Rating: Summary: Frontpage:The other side Review: Yes, Frontpage is a decent program, and I don't want to rehash the good points that the other reviewers have pointed out. My general belief is that in a side-by-side comparison with the other 2 design products I have used is that Frontpage loses more than it wins. Problems: Be sure to check out the designed pages in a Netscape browser. Any complicated page will require a refit for both the 4.x and the 6.x browsers. Javascript? Major differences also create problems. Ever gone to a site in Netscape only to have it look wierd? Probably designed in Frontpage. Of course, if you want to dismiss the 30% of your customers who still use Netscape, go right ahead. The interface is not intuitive. Microsoft did a great job with Excel and Word, making it easy to use for beginners but feature-rich for experienced users. Count on a long learning curve on this baby, even if you are a skilled designer. Finally: The templates are great. However, Frontpage is extremely popular and the templates are overused, so you run the risk of seeing a similar site (or many similar sites). My recommendation: Design with template then change all the MS images. Sorry, Bill.
Rating: Summary: Frontpage 2000 second review Review: Of course maintaining all the stuff for a growing website(s) from within Frontpage is a main feature. And it does a whole lot of things. I've used the program for a while now. The main disadvantage is a non robust way of program execution. The filehandling is all but clear, the updates for file incorporation is painfully slow and that on a 2 processor PIII 500 MHz workstation running windows 2000. The loading of all graphical components, wether belonging to the programs userinterface or otherwise, is slow. The programmatic features is hard to reach in many levels of clicking. The hard to get insertion facility: to get at the graphical point you want, is akward, inexact from a user intervention point of view. The crippled text areas, where you do not see entire file path, are not consequently performed through the software, THIS IS A NOVICE DESIGN ERROR. The navigation structure takes sometimes over 20 seconds to load in for a small number of pages. After closing or working with a web the Folder list is not clickable to go away. This isn't a novice program. It isn't Professional. It reach between novice and professional. Although it works nicely with microsoft specific features, not all features are accessible from within the editor per se.
Rating: Summary: Beware the 40 dollar rebate !!! Review: When a company offers a "rebate" for buying their product, they should mean just that...REBATE....no strings attached (except proof of purchase, of course). Some marketing genius at Microsoft has devised a way not to pay the rebate unless you have documentation and bar codes from other MS products books & boxes from years ago. Since we can't find all that crap to send in for a rebate, they tell us "tuff" !! We feel confident that... would not sell this decptive form af advertizing if they knew about it. We would have purchased another program, had we known what a hassle it would be to get our "rebate"...which we aren't getting. Some "rebate", huh guys ?!?!?!
Rating: Summary: Save Your Money Review: If you can find a host site that supports MS extensions, it will probably cost you money. Otherwise you have to upload with FTP. Even then, it's still a pain to work with. If you don't believe me, try uploading a MS FrontPage web page on Geocities, for example. Good luck!
Rating: Summary: FrontPage Compulsory Registration Review: Please note that Microsoft FrontPage 2000 *requires* registration, at least my copy did. It will stop working if you don't register. Some users may not find this bothersome, but it means whenever you install the product you must get a registration key of some kind from Microsoft.
Rating: Summary: Let's compare APPLES to ORANGES.... Review: As a professional web designer who spends countless hours using different programs, YES I DO WORK IN DREAMWEAVER, I find that the Microsoft Front Page 2000 has gotten a bad rap. A lot of my professional collegues scoff at the idea that a professional designer uses Dreamweaver. They say Front Page is not a real program, it's for hack web designers. What most of these designers are missing is the true point of MS Front Page 2000. It is designed for the average joe to come in and be able to design and maintain a simple site with out a huge learning curve. The interface is very familiar to any Microsoft Office user and they don't have to spend a lot of time learning the meaning and locations of new buttons and tools. My Company AffordableNetSolutions.com has become a great sucess by designing complex web design and graphics and then empowering our customers to use MS Front Page 2000 to edit and maintain their own sites. It is easy to add/change photos, edit text and create new pages based upon an exising model. Our customers are thrilled with our service and the fact that they don't have to pay an expensive web designer to make simple changes to their web site. I beleive that so many web designers who complain that MS Front Page is a loser program are failing to realizing the benefits that this software can provide for the customers. Sure, from a professional web designer standpoint Dreamweaver is more functional to do layout design and such. But, it's interface is very intimidating to a newbie. Also, a lot of features of Dreamweaver require you to have some knowledge of programming. Microsoft Front Page 2000 on the other hand is less expensive, easier to use, and no programming is required. People who don't have a lot of time and money to spare will find this to be a useful program.
