Customer Reviews

Microsoft FrontPage 2002 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

For the non-web-heads, for those who don't have the time to eat, drink and sleep HTML code, for those who have a life - Frontpage 2002 is an excellent choice for quick and easy web page construction.

I have extensive experience in graphic design but have neither the time nor interest to learn HTML. With Frontpage, I not only got two now popular sites running but I'm getting freelance offers to do small business sites for other people.

Granted, this is not a software for professionals. As a graphic designer, you couldn't make me use Microsoft Publisher at gunpoint. I'd use professional softwares such as Quark or Pagemaker. So I understand the "disgust" for this product by hard core designers. But I say again, it's not for them. They'd be happier if they stop trying to use it. It's for the rest of us, the average folks in the world. I love it. It let's me do quickly and easily what I do best: page layout and design without the mess of HTML.

I bought FrontPage 98 a few years ago probably for the same reason you're at this page now--I wanted to start making my own web pages, but I was intimidated by all the stuff I would have to learn.

FrontPage is a great tool to get you started, but, if you talk to enough people, and you spend as time on the phone with tech support as I find I have to do because of problems related to FrontPage, you'll hear the same thing over and over again: FrontPage writes messy code, Dreamweaver does not.

Why? Well the answer is both simple and familiar: Microsoft, once again, has chosen to create its own set of standards rather than follow those 95% of the rest of the world uses. Consequently, all the "extra stuff" required behind the scenes to make FrontPage work is essentially incompatible with many other things.

In fact, I upgraded from FP 2000 because the latter had a major bug, a known issue, as they call it--it cannot upload large sites; it almost always gives some sort of error when doing so. Worse, you MUST use FP to upload; you cannot simply FTP your files as you can with other HTML generators.

So, I upgraded to FP 2002, and the upload problem was fixed, but more problems were created. My current web host and at least two other ones (two of which are the largest in the industry) have told me the same thing--they are not supporting FP 2002 yet because it is too buggy.

FP's whole approach of editing your site "live" presents a couple of other problems as well. You will notice that when you work in FP, you are actually working on "live" pages; i.e., you are editing the very page that is on your web site. No big deal, you're thinking, right? Wrong. As buggy as it is, FP often messes up its functions or crashes, and you're stuck with a crazy page live on your web site. Dreamweaver, on the other hand, essentially duplicates your entire web site on your hard drive, and all editing takes place on your hard drive first. If something goes awry, you don't need to upload the changed pages from your hard drive to your web site--if worse comes to worse, you can choose to overwrite your local pages with the ones that are live on your site.

After working for a long time in both editors, I have come to think of having TWO web sites when working with Dreamweaver; I can tinker with and tweak the one on my hard drive at will and, when it's just how I want it, I can upload it. In FP, I have no such option. I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but imagine you had an electronic billboard that was visible to the world--wouldn't you want to upload the new one all at once instead of little by little? Part of the reason I'm writing this review right now is that I now, as I write, have one of those so-called "known issues" plaguing my web site. FP 2002 has a bug that causes certain parts of the page to duplicate itself. So, now, as I type, visitors are seeing my page in double!! I am SO tired of the whole FP deal. I am now sure that I will convert my entire site to Dreamweaver so that I can be done with FP forever!!

Finally, FP uploads in a special way that is necessary for FP to function properly. From what I understand, FP uploads via the web while most editors do so via FTP. This may seem a small matter, but think of it this way--have you learned, the way I have, that you must save frequently? Probably. Do you hit CTRL+S (to save) between every other breath in most other programs? If so, you will quickly grow tired of FP. Each save takes from five to twenty minutes, no joke, and I have DSL. Dreamweaver, on the other hand, can upload a page in just a few seconds, always.

I now realize that I should have just learned Dreamweaver in the beginning, and have a purely Dreamweaver site. Trust me on this one.

Despite mixed reviews, I bought FP2002 mainly because HoTMeTaL had just become unavailable. I'm a heavy and long-term user of Office products, and am entirely comfortable with them. Purpose of this purchase was to draft look/feel and content of a new web site, which I would hand over to a professional designer for tweaking.

Took a very reasonable couple of weeks' effort making what I wanted. Two major issues were unexpected non-ease of importing formatted material from Office, and weird instability in text/graphics positioning: stuff jumps all over the place w/o warning. (I'm running WinXP Home, in case it matters.)

