Rating: Summary: Very good for beginners but plenty of power for others..... Review: 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.
Rating: Summary: The greatest piece of software on the planet. Review: Easy to learn, incredibly intuitive, and perfect for the DIY webmaster. Granted, if you don't know any HTML at all, your pages will look very generic. But once you do a little homework and figure out how to make tables to organize your layout, you will probably never need anything else to make killer websites! I created djresource.com, chuckfresh.com, tommieandjohnnie.com, brevardmarketing.com and several others with nothing more than FrontPage, and these sites rival anything you can produce with any other expensive or free software package. If your time is better spent being creative and earning a comfortable living rather than writing senseless complex HTML code that no one could care less about, get your hands on this software. I'd give it six stars if I could!
Rating: Summary: Easy to use Review: I am a big fan of Microsoft FP. This program is great, and so easy to use. I am not a whiz on the computer at all, but this software sure makes me look like I am! I love it!
Rating: Summary: Think Twice Review: Credentials: professional web designer for seven years, computer science practitioner for 15 years.I was asked to contribute to a course on Web Design and Construction by a college that is using FP2002 as the default authoring tool. I bought my own copy so I could evaluate it, and if required, develop new teaching materials. My first impression was favorable. The user interface looks great, and it is clear that MS has put a lot of effort into making users of other MS products feel at home. It IS easy to produce web pages with FP -- but there are significant problems as well ... The main problem is that is it very difficult to produce markup that conforms to the W3C standards. In fact adherence to the standards is discouraged. For example, in the manual supplied with FP we read: "Why doesn't someone invent a web page editor that display what the end user will - in true what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) fashion - and not a bunch of HTML gibberish? Front page has done just that." It's baloney, of course. The whole point and purpose of the web is that WYSIWYG is impossible. By using FP exclusively, you are likely to produce pages that look great on your computer, using your browser, set up your way -- but you may never realize that it may look quite different to the rest of the planet. Final verdict: FP is OK if you think standards are unimportant for your project; even so, there are other tools out there which are just as good, including some of the free ones. If you are trying to teach yourself web design, FP is a very bad choice indeed -- it will just get in your way. If you want to create a small web site for a small business, and you are already familiar with MS products, FP might suit you -- but please get professional advice first. Overall: Unimpressed. I would never use it myself. I could never recommend it to a client.
Rating: Summary: Very powerful! Best editor out there Review: This is a great product by Microsoft. I must say it's not worth the [money]upgrade from Fronpage 2000, if you own a previous version. You can add in animated buttons, animation, loads of cool things to spice up your images, and loads more. More than 50 amazing theme backgrounds and 12 awesome templates. Make a custom threaded(or non threaded, your choice)message board in less than 3 minutes! Other reviewers who claim Frontpage is bad because it needs server extensions just haven't explored the world wide web. Go to microsoft.com and download a free web server. Then just download the server extensions for that server, also from microsoft.com. Not too hard, is it? Remember NO editors out there can be used without ANY computer experience. You should know some basic HTML, then your prayers are answered. I used to use Shami's HTML-kit, but you had to write all the code yourself. Macromedia Homesite and Macromedia Dreamweaver...hmmm, I've tried them both. Homesite was pretty much the same as the FREE html-kit. You had to write the code! And Dreamweaver has a terrible environment for beginners and intermediate web developers alike. Frontpage is tops!!
Rating: Summary: Very powerful! Best editor out there Review: This is a great product by Microsoft. I must say it's not worth the 159.99 upgrade from Fronpage 2000, if you own a previous version. You can add in animated buttons, animation, loads of cool things to spice up your images, and loads more. More than 50 amazing theme backgrounds and 12 awesome templates. Make a custom threaded(or non threaded, your choice) in less than 3 minutes! Other reviewers who claim Frontpage is bad because it needs server extensions just haven't explored the world wide web. Go to microsoft.com and download a free web server. Then just download the server extensions for that server, also from microsoft.com. Not too hard, is it? Remember NO editors out there can be used without ANY computer experience. You should know some basic HTML, then your prayers are answered. I used to use Shami's HTML-kit, but you had to write all the code yourself. Macromedia Homesite and Macromedia Dreamweaver...hmmm, I've tried them both. Homesite was pretty much the same as the FREE html-kit. You had to write the code! And Dreamweaver has a terrible environment for beginners and intermediate web developers alike. Frontpage is tops!!
Rating: Summary: A great tool for a novice webmaster Review: I have very little HTML experience and not much more in the webmaster department. I have tried previous versions of FrontPage and this one is by far the best. I was able to produce a professional looking web site in just under a month. The tools are fairly intuitive and the learning curve has been quick. I feel like I've got a powerhouse of a program that's actually under my control. Hard core developers seem to have a lot of criticism for this product, but it's great for beginners. I would recommend it for anyone who is a beginner to intermediate web developer.
Rating: Summary: Best laid out and easiest to use Review: Frontpage 2002 is the easiest of all website builders. it is very professional in it's layout and not confusing or cluttered like the other "super" designers. You do not have to read thousands of pages to learn Frontpage. The sites are very professional looking with the ability to import 3rd party templates to change styles if you are not capeable of doing this yourself. I have been using Frontpage for 4 years now, and the 2002 version is by far the easiest and best. Do not use earlier versions of Frontpage if you want to keep up with the latest in web design technology. Try it...you will like it.
Rating: Summary: Why? Review: I received a 30 day trial of this software from Microsoft. I used it to update my website that is hosted by Yahoo. I had to load the FrontPage extensions to the server then convert my current pages to FrontPage. This made me go through the process of reformatting nearly everything. The simple on-line tools that yahoo provides did a better job and quicker than this software. I suppose if you really are an office expert and want the look and feel of the office interface then you might like it. Otherwise I think you can do better elsewhere. This software takes the cookie cutter approach to building a web presence. Microsoft was offering a 30 day CD trial but have stopped that. I wonder why they don't want you to try it out any more before you buy it? Why indeed!
Rating: Summary: Not a bad rough HTML generator Review: I banged out a no-frills website in a few hours with Frontpage 2002. It is true that if you cut the software loose to generate all of the Microsoft exension code that the result is not very compatible with many ISP servers, e.g. AOL. If you just disable all of the options (in the compatibility area of page options)and use Frontpage to generate the rough HTML for a page layout it does save time and effort, like avoiding all of the table layout grunt work. You will have to have some HTML coding and enough Internet/website construction knowledge to be able to fly by the seat of your pants, as it were, and actually get the website up to your internet server and make it function (the latter is mainly a matter of keeping an eye on the way the web page files are generated, so you don't end up with unnecessary folders within folders and generally server-annoying voluminous subfile references--if you keep it simple and just generate your own htm/html files (i.e., don't let Frontpage run wild with its own maze of folders and subfolders and machine-made spaghetti code) and upload them yourself to your webserver (keeping an eye on the url/relative file link information for your pages) it is a pretty nice tool for about half of the Macromedia Dreamweaver MX Fireworks product (which admittedly I would rather have if I had $300 bucks to spare).
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