Seminar Presentation for FrontPage

Editor's Notes

• #2: Microsoft FrontPage version 2002 Hi, my name is [your name] and today I’m here to talk with you about Microsoft FrontPage version 2002.
• #3: Agenda FrontPage version 2002 was developed in response to customer requests, site visits, and usability lab and focus group research. It was designed as a complete web site creation and management tool so that users, whether novices or experts at creating web sites, could first create exactly the site they want , complete with attention-getting graphics and features that would save them time by being easy to learn and understand because FrontPage is a member of the Microsoft Office product family and looks and works like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Second, we wanted to give users the power and control they wanted to be able to confidently manage their web site . To do this, we have given them the ability to analyze how their site is used with new usage analysis features, and given web professionals precision, control, and formatting choices to make FrontPage a tool that even experts can’t outgrow. We’ve also make improvements in helping to get sites onto the Internet faster than ever. Third, we’ve made some major new enhancements in the team collaboration and workgroup space with the SharePoint Team Services team web site solution, e-commerce functionality, and a wide variety of third party services and partners that build solutions on FrontPage. All of these major improvements make FrontPage version 2002 a complete web site authoring and management tool that has ease of use to get users started quickly, along with all of the tools and sophisticated technology to make it a tool users just don’t outgrow. Let’s go into more detail on FrontPage version 2002.
• #4: The Web Publishing category for Windows was really started when Vermeer Technologies developed FrontPage. In 1996, Microsoft acquired Vermeer Technologies, and FrontPage has been the clear market leader ever since. In 1996 when Vermeer was acquired, FrontPage was used to edit single pages by one or a few people in an organization who knew what the Web was and were technical enough to be able to create pages. Text and graphics were static and pages were fairly plain at the time. With the release of FrontPage 2000 in June of 1999, we saw a major shift in how people use and create web pages and web sites. Page editing and site management were integrated into one comprehensive application, time-saving features for HTML pros were introduced, and with the Microsoft Office Server Extensions early collaboration via discussions and subscriptions were launched. However, the ability to get every team member contributing to web sites was somewhat limited by technical capabilities of users and the inability to lock down functionality so that only key team members could make major changes. That’s why even with FrontPage 2000 and the Office Server Extensions, teams were used to giving content to a webmaster to post to the intranet or Internet. With the release of FrontPage version 2002 and SharePoint Team Services, the ability to get every team member contributing content to the web without having to have a webmaster is finally here. Teams can collaborate via discussions and subscriptions, and contribute content to the web site themselves using their browser. Administrators can control access to the site, and give users specific permissions to be able to contribute content, modify content, or even change the design of the site. The owner of the site can use FrontPage version 2002 to fully customize it using all of the features and functionality in FrontPage. This release also highlights the entry into a .Net world where client plus server plus services makes for a great customer experience. The e-commerce functionality in FrontPage highlights this by combining the FrontPage client, the bCentral and hosting company servers, and the bCentral Commerce Manager service to make it easy for small businesses to sell products online. And Automatic Web Content combines the FrontPage client and frequently updated content from MSN, MSNBC, Expedia, and bCentral to offer customers the ability to have continuously updated content on their site without having to continuously update their site. We will see even more functionality that brings together .Net technology in future releases of FrontPage and SharePoint Team Services.
• #5: The FrontPage installed base continues to grow by leaps and bounds each year. When the web site creation market for Windows was started in 1996, few people had Internet access, let alone know how to create web pages. By January of 2001, the installed base for FrontPage was 5.1 million. That number reflects only FrontPage standalone sales and does not count the number of users who got FrontPage from selected Microsoft Office packages, Visual Studio, and Windows NT.