Then passed the saved files to a pro running DreamWeaver on Mac. He is completely unable to open many, and others all seem to have a bunch of Java in the HTML code. (Yes, I did turn off all those unneeded options first.) It doesn't seem to be possible to save as simple HTML files with common code.

It's going to cost me a great deal of time and money to repeat the whole exercise from scratch. Wish MS hadn't dropped their 30-day free trial, but I can see why.

Right for some, no doubt. But if you want compatible code, portable files, or any real idea of what's going on in there (a familiar story with MS?), run away fast.

This is a program for novice web site developers with no formal HTML programming experience. It will produce a product that is excellent for home or personal use, but only adequate for business use. The bells and whistles that spell polish and sophistication just aren't there. It is simple to use. So far, the only glitches I have discovered are relatively inoffensive or can be worked around. For example, don't expect much from the automatic formatting of the table of contents page. If the table you get doesn't resemble the table in your mind, there's no apparent way to fix it.

In particular, note that the FrontPage 2002 extensions necessary to make WYS on your computer WYG on a server may not be loaded on the free or for-hire server you choose. After tons of IMs, emails, and letters, it finally developed that they weren't loaded on my ISP's servers and won't be until, maybe, the first quarter of 2002. This isn't unusual, so compare and contrast servers before you buy the software. Otherwise, pick up FrontPage 2000 on the discount table.

The manual that comes with the software is inadequate. Buy FrontPage 2002 for Dummies or a comparable guide.

As a first time web creator, FRONTPAGE 2002 helped me get my website up and running very quickly. Having used other Microsoft products at home and at the office (i.e. Word, Excel), most of the buttons and commands were very familiar to me, and will probably be for anyone who buys it.

FRONTPAGE won't teach you concepts of web design or help you design a page that will translate into all the different screen resolutions and browsers out there - learning that, for me, came later. I had to simply get my web page UP.

I was a BEGINNER at web design, and shelling out $400 for DREAMWEAVER didn't seem practical (or affordable). I must admit that having learned a lot about web pages, I'm thinking about DREAMWEAVER now!

FRONTPAGE allowed me to realize my ideas quickly and easily. The WYSIWYG interface ("What You See Is What You Get") is invaluable to people like me who hardly knew any HTML tags, and didn't understand the difference between Netscape or Internet Explorer.

I pubish my web using yahoo as a host, and the interface between the server and FRONTPAGE is very easy. I click "publish" and the files load. Very simple.

I really don't have a lot of complaints about FRONTPAGE. Now that I've become more functional as a webmaster, I am starting to understand HTML code and scripts - sometimes I don't even use the WYSIWYG screen, I click on the HTML screen and work "behind the scenes".

I reccommend FRONTPAGE for any beginners out there. It's an intuitive, easy to use program that doesn't cost an arm and a leg to get into.

Good luck, future webmasters!

I must say that Front Page 2002 is a dream program compared to the 2000 version. I had some very weird things happen with 2000 such as its not publishing to the web on the index page unless I also saved it in Notepad. All the bugs are gone in 2002 plus it is much easier to use. I use it for everything, rarely using Word, Office and so forth. My two major tools for editing and writing are Front Page and super Notepad instead. I am going to learn Dreamweaver next term at the college where I teach because I am finally ready to move on and learn more about professional web design. Besides, I can now read and write html so I am not as utterly dependent on Front Page as I once was. If you don't know any html coding, the basis of all web pages, Front Page is the program for you. I also do all my image editing in Photoshop so don't even need that function in Front Page. Dreamweaver is the industry standard instead of Front Page yet Front Page is the ordinary user's program of choice. The reason for this is that you can know very little about computers and still make a website with Front Page. It even made publishing websites idiot proof by using Front Page Server extensions with many web host providers. Thus, one can totally skip learning ftp protocol by using Front Page server extensions instead. If someone wants to go professionally into web page design, this is not the product, Dreamweaver is. People who already are professionals in the computer industry or in web design tell me they don't like Front Page. I think the reason is that since they don't need (or want) Front Page to do their work for them, they desire a program which gives them a much freer hand. For the average computer user though, that is all pie in the sky, beyond their reach, and Front Page 2002 will more than do the job for them.

