FrontPage and Site Build It

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paulc -> FrontPage and Site Build It (7/22/2003 8:50:01 AM)
If there was one other product (other than FrontPage, of course) on the Internet that I think is as powerful for the "average" user such as myself, it has to be SiteBuildIt. When the great guys at SiteBuildIt announced a coming HTML compatibility feature, we begged to beta test. They let us, we loved and and the rest is history. Friends, the product is everything it claims to be and the combined punch of FrontPage with SiteBuildIt gives the best of two powerful worlds. We've got a page of information about FrontPage and SiteBuildIt at http://www.frontpageworld.com/frontpageandsitebuildit.htm . Do take a look there. We also helped develop a number of FrontPage Templates specifically designed for use with SiteBuildIt. You can see those at http://www.frontpageworld.com/frontpagetools/frontpagetemplatesitebuildit.htm . If you have questions or thoughts about FrontPage and SiteBuildIt, feel free to post them here. We'll do what we can to get them answered. Paul

MarkM -> RE: FrontPage and SiteBuildIt (7/23/2003 8:22:54 PM)
I have a n SBI! site and I am very frustrated with the limited pagebuilding interface. I am looking for some guidance on edting the existing site with FrontPage, using a new theme etc. Help at SBI! is limited. Any suggestions? Cheers, Mark Munday

kojiweb -> RE: FrontPage and SiteBuildIt (7/24/2003 7:19:50 AM)
Mark, There is a "process" to making SBI work with templates and FrontPage. I started with a template that was already "SBI" friendly http://www.frontpagetools.com/frontpagetemplatesitebuildit.htm I then created a local web site with that template and FrontPage. The Short Story: You edit the website locally following the "rules" for SBI HTML uploading. When you're done, you can upload each page, one at a time, into the SBI system. It does it's checking and loads the page for you. My only suggestion would be to make all the edits the SBI systems suggests locally, then re-upload the updated page. The Long Story: Excerpt from the ReadMe that came with my SBI template. I just want to warn you - this is much easier than it may look. It took me only a few minutes to go through and make the setting changes and actually, starting with a "SBI Friendly" template took care of much of this for me already. <snip> For more information on using the Site Build It (SBI) HTML features, log into your SBI account, under "site central" click on the "Upload Your Own HTML Page" button, then read the instructions under "STEP 1: Prepare Your Page for SBI!" Making special note of the "Before You Build Your Page -- Special Rules." Some of the SBI HTML Special Rules -- All HTML files must use the ".html" extension (not ".htm"). -- You must place all your images in a folder called image-files. Supported file types: .gif, .jpg, .png -- You must place all media files in a folder called media-files. Supported file types: .mpg, .qt, .avi, .rm, .mp3, .wmf -- You must place all supporting files in a folder called support-files. Supported file types: .js, .css, .swf, .pdf -- You are not allowed to create any other folder names other than the three listed above. You also cannot nest folders (directories). General Guidelines for Editing SBI Upload Templates in FrontPage 2002 -- Do not create or delete any directories. All the supported directories have already been created -- All files must end in .html -- All files must be in root directory unless otherwise specified above in the SBI HTML Rules -- Do not use explicit urls (i.e. http://www.yourdomain.com/file.html), only reference URLs (i.e. file.html). -- Do not use Dynamic HTML (DHTML) effects -- Do not use any Web Components -- This template has already been formatted to meet the SBI HTML rules. If you follow the the FrontPage 2002 settings below and the general Guidelines, you should have no trouble implementing your template with SBI. FrontPage 2002 Settings By making the following settings in FrontPage 2002 you will have an easier time when editing your website for the SBI. -- Open FrontPage 2002 -- From the menu click on Tools then Page Options. -- Click on the HTML Source tab -- Ensure the "Preserve Existing HTML" is selected -- Next, go to the Compatibility tab on the far right and make the following settings: Browsers: Both Internet Explorer and Navigator Browser Versions: Custom Servers: Apache Server Ensure the "Enabled with Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions" is not checked. Under "Available Technologies..." The bolded items should be checked, the rest should not be checked. ActiveX Controls VBScript JavaScript Java Applets Dynamic HTML Frames CSS 1.0 (formatting) CSS 2.0 (positioning) Active server pages VML Graphics Downlevel Image File Tips for editing pages for SBI When analyzing a page in SBI, make the suggested changes in FrontPage then re-upload the HTML page to SBI. This way your local copy of the web pages will always be the most up to date. Make a note of where your web site is. SBI uploads each file one at a time and you will need to know where your web site is on your drive. If you edit the template directly from where it was installed, then it will be located where stated in the Installation section of this readme. </snip> [8\|] -- It's a lot to read, but it works. I'm pretty happy with the process and I understand in order to get all the benefits that SBI offers, I need to follow some rules that enable SBI to still "do it's thing." That's what I know, Kelly

