Review: Microsoft FrontPage 2002

David Dorn checks out the latest incarnation of MS' Web Site building package

Product	FrontPage 2002
Company	Microsoft
Web	www.microsoft.com/uk
Price	£140
We like	Stable, lots of new features.
We don't like	A tad slow in parts
Rating	9/10
Requirements

First up, an admission. I use FrontPage every day to create the pages you read on Practical PC. That means I've become very familiar with it - using it every day for the last four years has made sure of that.

So, my focus is on changes from FrontPage 2000 to the XP version (hereinafter FPXP), some of which are for the better, and some which will take some getting used to for many veteran users.

For the better

FPXP implements a similar tabbed system for documents that you'll find in Excel workbooks - each document is opened behind a tab in the edit area of the application, which makes switching between individual pages while you're editing your site an absolute breeze.

From that point of view, this tabbed system has made my own tasks (editing anything up to 60 pages a day) much lighter and a lot quicker.

The next most interesting feature, in my view, is the Hyperlink Properties dialogue box. This is vastly different from the 2000 version, with a complete redesign and functions that are, once you know where to find them, not only useful, but particularly powerful and conducive to the creation of exciting and useful hyperlinks.

The function buttons to the right of the dialogue are clear and easy to find, while the Screen Tip functionality is something that we here are very keen on. While you can create 'Screen Tips' without using this button, it's a much simpler way of getting the job done. For more on this, click here!

Reporting

One of the main worries I have, as someone who creates way too many Web pages every week (and not just for PPC, either!) is speed. As we keep banging on about in these pages, the speed at which a page renders on a reader's screen is vitally important - it it's too slow, you can guarantee they'll be off somewhere else in double-quick time. The reporting facility in FPXP has been enhanced to show download times at all manner of connect speeds - obviously, if you're creating a Web site for an intranet, rather than the Internet, then speed is less likely to be an issue - after all, you've probably got 10Mbs to play with.

Even so, it easy to create a massive page that will still take ages to download onto a user's screen, so the facility to tweak the connection speed settings in the reports view is very welcome.

There are other workgrouping functions in the FPXP that teams will find useful - the properties of a file are now annotated not only with who altered a file, but also which machine they were on at the time - which could be very useful if the team is well spread out. This, however, requires that the staging server is kitted out with FrontPage extensions.

Extensions

Talking about which, don't be fooled into thinking that your chosen host system needs to have the Extensions installed - it doesn't. The new FTP module in FPXP can handle non IIS and FP Extensioned servers very nicely, thank you, and you can now publish single files/pages, rather than endure older versions' predilections for trawling through the entire site to sort out which three pages you wanted to upload. That's a leaf out of Dreamweaver's book, and I may yet be tempted away from the latter's excellent FTP module for updating what you're reading now!

Downsides

While the Hyperlink Properties dialogue is functionally rich, I've discovered that, running under Windows XP, it's very slow to navigate around your web to pick up a file. I miss the 'open pages' view that you got in FP 2000, and can't find a way to replicate it properly in FPXP. Instead, you get the full path to the open files, unless you're actually in the directory in which they reside - I'll be seeking clarification from MS' experts in case I've missed a setting here.

That's really my biggest criticism - so there isn't much of it.

out what is otherwise an excellent authoring system, and I've often thought that they're really only there to give you some ideas of what you shouldn't do on a site.

Verdict

While hand-coding experts will still prefer Dreamweaver and Adobe Go-live, my money's on FPXP - it's easier to get to grips with then either of those two packages, and can be obtained as part of the Office XP Developer package, as well as standalone. I'm usually a hard man to please, but this gets a nine from me - and I don't do that very often!

 

David Dorn