelling errors and broken hyperlinks, and publish your site. You also get advice on setting up and administering a server to work with FrontPage and on using Microsoft Personal Web Server. (FrontPage 98 ships with version 1.0 of the server; you can download a later version from Microsoft's Web site).
Appendices help you install FrontPage 98, upgrade from the previous versions, and install FrontPage 98 server extensions. The included CD-ROM has HTML and content files for the book's projects, as well as utilities related to programming, administration, graphics creation, and HTML authoring. --Kathleen Caster
About the Author
About the Authors David Elderbrock David Elderbrock got his start as an Internet developer at the University of California at Berkeley, where he helped design an online reading and composition database for writing instructors while working on his Ph.D. in English. That was way back in the days when HTML was still an esoteric art practiced mainly in Switzerland. Mosaic was just an XWindows application written by some undergrads in the Midwest, and commerce on the Internet was still regarded as a big taboo. Since then, David has worked as a commercial intranet and Internet consultant and Web application developer. He has helped design and develop over twenty Internet and intranet Web sites for Apple Computer, Pacific Bell, Citibank, Silicon Graphics, and Barclays Global Investors. In addition to hammering out his share of Web pages, David has also done programming, mostly in Perl, JavaScript, and Java, and, more recently, a smattering of Visual Basic and C++. He has developed a number of online database applications, SQL and otherwise, on Macintosh, Windows, and UNIX platforms. He is the principal author of Building Successful Internet Businesses and a contributing author of Producing Web Hits, both IDG Books Worldwide publications. Any day now, he swears, he is going to get around to designing his own Web site. Paul Bodensiek Paul Bodensiek is the owner of ParaGrafix, a Web publishing, graphics, technical writing, and engineering consulting company located just outside of Providence, Rhode Island. He honed all the skills required to make ParaGrafix a go during his 12-year tenure as the entire engineering, technical service, graphics, and training departments for a small manufacturing company. During his time with that company he also picked up five U.S. and over 25 foreign patents. Paul has written, contributed to, or edited about 15 books on Web publishing, computer graphics, and computer gaming. He's also written over 100 user manuals for various hardware, software, and manufacturing companies. His most recent book is Corel WebMaster Suite For Dummies, published by IDG Books Worldwide.