Susan Bilheimer -> [Deleted] (7/25/2003 11:12:50 AM)
Post has been moved to the Recycle Bin at 3/12/2004 9:36:06 AM Reason for deletion: Cleaning up the FAQ

kojiweb -> [Deleted] (7/25/2003 11:31:43 AM)
Post has been moved to the Recycle Bin at 3/12/2004 9:36:30 AM Reason for deletion: Cleaning up the FAQ

Susan Bilheimer -> [Deleted] (7/25/2003 2:16:01 PM)
Post has been moved to the Recycle Bin at 3/12/2004 9:36:50 AM Reason for deletion: Cleaning up the FAQ

kojiweb -> [Deleted] (7/25/2003 2:49:21 PM)
Post has been moved to the Recycle Bin at 3/12/2004 9:37:05 AM Reason for deletion: Cleaning up the FAQ

Linda Pace -> RE: FrontPage and SiteBuildIt (7/25/2003 10:40:11 PM)
Hi Susan, Linda from SiteSell.com again. :-) In order to gain the benefits of using the SBI! system FrontPage users need to make some adjustments to building that will have to be followed, as SBI! requires knowledge of certain elements of your site in order to do integrate all of the Search Engine Modules, MailOut system etc... On that note, Paul Colligan has worked closely with us to develop a wonderful set of FP themes especially for use with SBI!, and sells them at a very low price for SBI! users ($15). They are already set up for you in the way that SBI needs it, so development time is optimized... http://www.frontpageworld.com/frontpagetools/webtemplates.htm As far as functionality of your site goes, it depends on what you are doing and more importantly how. I would need more details to make a proper comment. But please rest assured that SBI! does indeed work... http://buildit.sitesell.com/sbi-businesses/traffic-alexa.html In general if you are following standard HTML JS, CSS, etc... you will have no problems. But if you are relying on the built in Microsoft "version" of Javascript, DHTML etc.. and it's own internal way of coding, then you will defiantly have to adjust your way of working, as Kelly has noted -- nothing major, just minor adjustments to get the full benefit of the power of SBI!.

kojiweb -> (small clarification) FrontPage and SiteBuildIt (7/26/2003 7:48:43 AM)
Just wanted to expand slightly on Linda's comment regarding FrontPage and Microsoft's "version" of Javascript, DHTML etc.. and it's own internal way of coding... The real issue is the class files (and other support files) that FrontPage uses to support thier DHTML and other actions (like hover buttons, for example). It forces these support files into the root directory and doesn't allow them to be moved into the SBI folder of "support-files". It's not necessarily a "special" or non-standard version of DHTML or JavaScript that we FrontPage users need to watch out for with SBI, but the fact that FrontPage forces supporting files in the root directory which incompatible with the SBI directory scheme. Now - if we want to look a little into the future - I'm doing some testing with the FrontPage 2003 beta -- this changes everything. How FrontPage will be handling what they are calling "behaviors" is very clean and internal to the pages. We should be able to do a lot more with FrontPage 2003 and SBI friendly templates than is possible with FP2002. Still looking into it -- but just wanted to say it looks promising. Kelly