• #6: This diagram highlights the architecture that FrontPage Server Extensions and SharePoint Team Services were built upon. In the middle, you see the FrontPage Server Extensions. The FrontPage Server Extensions are server technology that hides complexity from the user and makes hard programming tasks easy with the FrontPage client. For example, FrontPage makes creating forms and connecting them to databases easy. The FrontPage Server Extensions make that functionality possible. Note that SharePoint Team Services is Windows 2000 technology, and the FrontPage Server Extensions are available on Windows and Unix web servers like Apache (see http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/fpse for a list of supported Unix platforms). SharePoint Team Services are a superset of the FrontPage Server Extensions, so provide all of their functionality plus the instant team web site solution of SharePoint Team Services. You would use the FrontPage Server Extensions if you don’t need SharePoint functionality or must run on a Unix box. If you look at the usage logs cylinder in the lower left part of the screen, this shows that the FrontPage Server Extensions use the usage logs that are stored on the web server that hosts the web site to create its Usage Analysis Reports. This chart also shows that FrontPage shares technology with Web Folders, Office applications, and Visual InterDev, and connecting to the server happens via HTTP.
• #7: FrontPage version 2002 users can create exactly the site they way. Their site can contain rich graphics using the new Photo Gallery and PowerPoint-like graphics tools including Word Art, autoshapes, callouts, and drop shadows. They can even add continually updated content without having to continually update their site with new Automatic Web Content. Automatic Web Content includes search and a stock ticker from MSN, headlines and weather from MSNBC, maps from Expedia, and small business tools from bCentral. FrontPage version 2002 is easy for users to get started with because it’s a member of the Microsoft Office product family so looks and works like Word or Excel or PowerPoint. For example, you can create a hyperlink in FrontPage, and to remove the underline from it, you just click on the underline button just like you would on text in Word. FrontPage also includes some improvements in the user interface to make it easier than ever to learn, including the Task Pane for most commonly accessed and used documents and functionality, page tabs so you can jump from page to page without having to clutter your desktop, and the ability to switch from Folder List to Navigation Pane while continuing to edit pages. FrontPage version 2002 also helps users save time by allowing them use sophisticated technology without having to know programming. And those who have memorized HTML code find that FrontPage is simply faster for them to use because instead of typing out each tag, they can simply use the buttons and menus in FrontPage to produce code faster. FrontPage version 2002 has even made linking pages together easier than ever with more flexible navigation through Link Bars. Link Bars allow users to create buttons that link to email addresses, web sites, or files on their network or hard drive, in only a few clicks. And they can choose the buttons from any of the Themes installed on their computer, giving them flexibility and style choices. They can also add background colors or tiled images into shared borders to make customizing their site easy.
• #8: Let’s go into some of the features that make it easy to create exactly the site you want with FrontPage. FrontPage has an improved user interface to give you easy access to the features and functionality you use the most. It shares the Task Pane with other Microsoft Office applications to allow you to bring up pages you’ve worked with recently, to access templates for new pages or web sites, and it even uses the Task Pane to display the contents of your Office clipboard. FrontPage version 2002 allows you to work on multiple pages more easily than ever with page tabs that allow you to switch from page to page without cluttering up your Windows desktop. And the new integrated Folder List and Navigation Pane allows you to change navigational elements like page banner and button labels while you continue to edit a page. These improvements just make it easier to use FrontPage. The Photo Gallery in FrontPage allows you to display personal or business photos or images. You can add images to the Photo Gallery and then select from several professional-looking layouts. You can add captions and descriptions to images, reorder images, change image sizes, and switch layouts at any time. The feedback on the Photo Gallery has been great so far, and many businesses have told us that they would use the Photo Gallery to display products and employee or customer or event photos. New drawing tools in FrontPage version 2002 make it as easy to create new graphics in FrontPage as it is in PowerPoint. These tools include Word Art, autoshapes, drop shadows, callouts, and more for attention-getting effects.
