Can I do this in Frontpage?

[jupright]

I have an idea of what I would like to do, but I have no idea how to
do it. I am not sure if it can even be done in frontpage, so i will
ask and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.

Let me preface this by saying I am teaching myself frontpage as I go,
and I have never designed a website prior to the one I am working on
now. The site I am creating is for my wife's photography business. I
know what I want to do can be done, just not sure if it can be done in
FP or not. My site is not published yet, so I can't provide a link to
see my site, however, I can provide a link to a site that does the
same thing I want to do. Here goes....

The first thing (and probablly the simplist) I would like to do is
have a page (lets call it 'Proofs') where clients enter a password
that takes them to a gallery of photos where they can view the photos
from their session. Each clients password would be different
obviously, and when they enter the password it takes them to their
respective gallery.

For the time being, I guess I will have the clients manually tell me
what they would like to order, but eventually I would like to be able
to automate this as well. What I would like is for the client to be
able to select the size and qty either from the gallery itself, or
from a page accessed by selecting the image from the gallery.

This may require coding and development that is way over my head and
beyond my current capabilities, but if anyone has a solution to the
first or both of my options above, I would greatly appreciate any
input or advice.

 

[Andy Dingley]

I am not sure if it can even be done in frontpage,

Everything that is doable on the web is doable despite FrontPage.
Using FrontPage will however be a restriction on how easy it is to do
things.

Looking to FrontPage for any sort of tutorial or guidance function,
including any of the wizards or WYSIWYG features is a recipe for
disaster. You will _not_ produce a good website by these means. Even
an expert will be unable to good work with FP unless they use the bare
minimum of it.

Your best route would be to throw Frontpage away now and pretend that
it never happened. Microwave the disks to make sure.


As a replacement:

* This newsgroup (also c.i.w.a.h)

* The FAQs to these newsgroups

* Searching Google Groups' web archive of these newsgroups.

* A free open-source editor, such as jEdit or a squillion others. Try
Nvu if you insist on WYSIWYG.

* A good tutorial book. Make it a good one - most are terrible. I like
"Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML" from O'Reilly
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/059610197X/codesmiths-20>
It's the best tutorial I know, and it teaches good "style" as well
(this is very rare).

I also like Lie & Bos' "Cascading Style Sheets"
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321193121/codesmiths-20>
This is a good CSS tutorial, accessible to HTML beginners too, and
remains a useful desktop reference for CSS afterwards.

* Web tutorials are a poor second to a good book. But try <http://
htmldog.com>

* <http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/cover.html> is also essential, as it's
the
"horse's mouth" for the specification. Not easy reading though!



Now the important stuff! Avoid the _misleading_ advice and programs.
We all know what we're meant to achieve, but there are so many
distractions along the path it's like John Bunyan out there.

Avoid any other books. There's some good ones out there no doubt, but
I don't know what they are. As there are also a _vast_ number of
downright bad ones, be cautious.

Avoid anything that the denizens of these newsgroups don't hold with.
It's the best and most skilled resource you're liekly to find.

Avoid anything that offers to "simplify web design" for you. It's not
that hard, you don't need it. These snake-oil tools want you to think
that it's hard so that you'll waste money on them.

Avoid anything from M$oft

Avoid W3Schools.

Avoid Dreamweaver. Spend the equivalent money on good single malt
instead. Put it that way and how can anyone justify buying
Dreamweaver?

Let me preface this by saying I am teaching myself frontpage as I go,
and I have never designed a website prior to the one I am working on
now.

Put down Frontpage. Get the Head First.

My site is not published yet, so I can't provide a link to see my site,

You need to do that, and soonish. If we can't see it, we can't help.
Read the archives: we flame people for posting snippets or whole pages
- it's just about the only thing that does attract flaming.

 

[Andy Dingley]

Each clients password would be different
obviously, and when they enter the password it takes them to their
respective gallery.

This depends on the server-side coding platform you're using, which is
related to the hosting you're using. You'll probably use PHP and MySQL
(search for "LAMP"), but you could use M$oft tools instead. You might
even use Ruby, Python, Java or whatever takes your fancy.

This is _not_ a "password protection" system as it's widely thought of
(so .htaccess won't help). Think of it more like a normal ecommerce
"shopping cart".

The first thing (and probablly the simplist) I would like to do is
have a page (lets call it 'Proofs') where clients enter a password
that takes them to a gallery of photos where they can view the photos
from their session.