MarkM -> Why bother! (8/10/2003 11:02:38 PM)
I have been reading with interest the dialogue on SBI! And the whole thing just seems like more trouble than it's worth. Have used SBI! for 7 months and I am enormously disappointed. I have realised that their no free lunches and no easy shortcuts in this game. If you want full control, the ability to make your site look/work the way you want, and the ability to fix problems quickly, you have to develop your site yourself. I have redeveloped my SBI! website using FrontPage and I will have it hosted somewhere else. I will do all my own SEO and link up with a fully functional shopping basket. It might be more expensive , but I will have full control over my site. Mark

kojiweb -> RE: Why bother! (8/10/2003 11:17:01 PM)
Valid Point. It's always about trade offs. For me, trying to manage all the SEO stuff myself, with all the timed submissions, and keeping up with the latest changes the search engines is just too much. SBI does it well. On my own I simply never get around to it (I still have 5 WPGold accounts I haven't used!), or only do it for a short time then get busy with other things. Seems like those kinds of tasks get regulated to the "ya, I probably should do that" pile. With SBI, I let them worry about all worry about all of those things. I let them force me to optimized my pages and I just deal with the system that makes this so auto-magic. Certainly not all my websites are with SBI - I have MySQL database and php catalogs - just won't work and at this point and not worth the effort to try and "bridge" between 2 websites. Always about trade-offs.

Glen Hooke -> [Deleted] (1/15/2004 1:06:57 AM)
Post has been moved to the Recycle Bin at 3/12/2004 9:38:51 AM Reason for deletion: Cleaning up the FAQ

paulc -> RE: FrontPage and Site Build It (1/15/2004 1:51:52 PM)
FrontPage 2003 makes it much easier - but you still need to make sure that you don't use any of the FrontPage only features when building the site. Look at http://www.frontpageandsitebuildit.com for tips on this topic. Paul

Glen Hooke -> [Deleted] (1/15/2004 5:30:40 PM)
Post has been moved to the Recycle Bin at 3/12/2004 9:40:24 AM Reason for deletion: Cleaning up the FAQ

kojiweb -> Differences using FrontPage 2003 and SiteBuildIt (1/19/2004 7:30:29 AM)
Glen, I haven't done all the testing yet (crazy times here), but I'll give you a couple of things that are different in FrontPage 2003 and look like they'll work with SBI if you wanted to experiment. The single biggest difference is FrontPage 2003's use of "behaviors". The situation with FrontPage 2000/2002 is when you did effects like hover FrontPage created a .class file and puts it in the root directory. SBI requires support files to be in the “support-files” directory so now that feature is incompatible. With the 2003 behaviors, however, many of them are all done with HTML directly in the page – making them SBI Friendly. It appears (and again, I haven’t tested) that you have a new level of freedom for effects and features (like creating buttons, roll-overs, etc) with 2003 that you just couldn’t do, or were SBI un-friendly, in 2000/2002 versions. The other main difference is FrontPage 2003’s improved handling of web servers that don’t use FrontPage extensions. There are some advanced features that FrontPage 2003 will allow you to use on any web server which were only available with 2000/2002 if you had a FrontPage server extensions. One example is the use of includes. Now, if you use includes when designing your website, but your web server doesn't have extensions, FrontPage 2003 automatically inserts the code before publishing. The catch for a feature like “includes” with SBI is that you’d need to publish your site somewhere without extensions, then upload each page from the published site (since all the includes would have been inserted there). When we have more detailed information, we’ll certainly publish it here. Hope that gives you some ideas. Play around with it and if you find a feature that works, please let us know. Kelly

