Why shouldn't I use Frontpage?

[Travis Newbury]

All tools are equal? According to that logic, Notepad is no better than
a text editor which ignores every third keypress. Do you really believe
that?

Your analogy is flawed.

 

[mbstevens]

Well apparently wit is not hereditary...

Old books on how to use FP have now made their way into the used book
shops. So we can expect new waves of these threads in the foreseeable
future.

 

[Leif K-Brooks]

Your analogy is flawed.

You claimed that no tool is better than any other (if Frontpage is
'no better or worse than any other tool', then all tools are just as
good as Frontpage, and as each other). I stated that if that's true,
then a text editor which ignores every third keystroke -- a tool by any
reasonable definition -- is just as good as Notepad, which is also a
tool. Where's the flawed analogy?

 

[Travis Newbury]

You claimed that no tool is better than any other (if Frontpage is
'no better or worse than any other tool', then all tools are just as
good as Frontpage, and as each other). I stated that if that's true,
then a text editor which ignores every third keystroke -- a tool by any
reasonable definition -- is just as good as Notepad, which is also a
tool. Where's the flawed analogy?

But if the same editor had saber tooth gerbils chewing their way out of
your ass while coding, it would be incentive to use the editor
correctly and your productivity would improve bringing you to a level
of productivity equal to notepad.

 

[Travis Newbury]

People who are competent at something choose tools that make their work
easier, not harder.
They may be better at fixing garbage produced by
inferior tools, but their preference will be not to use the inferior
tools in the first place.

You are starting your argument with the assumption that FP is an
inferior tool, then using that assumption to prove your point that it
is an inferior tool.

Are you a liberal?

 

[Harlan Messinger]

You are starting your argument with the assumption that FP is an
inferior tool, then using that assumption to prove your point that it
is an inferior tool.

No, I wasn't.

Are you a liberal?

You are demonstrating yourself to be the kind of person who argues by
casting people as "liberals" whether it has any relevance to the
discussion or not. <plonk>

 

[bigdaddybs]

Hello Bill

First off, I apologize for going OT (Why shouldn't I use FP?), however,
as you can see it is the fault of the writer, and not FP, and I thought
this was something that could help others who will run into the same
situation (and you know there WILL be others.)

When you say, "works in Quirks mode," do you mean "operates" in quirks
mode, or "functions" in quirks mode? Because "operates," I would
believe. But "functions" is misleading, because what do you mean by
"works?" You don't know *what* you're going to get with a different box
model (and you're setting margins and padding all over the place).

Works = displays correctly. Right or wrong, it does.

I missed seeing your rationale for this. Is your reasoning that these
pages are so ancient and numerous, you haven't gone STRICT yet?

Um... Not really. The thing was when I started redesigning the site, I
didn't even think about it, to be honest. I used the same mode I had
used for the old version. (Another mistake, I know.) Now, with 150+
pages set that way in the redesign, I'm afraid to try STRICT.

A clue or two is all I can offer you because (1) I'm no expert, not
nearly, and (2) your CSS is so convoluted I don't know what all's going
on. Fortunately I can delete vast chunks of it in the Edit CSS function
of FF Web Developer extension, and localize some likely suspects. YOU
will have to check and test and verify the usefulness of these clues.

I notice:
#full-page { position:absolute; top:10px; left:5px; width: 100%; }

If I get rid of the width:100%, the horizontal scroll bar vanishes.
Further, I notice no other effects. I suspect therefore, you don't need
this at all. Or maybe 90% or something would be better.

But just because the scroll bar is gone doesn't mean that the text is
visible; it's still hanging off the right side of the viewport. So look:

#main-page {
margin-left: 130px;
padding: 5px;
width: 100%;
background-color: #f0fff0;
}

Here, you're saying your want the content to be as wide as the viewport
(or wait, I think I mean _containing block_, but in your case I think
it's pretty much the same). But you've also said to start the 100%-wide
block to start 130 pixels to the right (give or take the 5). So it's no
surprise that the right edge is about 130 pixels off to the right.

You might want to adjust the width and/or margin values accordingly.

I am almost certainly overlooking something. With your opaque CSS and my
lack of experience, there's bound to be something else you ought to look
at too. But at the rates I'm charging you, maybe this is good enough. ;-)

Thanks for ANY insight other than "This page sucks!"

Originally, I was trying to modify the three-column layout from A List
Apart's article using the modification the original author made at
http://www.infocraft.com/articles/the_case_of_the_disappearing_column/.
(That setup is for a 3-column page, while mine was to be only two.)
After most of the pages were complete, when I had problems printing, I
asked for possible reasons. From alt.www.webmaster, it was recommended
I change it as follows:

I would recoomend re-naming and re-planning these divs along the
line of:
<div id="container">
<div id="left-column"> </div> (floated left)
<div id="right-column"> (margin-left = width of left
column + guttter)
<div id="header"> </div>
<div id="content"> </div>
</div>
<div>
which, while not helping my printing problem, did make the layout a
little more logical, in my mind. (Sorry... was a programmer for 25
years!)