You can't afford to write this from scratch, there's no reason why you
should need to, and the skills needed to do it well are significant.

Instead I'd look at taking a standard off-the-shelf (either commercial
or open source) ecommerce package and adapting it for uyour particular
shop. The web is always about selling photos of things: it doesn't
make much difference if these are photos of books or photos of photos.

Search around. There are probably shop engines around geared
specifically to photographs (I know there are, but the ones I worked
on were high-ticket). You can also find photo-shop services that will
host the whole operation for you (This is almost certainly the only
practical option for you overall, in terms of skills, budget,
timescale and quality).

Also ask other photoraphers, or simply search their websites and read
the credits.

For the time being, I guess I will have the clients manually tell me
what they would like to order, but eventually I would like to be able
to automate this as well.

That's pretty easy. If you go the pre-built route, you'll get it
included.

Where you'd run off the edge of standard e-shops is in delivering
photographs electronically. Most assume a physical warehouse and
physical shipping as the fulfillment mechanism, which stops as soon as
they've displayed the necessary orders. You're going to need more,
which might even include things like digitally watermarking the image
files you sell.

There's also a complex ingest process for all this, one that shouldn't
be underestimated. How do you get all these images loaded? How do you
do it at high quality, when there are six different formats and sizes
to keep track of, associated descriptive metadata, and an inward
invisible watermarking process that's too slow to do while-you're-
waiting? Now make it hold a few thousand images at print quality,
integrate it with a film-scanning operation and you've got a serious
piece of work (BTDT).

 

[asdf]

[snip]

Avoid Dreamweaver. Spend the equivalent money on good single malt
instead. Put it that way and how can anyone justify buying
Dreamweaver?

[snip]

....put that way, how can one justify buying anything ever?

 

[Mark]

Avoid Dreamweaver. Spend the equivalent money on good single malt
instead. Put it that way and how can anyone justify buying
Dreamweaver?

Well, Dreamweaver is a phenomenal text editor for HTML and CSS.

True, I couldn't really justify spending ~£380 for a text editor.

Adobe should sell a Lite version with all the WYSIWYG stuff taken out.

 

[Andy Dingley]

Well, Dreamweaver is a phenomenal text editor for HTML and CSS.

It's not as good as Eclipse though

True, I couldn't really justify spending ~£380 for a text editor.

Eclipse is free.

 

[Chaddy2222]

Everything that is doable on the web is doable despite FrontPage.
Using FrontPage will however be a restriction on how easy it is to do
things.

Looking to FrontPage for any sort of tutorial or guidance function,
including any of the wizards or WYSIWYG features is a recipe for
disaster. You will _not_ produce a good website by these means. Even
an expert will be unable to good work with FP unless they use the bare
minimum of it.

Your best route would be to throw Frontpage away now and pretend that
it never happened. Microwave the disks to make sure.


As a replacement:

I agree about FP, it's not a good program for web design it's has a
lot of extra code that it places in the HTML.

* This newsgroup (also c.i.w.a.h)

* The FAQs to these newsgroups

* Searching Google Groups' web archive of these newsgroups.

I agree it's a good source of info.

* A free open-source editor, such as jEdit or a squillion others. Try
Nvu if you insist on WYSIWYG.

Well NVU is no-longer in development KompoZer is it's replacement:
http:/www.kompozer.net

* A good tutorial book. Make it a good one - most are terrible. I like
"Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML" from O'Reilly
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/059610197X/codesmiths-20>
It's the best tutorial I know, and it teaches good "style" as well
(this is very rare).

I also like Lie & Bos' "Cascading Style Sheets"
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321193121/codesmiths-20>
This is a good CSS tutorial, accessible to HTML beginners too, and
remains a useful desktop reference for CSS afterwards.

* Web tutorials are a poor second to a good book. But try <http://
htmldog.com>

The thing I dislike about HTML dog is that the beginer tutorial does
not use a doctype, and it should as it does not get people in to good
habits by not useing one.

* <http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/cover.html> is also essential, as it's
the
"horse's mouth" for the specification. Not easy reading though!



Now the important stuff! Avoid the _misleading_ advice and programs.
We all know what we're meant to achieve, but there are so many
distractions along the path it's like John Bunyan out there.

Avoid any other books. There's some good ones out there no doubt, but
I don't know what they are. As there are also a _vast_ number of
downright bad ones, be cautious.