kojiweb -> RE: FrontPage 2003 and Site Build It (1/19/2004 7:39:10 AM)
Glen, The settings are similar. Here are the FrontPage 2003 settings which are included with the SBI Friendly templates: <snip> FrontPage 2003 Settings By making the following settings in FrontPage 2003 you will have an easier time when editing your web site for the SBI. Open FrontPage 2003 From the menu click on Tools then Page Options. Click on the Authoring tab Ensure the "Preserve Existing HTML" is selected Next, go to the Compatibility tab on the far right and make the following settings: Under "FrontPage and SharePoint technologies:" The bolded items should be checked or selected, the rest should not. FrontPage and SharePoint technologies: Custom SharePoint Team Services Browse-time Web Components Author-time Web Components Navigation Shared Borders Generator and ProgID tags Active server pages VML Graphics (Office drawing) Downlevel Image File -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Browsers: Both Internet Explorer and Navigator ActiveX Controls VBScript JavaScript Java Applets Browser Versions: Custom Frames Active server pages CSS 1.0 (formatting) CSS 2.0 (positioning) PNG Graphics Schema version: Internet Explorer 4.0 / Navigator 4.0 </snip> Kelly

Glen Hooke -> RE: Microsoft Publisher and FrontPage (1/23/2004 5:37:44 PM)
Can anyone tell me if it's possible to create graphics, such as headers etc in Microsoft Publisher and load them into your Front Page site. In the 2003 version of Publisher I understand that files can be saved in .gif and .jpeg formats so there shouldn't be any problems, should there. The reason I ask is that I'm very proficient with Publisher and I really don't want to have to go through the steep time consuming learning curve necessary to learn to use a product such as Photo Shop. Glen

Glen Hooke -> RE: FrontPage and Site Build It (2/15/2004 7:51:08 PM)
hI I've only been using SBI for a short while now and I hope someone can clarify a point regarding using Front Page. My site is fairly copy intensive. There are no fancy Flash or complex graphic, just a few Photos here and there. I chose Front Page because it works very similar to Microsoft Word and also becasue I created all the copy for my site in Word rather than in a text editor. It was a straight forward task to copy an paste the Word document directly into FP and just re do the format etc. As you may know in creating a site using SBI you can either create it with SBI itself, adding in any HTML as needed, or you can create your whole site in Dreamweaver or FP and up load it in SBI My proposed approach is half way between the two. I create the 'copy' I want to use in my SBI site using Front Page with the end result being a page in FP whereby I can now copy the HTML code for the site and paste it directly into my SBI site. That gives me my page formatted as I want without having to manually insert all the HTML code as I go. Not being savvy with HTML it’s a huge time saver I don’t create any navigation, links etc in Front Page. I use SBI for all that. I’ve just used FP to do all the body copy work and formatting I’ve done a couple of tests creating pages and it seems to work perfectly and I can’t see any downside for what I want to achieve. My question relates to the bloated code FP generates. Should I not worry about it, or should I use a product like Front Page Power Edit to get rid of all the useless code before I copy and paste from Fp into SBI Input from anyone would be appreciated

kojiweb -> RE: FrontPage and Site Build It (2/16/2004 1:05:45 AM)
Glen, I wouldn't spend too much about the "bloat code" with FrontPage. If your pages are mostly text anyways, you probably wouldn't notice much difference in how fast the pages load. In the religous battle of web site editors, this is one that gets thrown around a lot - and over emphasized IMHO. FrontPage Power Edit is a great tool and works well - it does everything it says it does. If you are using FrontPage 2002 or earlier you still may want to consider it - but it certainly isn't required. Kelly

Con -> RE: FrontPage and Site Build It (5/18/2004 11:23:10 AM)
Somewhere on this forum about FP2003 and Sitesell, I read ( kojiweb as Moderator? )about using Sitesell to promote a product via a number of pages and then redirect the potential buyer to an external site. This would allow me to be able to use all the tools SBI makes avilable. I like that idea as I don't want to go through all the gymnastics of developing my store in FP and having to deal with uploading of 1 page at a time. My questions is; if I were to follow this advise, wouldn't the search engines penalize me for redirecting?

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