The basic page "layout" (sorry if that's the wrong term) using my div
names is:
Body | Body
full-page | body division wrapper
(corresponds to "container")
main-page | "right frame" division wrapper
(corresponds to "right-column")
page-top | banner +
page-content | actual content
page-bottom | bottom linkbar +
copyright/footer
full-sidebar | sidebar wrapper ("left
frame") (corresponds to "left-column")
sidebar-top | decoration + nav buttons
sidebar-middle | (currently,
"transparent"/blank - just for spacing)
sidebar-bottom | buttons for "used on site"

(I use the term "frame" because a long time ago, I had used frames,
hated it, and revised it. Also, almost everything I've read says to put
the navigation (sidebar) AFTER the content for various reasons, so
that's what I've done for years. I also tend to format my HTML to be
readable about what is in what div, paragraph, etc. While I may have
missed a few, to me, this is not that "convolulted" and I don't
understand why others think so.)

So, because of the number of screens and resolutions out there in
"internet-land", and the number of browsers and how they handle the
"box model", preferably without changing the HTML (would like to handle
it in the CSS), how should the main-page div be defined to keep the
writing within those browsers that ?

Well, I'm not the guy to point out all the bad things in either part,
but in summary, I can't easily read and understand your code. Maybe
*you* know what .hbbqrff, .hbbqrffw, and #wntbl ol ol ol all mean, but I
certainly can't tell what styles are cascading and inheriting on your
page. I'm sure both your HTML and CSS could be much simpler, you'd then
have fewer problems with it, and whatever problems you did have would be
quicker to understand and solve.

To make the classes more "generic" and easier to enter, I used
abbreviations:
hbbqrffw = Heavy Border, Blockquote Replacement, Fixed Font, White
(background)
hbbqrly = Heavy Border, Blockquote Replacement, (normal font),
Light Yellow (bg)
bfp7 = Bold, Fine Print, .7em
etc.
I did not use tables for layout, except for tabular content, and did
not use blockquotes at all, instead creating classes for "blockquote
replacement", some with colored background, some without. Again, the
names are ... "logical" to me, and I didn't think they'd be that hard
to decipher. (Sorry, again.) I am the only one who edits this website,
so, except for asking for help... :-} And the majority of the pages use
the above "layout".)

Ohh! Ohh! Pick me! I *know* this one! er, I think...
Suppose I have set my browser to use a default black background (for
whatever reason), and your site specifies dark green text, and no (i.e.,
your "transparent") background. I see: darkness. A textless muddle of
mud. And as goofy as this example sounds, it's simply that if you're
going to commandeer the foreground (or bg) color, you'd better specify
the background (or fg) color, too. It's so important (and so often
forgotten) that the W3C includes it in the validation.

Ok... I understand. Again, these don't preclude validation, they are
"warnings". I will see about changing MOST of them, however, the idea
of setting a font-color is to set that color on any background on your
site. I have a VERY large CSS as it is (some because I was learning and
used the cascading properties within an external CSS, but most needed,
and some are comments), and I've already been "complained at" because
of it's size. If I have to handle every different foreground color on
every different background...

My pleasure. Hope it helps.

John, again, Thank you. I hope my explanations and further questions
make sense.

BigDaddyBS (Bill)

 

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

Yea, I am sure that is the exact words they used in the planning
meeting... FrontPage is a tool, no better or worse than any other
tool when used by some one that is competent.

There is a corollary to the old saying that "a poor workman blames
his tools", and that is, "a good workman uses good tools".

FrontPage is demonstrably not a good tool.

 

[dorayme]

Smart? It is an editor. It is not "smart" Maybe it's the user?

AD has questioned the smartness himself in making his perfectly
understandable point. What are you adding except pure unreasoned
opposition?

 

[dorayme]

FrontPage is a tool, no better or worse than any other
tool when used by some one that is competent.

What is the test of competent? That he answers yes to some damn
fool question like "if you use all these 5 million tools very
very very carefully with full knowledge of all their limitations,
will you find any of them any better or worse than any others?"

 

[dorayme]

You are starting your argument with the assumption that FP is an
inferior tool, then using that assumption to prove your point that it
is an inferior tool.

Are you a liberal?

I am really pleased you brought this factor in as I had to
restrain myself earlier from expressing a thought that your logic
and obfuscation fitted perfectly with the Republican Right and
the mind set that would vote for Bush.

 

[Joe]

I was told to use NVU in an introductory computer class, and I thought
it was aweful. I would rather use notepad than nvu.

