Customer Reviews

Microsoft FrontPage 2002 Upgrade [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I have used FrontPage since it first came out and have a love/hate relation with it. It made design easy but writes bad, incompatible code. FP2000 fixed a lot of this but the user interface was redesigned and is now terrible. FP2002 fixes the things they got wrong in the earlier versions and is now what is should have been already. I will definately upgrade, since the site management capabilities are great and there are new features definitely worth having. But as far as what is best, I give Dreamweaver top ratings. The suite of tools from Macromedia (Dreamweaver, UltraDev, Fireworks, Flash, and Freehand) is superb and can't be beat.

This is our third version of Microsoft FrontPage. We started with FrontPage 98, upgraded to FrontPage 2000, and have just moved to FrontPage 2002. Unfortunately, we are not convinced that this product is any better than the last version.

To give you an idea of how much we use FrontPage -- we have been told by both Microsoft engineers and our Web hosting company that our OfficeLinks.com web site is one of the largest that they have ever seen published with FrontPage. It currently exceeds 5,000 pages. However, it has become virtually impossible to update the shared borders that we utilize throughout the root web. It took our web hosting company 1.5hrs, using direct server commands, to recalculate all of our hyperlinks! We don't blame all of this on Microsoft, since we should have used sub-webs more - however, Microsoft may want to prevent (or warn) users not to include more than 100 pages in any web, or sub-web.

Additionally, there are two real problems from our perspective that have appeared in the latest version of FrontPage. (1st) First, it is no longer possible to copy hyperlinks into the "Insert Hyperlink" text box. The right mouse button seems to be disabled. This makes adding hyperlinks directly much more difficult - We now have to add a dummy hyperlink and then go into the HTML code and do a "paste shortcut" - this adds a few extra steps every time we want to add or update hyperlinks.

(2nd) The second real problem, which others have also identified on this board, is the way the underlying HTML code is generated. FrontPage seems to add little things like <span> when you are working in the WYSIWYG Editor to the underlying HTML code. This is so poor that you actually start to get spelling mistakes when you are re-working pages. We now have to check the underlying HTML code on every page, which almost makes the WYSIWYG editor useless.

There has been one real improvement with FrontPage 2002 that we would also like to point out. You now have the ability to publish individual pages directly to your Web site. This is a big improvement, since it doesn't take OfficeLinks 30 minutes to make a change any more. Individual page changes can be made rapidly.

We have so much invested in this program, that we are not ready to switch to another program just yet, but if some of these issues are not addressed before the next full upgrade, we may consider moving to a new platform.

We can't really call the latest version of FrontPage an upgrade, since some of the features and functions have actually gotten worse.

I've used FrontPage for 3 years and have gotten a lot of milage out of it building my website at www.... I also use my computer as a beta tester for state of the art audio/midi composition programs on win98se. The FP2002 upgrade, or more specifically, the little 'helper' MS office programs that it--automatically---installs, have brought my system to levels of performance I've not seen since windows 95's intial release. One "villian" is a program called mdm.exe, which you will find in your task list at every boot. I think it's a speech recognition enabling executable, and you can't get rid of it unless you edit the registry. Why? Because Microsoft believes instant messaging is the killer app of the decade. Sheesh! Not for me! Knock about 2-4% of you system resources into oblivion, forever. It took me a week to stop my hardrives from caching whenever the system was idle for more than a minute. At first , i thought I was being hacked when my hard drives started chattering incessantly whenever I stepped away. The root of that was mdm.exe and other Office XP "optimizers".

Regarding FP itself, there are several nuisances. You lose right click context menus when adding hyperlinks in a hyperlink box. You can still use CNTL V BUT... Opening up a hyperlink dialog will cause FP to scan your entire root directory of your web before you can type it in--about 3-5 seconds if you are on a blazing fast internet connection like I am--on a modem, good luck! This used to be really fast in FP2000!

There is a very unsettling bug that causes your index.html file to disappear from the file pane. When you search for it, FP says it was deleted! It wasn't, just quit the program and relaunch and its back. I hope no one loses their main page due to this. Moral: Don't panic. Just quit, relauch.

Another bug is in the way FP2002 handles shared borders. It presents you with a very confusing dialog asking you want to replace it on all pages. If you answer "no" you cannot save the page you just worked on. If you answer "yes" it will zero out your shared border, even though the one you just asked it to save was full of content. This is an awful, inexcusable bug. The work around is to make several copies of all your shared borders so When, not if, this happen you can easily replace it. Make sure your cursor never enters shared border land when editing a page.