I am a reluctant user of MS products. Who really wants to give them more money? But there are few better web editors than this. With this version, FrontPage has surpassed Homesite; but DreamWeaver is still better--probably the only better web development application.

PROS
* Preserves true HTML coding--old versions of FrontPage did not do this
* Great project management: easy to create and use templates for managing entire sites
* Great WYSIWIG editor: If you know how to use Word, you can make an entire website in FrontPage
* Direct access to web host: Don't have to ftp back and forth; if your web host supports FrontPage, you can edit pages directly in your account and see the changes immediately
* SHAREPOINT!!

The Sharepoint deserves more discussion. Sharepoint is a portal, most likely to be used as an Intranet. It has group calendars, file sharing, etc. You can create and manage your own Sharepoint portal from Frontpage. It is an amazing value for small- to medium-size companies.

SHAREPOINT ALONE IS WORTH THE PRICE OF FRONTPAGE! You cannot possibly find a portal for less money. But compare that to the cost of purchasing a comparable portal or leasing one, and this is hands-down a great value. And there is no, I repeat, NO opensource (free) groupware application that can touch Sharepoint yet. (When there is, I'll migrate.)

PURCHASING RECOMMENDATION

* People who know HTML will code without this product in a text editor
* People who want a WYSIWIG development environment should seriously consider this product, though it costs more than some decent WYSIWIG alternatives--nobody else except Dreamweaver comes close to the features FrontPage has
* If you want highly dynamic web pages (ASP, CFM, Flash, etc.), get Dreamweaver
* If you are interested in a Sharepoint portal, this is a must

FrontPage 2002 is a reasonable product if you must get a website up and running and you have no experience with HTML coding. Even then, it's not for you if you want to make sure that everyone on the internet can view your site. So, the best audience for this product is a person with limited coding skills that can guarantee that their page will be viewed by Internet Explorer users.

There are far better products for people that want to create awesome websites without coding. One caveat: your best bet will always be to have control over the code. No matter what, that implies a learning curve. However, short of that, there are three excellent products that should defintely be used before FrontPage: If you want "sky's the limit" functionality and incredible integration with an established development suite, Macromedia Dreamweaver is the way to go, followed only by a hair by Adobe GoLive. Actually, I guess it's hard to say which is better-- a number of extremely competent professionals rate GoLive higher than Dreamweaver. A third excellent product for the entry-level user is NetObjects Fusion 7.0, recently acquired by Website Pros. This is an easy-to-learn tool that creates great websites. It can usually be had for about 30% less than FrontPage and is a far superior product.

Unfortunately, the only thing that recommends FrontPage is that it is a part of Office. If for some reason that is absolutely critical, then I guess Microsoft has you where they want you. Otherwise, go elsewhere.

Most people think you need years of schooling to put together a fully functioning web site. That's where FrontPage comes in along with all of its wizards and extensive knowledge base on-line. I started out using GeoCities and Homestead to get my first sites up and running quickley but since you need to be online to use their web site authoring software the phone line can be tied up for long periods of time. FrontPage eliminates that and you get some very useful and cool tools to play around with. This version will let those who want or need to play around the HTML code to do so. There are so many things you can do with FrontPage it's unreal. And for beginners it's nearly perfect. I have purchased several books that dig deep into what you never knew you could do with this program it has surprised me and I've been using it for 4 years. Each year Microsoft manages to add some new functions for each new version, though I wish some could be a free download. It's one of those titles you can have more fun with then you ever thought possible from a business oriented piece of software.

If you want a quick and easy website you may be interested in Frontpage, however if you are in the visual mode, dragging and dropping your images etc. the code that is generated in the background becomes very messy, this can produce unwanted effects in your viewers browsers as well as forcing your images in specific places. There is lack of control, exactness and freedom in Frontpage. I also think it is very expensive for the quality. I know that high end web design programs may be intimidating, but I suggest Macromedia's Dreamweaver to the experienced and the beginner as well. It offers design or code mode. If you practice with Dreamweaver's tutorial you will find yourself learning very quickly. If you are a beginner and you use Frontpage, there may be a time where you will want to advance and buy a program like Dreamweaver anyways. If you want to save money, go ahead and buy Dreamweaver, it is not scary, you can learn it easily. You can either stay in the visual mode or as you learn move on to more advanced webpage development.