Avoid anything that the denizens of these newsgroups don't hold with.
It's the best and most skilled resource you're liekly to find.
Agreed.

Avoid anything that offers to "simplify web design" for you. It's not
that hard, you don't need it. These snake-oil tools want you to think
that it's hard so that you'll waste money on them.

Avoid anything from M$oft

Avoid W3Schools.

Avoid Dreamweaver. Spend the equivalent money on good single malt
instead. Put it that way and how can anyone justify buying
Dreamweaver?

Well as other have said, it's a bloody expensive text editor, you
might as well buy HomeSite as it's less expensive and similar.
I like Crimson Editor and KompoZer I use them both with the HandCoder
extention.

 

[dorayme]

<[email protected]
m>,

The thing I dislike about HTML dog is that the beginer tutorial does
not use a doctype, and it should as it does not get people in to good
habits by not useing one.

On the second page of the beginner tutorial is:

"The first line on the top that starts <!DOCTYPE... is to let the
browser know that you know what the hell you're doing. You may
think that you don't actually know what you're doing yet, but
it's important to stick this in. If you don't, browsers will
switch into "quirks mode" and act in a very peculiar way. Don't
worry about this just yet, you can learn more about "document
types" in the HTML Advanced Tutorial if you really want to. For
the moment, just remember to shove this line at the top of your
web pages and you're laughin'."

And the markup example has a doctype. Perhaps better to dislike
the fact that it uses XHTML 1.0 Strict rather than 4.01 Strict.
but this perhaps is a lesser crime?

 

[Chaddy2222]

<[email protected]
m>,


On the second page of the beginner tutorial is:

"The first line on the top that starts <!DOCTYPE... is to let the
browser know that you know what the hell you're doing. You may
think that you don't actually know what you're doing yet, but
it's important to stick this in. If you don't, browsers will
switch into "quirks mode" and act in a very peculiar way. Don't
worry about this just yet, you can learn more about "document
types" in the HTML Advanced Tutorial if you really want to. For
the moment, just remember to shove this line at the top of your
web pages and you're laughin'."

And the markup example has a doctype. Perhaps better to dislike
the fact that it uses XHTML 1.0 Strict rather than 4.01 Strict.
but this perhaps is a lesser crime?

Yes well, I did not notice that.
I don't have as much of a problem with XHTML strict but I find useing
the transitional DTD a bit of a joke now a days.

 

[Andy Dingley]

And the markup example has a doctype. Perhaps better to dislike
the fact that it uses XHTML 1.0 Strict rather than 4.01 Strict.
but this perhaps is a lesser crime?

That's one of my dislikes about HTMLDog: they don't "eat their own
dogfood". The tutorials are OK, but they don't usually follow their own
advice on their own site.

 

[Mark]

It's not as good as Eclipse though

I'd be very surprised if Eclipse offers auto-complete features on a par
with Dreamweaver's.

Eclipse is free.

Might give it a try then.

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

Which one is suitable for HTML/CSS/Javascript/PHP?

 

[David Segall]

I have an idea of what I would like to do, but I have no idea how to
do it. I am not sure if it can even be done in frontpage, so i will
ask and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction.

Frontpage is intended for people who are writing static web pages. If
you are looking for a similar tool for writing web applications that
interact with the user, then Microsoft and others offer more

The first thing (and probablly the simplist) I would like to do is
have a page (lets call it 'Proofs') where clients enter a password
that takes them to a gallery of photos where they can view the photos
from their session. Each clients password would be different
obviously, and when they enter the password it takes them to their
respective gallery.

You could probably achieve a primitive version of this using JAlbum
<http://www.jalbum.org> to create directories of each client's
photographs and the .htaccess file of the Apache Web Server
<http://apache-server.com/tutorials/ATusing-htaccess.html> to provide
password protection for each directory. Try it. Even if you don't like
the result it will give you an idea of the scale of the task ahead and
almost nothing that you learn will be wasted.

For the time being, I guess I will have the clients manually tell me
what they would like to order, but eventually I would like to be able
to automate this as well. What I would like is for the client to be
able to select the size and qty either from the gallery itself, or
from a page accessed by selecting the image from the gallery.

Now you are talking about a full blown e-commerce web site with the
added difficulties of displaying photographs. The time required to
build such a site in-house is measured in man years of a staff of
experienced programmers. What is your time frame?