In short, FP 2002 is not finished. It is NOT a polished smooth running application, though it looks very nice on the screen. Microsoft may be using all of us as beta testers. On the postive side there are many cool new features, especially drawing tools and Word Art is better implemented. There is a definite honeymoon period after installing when you are gosh-whiz blown away by the new features. Most of the posts here reflect that, I think. But wait a week of working every day in FP2002 for 8 hrs a day. The intial gush quickly turns into irritation and finally to a questioning of how in the world could they release such an unfinished product. I have to admit I've wondered carefully how Microsoft might actually want to de-stabilize w98se. Yes, it's easier to make a really eye-catching page. But if I could go back, I would not have upgraded to save innumerable headaches fp2002 has caused.

Having tested other HTML editors (Macromedia, Adobe, NetObjects and Microsoft), I think that Frontpage is not the best anymore. This has some few new features and a facelift but that's all. If you are really serious creating web sites the best choice is Macromedia DreamWeaver 4.0, there is no product like that and if you want to create dynamic database driven web sites, Macromedia Ultradev 4.0 is simply the best.

MS FrontPage is good if you want to create some informational web sites and that's it, but if you want to create something more powerful with interactivity then get the Macromedia product, you will not regret.

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 it 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. FP uploads in a special way that is necessary for FP to function properly.

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.

I now realize that I should have just learned Dreamweaver in the beginning, and have a purely Dreamweaver site. That's my advice.

Honestly, I'm not interested in learning HTML, and I wanted to create a simple website for my Youth Group and like I said I did not want learn any web programming. So what was I going to do? I always had FrontPage on my computer since Office 2000. I always heard rumors that FrontPage was not an appropriate choice for web creation and management. Yes and No in some respects, if you really want to create a professional website with all the bells and whistles for coporate purposes or some other professional type of reason go ahead and purchase Adobe GOLIVE or DREAMWAEVER. For those who are creating simple websites either for non-profit (like me) or just a personal website I honestly think FrontPage is most suitable, easy to learn and use, no need to learn code, it has templates to get you started right away. One major dis-advantage is the code FrontPage produces is very slow, but it get's the job done at a slow rate. If you hate Microsoft's products or you think that they are buggy and too monopolistic try this alternative, Macromedia HOMESITE, that's if you want learn programming.

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

For those like myself who are longtime FrontPage users, the latest upgrade has added some neat new features but overall is a bit of a disappointment.

I have only been working with the software for two weeks as of this writing, but have already found some bugs, difficult to use features, and changed features that seem to be that way just for the sake of change - good or bad.

A few examples; One of the things that I really liked about FP was the visible tables/cells - they now are only sometimes visible, which can get confusing if you have a sliced graphic. This seems to be an attempt to parallel Dreamweaver, but there's no apparent way to turn if off and on.

The BG sound is greyed out most of the time - this seems to be a bug.

After saving changes to a page and closing it, sometimes when you return later, the latest save is gone and it has reverted to the former version! Not exactly a time saver!

There is now no way to set the amount of compression that FP applies to jpg images - unlike before when you could 'undo' the compression in the properties menu.

Page margins have to be manually entered into the HTML before the 'margins' tab shows up in the Page Properties dialogue box (this was also a problem with FP2000)

The image preview has been removed from the image dialogue box To make matters worse, instead of staying within the web that you are currently working on, the image dialogue opens into the image folder where you last visited. This is particularly slow if you have many webs on your hard drive, as you have to re-navigate.

So far those are the major complaints. They do have some new features that are interesting, such as the ability to add in-line frames, and a few other more sophisticated features. It would have been nice to see expanded DHTML choices, and additional 'hover buttons' - maybe FP2005!

I have noticed a few bugs in the progam, especially in the preview mode. In addition, the "new stuff" are simply Microsoft Network hyperlinks that redirect your web traffic to MSN.com. In addition, the navigation is now proprietery and unless you run a full Windows XP platform you will not be able to take complete advantage of the application. You will also need to find a Web Host that supports Microsoft Extensions to run many of the available functions. The only enhancement that I liked was the new photo album feature. The program did so many unexpected changes to my site that I ended up deinstalling the software. In addition, you must register the software on Microsofts site or you will only be able to launch the application 50 times.

Read the End User License Agreement before you even think of using this software. I couldn't believe my eyes. MS has placed limits in the End User License Agreement on the type of information that you can publish using their software. You are not allowed to publish anything that is anti Microsoft, MSNBC, MSN, or Expedia or against their products and services on any site that is related to the use of the software. They also say that you may not publish or promote racism, hatred, or pornography. While I am not affected by any of the above and I don't care for any of the above material, I do find it absolutely appalling that a software company would go that far out of their way to limit free speech. You may only publish material that Microsoft deems acceptable. That, to me, is unacceptable.