-Peter-

So would I, Peter, so would I. Nvu puts less crap in your files than FP
does, though.
What I actually use is Notepad++, which has syntax highlighting and
lots of features, but I realise that it's not going to be everyone's top
choice.

 

[jussij]

Sounds like user error to me...

Lets assume a user writes the some valid HTML in notepad, gives it
to FP only to have FP re-write the HTML and spit it back as some
non standard HTML full of FP extensions.

Sounds like the problem with the tool to me.

The only user error here is he/she is still using FP

Jussi Jumppanen
Author: Zeus for Windows IDE
http://www.zeusedit.com

 

[bigdaddybs]

Lets assume a user writes the some valid HTML in notepad, gives it
to FP only to have FP re-write the HTML and spit it back as some
non standard HTML full of FP extensions.

Sounds like the problem with the tool to me.

The only user error here is he/she is still using FP

Jussi Jumppanen

FrontPage does NOT add or change code unless you ask it to. It may
reformat, if you have not spent any time at all in preferences/options
- one of the options is to leave the HTML alone, or the way it's
entered in the Source Tab and the default is NOT to, which I will
concede is an error you can blame on MS/FP.

The point is, if you don't kinow the capabilities of a product, and
only go by the crap that people allow it to put out, you can't bitch
about ANY editor. From much of what I've heard, here, few people DO
understand that. Any other WYSIWYG editor would do the same, though the
defaults may be set differently..

BigDaddyBS

 

[Jim S]

FrontPage does NOT add or change code unless you ask it to. It may
reformat, if you have not spent any time at all in preferences/options
- one of the options is to leave the HTML alone, or the way it's
entered in the Source Tab and the default is NOT to, which I will
concede is an error you can blame on MS/FP.

The point is, if you don't kinow the capabilities of a product, and
only go by the crap that people allow it to put out, you can't bitch
about ANY editor. From much of what I've heard, here, few people DO
understand that. Any other WYSIWYG editor would do the same, though the
defaults may be set differently..

BigDaddyBS

At last a sensible reply.
I was the OP and have lurked while the various posters have got their
prejudices out of their system.
I came late to HTML as I probably said and although I can cope fairly well,
it is nice to use FP to do the hard work then go through and clean up. One
of the benefits over notepad++, which I also use, is that I can see what I
am doing all the time.
In FP I have it set to satisfy both Explorer and Navigator and have
ActiveX-Controls and Dynamic-HTML unticked so what I CAN do is self-limited.
Oh and another useful trick of FP is that if I go to 'Open' and change the
name of a folder, it will change the name in any folder that has links to or
from the one I changed.
I have used NVU, but at present it can only save to one folder and one
sub-folder by default.
I have gone through the gamut of Dreamweaver and HTMLKit etc etc, but
whatever anyone says FP is the easiest for me(with Topstyle Lite for CSS)

HOWEVER that was not my original question which was: what harm can it do to
use the non-standard tricks in FP? Is the worst thing that they won't behave
correctly in all browser or is it more serious than that?

 

[Andy Dingley]

FrontPage does NOT add or change code unless you ask it to.

Which version? _Every_ version of FP I've suffered with has done this,
although I'm told that later versions are much less bad at it. What
about width and height attributes on an <img> ?

 

[John Hosking]

Which version? _Every_ version of FP I've suffered with has done this,
although I'm told that later versions are much less bad at it. What
about width and height attributes on an <img> ?

FP 2002 (so, not the latest version) does/did this. *Sometimes* And
sometimes adds both w & h, sometimes just one. It makes me crazy to
neatly code and CSS-style my images, save the page (even in code view),
then the next time I look in code view (or peek in Notepad) I see the
width attributes set again.

As far as changing code willy-nilly, earlier versions of FP were much
worse. It's probably the main factor or encouragement for me to learn
HTML's niceties. FP 98 was very special. It is getting better now.

 

[Travis Newbury]

No, I wasn't.

You most certainly were. Read what you wrote.

You are demonstrating yourself to be the kind of person who argues by
casting people as "liberals"...

No you are the kind that has no sense of humor. Oh well, your loss.

 

[Travis Newbury]

I am really pleased you brought this factor in as I had to
restrain myself earlier from expressing a thought that your logic
and obfuscation fitted perfectly with the Republican Right and
the mind set that would vote for Bush.

VOTE? Hell I campaigned for him!

 

[Travis Newbury]

Lets assume a user writes the some valid HTML in notepad, gives it
to FP only to have FP re-write the HTML and spit it back as some
non standard HTML full of FP extensions.
Sounds like the problem with the tool to me.

I tested your theory out. I went to w3.org and saved their (flawlessly
validating) page on my desk top. I then opened it using FP, made a few
changes, to the text, then saved it. MIRACULUSLY when I validated the
page again it STILL had no errors. FP did not change a single line of
the code on its own.

So it sound more like like a user problem to me...