 

[Helpful person]

Avoid .

I agree with almost everything you say. I started with FrontPage and
dumped it as soon I decided it was easier to learn HTML and
Javascript. However, I find W3Schools a very useful on line
rerference. What is wrong with it?

 

[André Gillibert]

I agree with almost everything you say. I started with FrontPage and
dumped it as soon I decided it was easier to learn HTML and
Javascript. However, I find W3Schools a very useful on line
rerference. What is wrong with it?

W3Schools provides relatively good tutorials, but they're full of
inaccuracies.
Consequently, they're not bad to be introduced to the matter, but they're
really bad as *reference* documents.

The good references are the W3C standards.

 

[Helpful person]

W3Schools provides relatively good tutorials, but they're full of
inaccuracies.
Consequently, they're not bad to be introduced to the matter, but they're
really bad as *reference* documents.

The good references are the W3C standards.

I've found this also true of the Head Start book which is often
recommended. As I always validate my code I'll probably still use
W3Schools as it's so convenient.

My biggest problem has been the difference in interpretation between
browsers. There seems to be no solution to this except experience.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

I've found this also true of the Head Start book which is often
recommended. As I always validate my code I'll probably still use
W3Schools as it's so convenient.

I find that although it is also not perfect, www.htmldog.com tutorials
have far fewer inaccuracies and are better for the newbie to get started
on the "right" foot.

My biggest problem has been the difference in interpretation between
browsers. There seems to be no solution to this except experience.

A kind way of saying, how to get it to work in IE.

 

[GTalbot]

* A free open-source editor, such as jEdit or a squillion others. Try
Nvu if you insist on WYSIWYG.

Andy, I agree with everything you said in your excellent post. I 100%
agree with you on

"
Avoid anything from M$oft

Avoid W3Schools.

Avoid Dreamweaver.
"

One very small improvement I would like to add to your post would be
to say "Try KompoZer 0.7.10 (or better) if you insist on WYSIWYG"
since KompoZer is the unofficial bug-fix release of Nvu 1.0 and since
it can have W3C HTML TIdy embedded (via HandCoder 0.3.4).

KompoZer 0.7.10:
http://www.kompozer.net/

HandCoder 0.3.4:
http://fabiwan.kenobi.free.fr/HandCoder/

Latest HTML Tidy for Windows:
http://www.paehl.com/open_source/?HTML_Tidy_for_Windows

Regards, Gérard

 

[André Gillibert]

I've found this also true of the Head Start book which is often
recommended. As I always validate my code I'll probably still use
W3Schools as it's so convenient.

Code validation only (very partially) checks syntax, not semantics.
Learning semantics is longer than learning syntax.

 

[dorayme]

<[email protected]

,

My biggest problem has been the difference in interpretation between
browsers. There seems to be no solution to this except experience.

To put it bluntly, yes! But you can help things along. One way is
to study the matter furiously and very keenly.

Got a life to live? Ah, in that case then, write as good semantic
mark up as you can and do not design for where browser
differences are so important. A simple example and you can
extrapolate from it: IE 6 likes to add some pixels to distances
between floats and material next to floats in some circumstances.
So let it! Don't make background colours that make this a glaring
fault. It does not matter if IE 6 and FF are 3px out unless you
make it matter.

 

[Ed Mullen]

W3Schools provides relatively good tutorials, but they're full of
inaccuracies.
Consequently, they're not bad to be introduced to the matter, but
they're really bad as *reference* documents.

The good references are the W3C standards.

Except that they are nigh on impenetrable by ordinary folk. Or even
well-versed folk. A publication of standards is a great citation in an
argument but it is a terribly bad reference on how to do anything. If
all someone wants to do is get their boat out of their dock safely, do
not send them to the Coast Guard specs on boating safety. It won't help
- at all.

Likewise, if all someone wants to do is learn how to wash their car in
an eco-friendly way, don't send them to a page on how to formulate
detergents. They don't want that. It won't help them. All it will do
is frustrate them and make you seem like an iconoclastic asshole.

So, yeah, w3chools is flawed. Ok. But it is helpful in a basic way.
And when the user graduates from the basics you all can guide them into
the next level of enlightenment.

In the meantime? Provide a good (simple) alternative.

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
http://mozilla.edmullen.net
http://abington.edmullen.net
Anal Glaucoma - When you just can't see yourself dragging your ass into
work today.