Rating: Summary: Not as good as I expected Review: There are plenty of reviews so I'll try to tell you something from the point of view of a non-programmer/home user who wanted an easy to use program to run a basic web page. Specifically, I wanted to be able to change a page and have the program automatically update links in every other page. I also wanted to be able to change hosts without updating every link piece by piece. The problem is, the way I understand it, that it only does this if you are using a web site host that uses FrontPage "extensions". They are not as common as Microsoft would like you to think they are and often cost more. Another case of Microsoft trying to dominate (and control) yet another aspect of the web. Even for basic web design, the WYSIWYG feature is very nice and the program is easy to use, but you pay for it. Also, I expected to be able to anchor a picture anywhere on a page but I still don't think that's possible. They could easily add some more capability (easy link updates) for the low end user who doesn't use their "extensions" and doesn't mind spending the extra money for the program.
Rating: Summary: A useful tool Review: If you know absolutely nothing about creating a Web page, Front Page is actually too complicated for you. That is, if very basic things like "navigation bars" and "banners" are not part of your vocabulary. It's like taking a foreign language: Although Intermediate Hebrew is much simpler than Advanced Hebrew, it still assumes you know the Hebrew alphabet. So, if you haven't yet tackled basic Web principles, go buy Publisher 2000 first, and use its Wizard. That's the best tutorial. But if you are ready to move to the next level and want a site that demonstrates more stability and consistency than a site created in Publisher can give you, then you should consider Front Page 2000. You do indeed need a manual, combined with calling Microsoft's tech support line during your initial free support period (ie, once you start working, finish your project, so you can use tech support for the duration). A noticeable flaw in Microsoft's generally decent interface between its various software packages: You cannot import your Publisher Web site into Front Page. They do need to fix this glitch. Nor can you import Publisher "themes" into Front Page, and the themes in the two packages are not at all similar. But do be sure to ask about your discount on Front Page when you buy it (because you owned Publisher). I would recommend doing your "intermediate level" Web site in Front Page using their 'canned' themes, then tinkering with it as you learn more about design. For example, you will want to customize their themes or abandon them completely, creating your own, in order to preserve your individuality. Fix those kind of design issues later. Concentrate first on learning the new material. Then you can start downloading new buttons etc. Front Page does not handle JPEGs well as thumbnails, nor smaller versions of photographs, even if you do all the edit work you're supposed to. However, the large versions, once someone has clicked on a thumbnail, are quite good and do not lose clarity. Additionally, the photographic clip art in Microsoft's online clip art gallery (that you can download free) works well, and seems to retain its sharpness. I like using Front Page and find it is all that a small to mid-size company (or individual) needs. If your Web site needs to accommodate large databases or fast-loading pictures, you may need to upgrade to Dreamweaver or pay a professional Web designer. Till then, stick with Front Page and learn all you can using its tools, till you are ready to go on to the upper level courses. NB: An advantage that Front Page has over Publisher, is that it comes with its "FTP" built in. Good, because you don't need to get one of your own. Bad, because it makes it more difficult to send your Web site to someone else on disk (many elements simply don't work till they are uploaded, so you cannot send it to Aunt Sally to look at on her computer, even if she has Front Page). And you do need to remind the company hosting your site to enable Front Page extensions. You would think that this would be part of their systems check when you upload, but for some reason, most don't bother till you call them and remind them to do so.
Rating: Summary: Pass on this one. Review: Had to buy this for a client/server program and it stinks. After taking a couple of HTML courses at a community college, I find it's easier to code from scratch than use this.
Rating: Summary: the truth says it all Review: wonder why the developers at Microsoft are rumored to author in Homesite? things that make you go hmmmm.......
|