• #9: Add Automatic Web Content to your web site by inserting MSNBC headlines and weather forecasts, MSN search, Expedia maps, and bCentral small business tools. Inserted content is updated by its respective sources, so you can have continuously updated content without having to continually update your site. Setting up how your pages link to one another is easier than ever with FrontPage version 2002. You can build custom Link Bars to link to pages that are on or off your site, to network or hard drive locations, or to e-mail addresses. You can create Link Bars in shared borders for site-wide navigation, or insert them anywhere on any page in your web for ad-hoc links. Users can also use the Link Bars as “back” and “next” links to chain their web pages together in sequence. And because Link Bars allow you to choose buttons from any of the Themes installed on your computer, they are a super fast and easy way to create buttons without having to use a separate graphics editing tool.
• #10: FrontPage version 2002 was made to give users the confidence and control they need to manage their site. A huge area of improvement is in the ability to access and analyze data to better manage site performance and effectiveness. FrontPage version 2002 offers new Usage Analysis Reports to allow users to find out how many people have visited each page, where they found your site, and what browsers and operating systems they use. They can also use the usage analysis data to insert Top 10 Lists into their pages. For example, a user could insert a Top 10 List of the most frequently visited pages on their site, and that would offer a list of hyperlinks to those pages so user could more quickly get to key pages. The list is automatically updated so the lists don’t have to be changed manually by the site owner. FrontPage version 2002 is also a great tool for web experts. FrontPage does not modify or rearrange imported code, including HTML, XML, and ASP. It also takes advantage of new Smart Tag technology in Microsoft Office to offer choices in the way content is pasted into FrontPage. When you paste content, you can tell FrontPage to format it as text only, use the formatting from the source document, or use the formatting from the page you are pasting into. This flexibility comes in handy for those people who receive documents from others to post to the Web. FrontPage version 2002 also offers the ability to Apply XML Formatting to HTML pages, and the ability to reformat the HTML in imported pages to suit your preferences. FrontPage version 2002 also makes connecting forms to databases, and update the data in databases easier than ever with the new Database Interface Wizard. The process of getting web sites onto the Internet has been greatly improved with FrontPage version 2002 in some key areas. First, you can simply right-click on any pages and send them directly to your web server with single page publishing. Second, you can exclude certain pages from being published (such as uncompressed graphics that you want to keep with your web but don’t want to send to your web server). Third, there’s a new publishing dialog that lets you see both the source and the destination web servers and click and drag files between them. Lastly, there are publishing log files so you can keep track of all of your publishing activities. These features help users control and management their web sites better than ever with Microsoft FrontPage version 2002.
• #11: Microsoft FrontPage offers sophisticated site management tools that allow site owners to quickly find files that are unlinked to, broken hyperlinks, slow pages, and more. New with FrontPage version 2002, the reports can be saved as HTML or Microsoft Excel for later analysis. Usage Analysis Reports help site owners find out what pages are getting the most hits in daily, weekly, or monthly reports, and how visitors find their site. They can save reports in HTML or Excel for later analysis. Even though many people who host their Web sites on the Internet already get usage analysis reports from their hosting provider, FrontPage usage analysis reports are accessible from within FrontPage, and you can even use new Top 10 Lists to automatically list and link to the most popular pages on your site or to a list of the top referring URLs or domains. FrontPage version 2002 is made to grow with users as they learn more and more about Web site creation and HTML. That’s why Web professionals use and trust FrontPage because they know that with its source code preservation, they can import HTML, XML, and ASP pages without FrontPage breaking or rearranging the code. New with FrontPage version 2002, users can go into Notepad-like HTML View and use new Apply XML Formatting Rules to make their page XML-compliant, or use optional HTML reformatting to reformat imported HTML pages according to their preferences. They can even save time by pasting from other applications as either pure text, or keeping the formatting from the source document, or using the formatting of the page they are pasting into. FrontPage 2000 added many forms and database features that made creating forms and sending the results to an Access database easy, and displaying the contents of the database fast using the Database Results Wizard. New with FrontPage version 2002, the Database Interface Wizard helps step users through the process of displaying the contents of a database on a web page. The wizard generates the forms and pages that are needed. Users can allow specific visitors to edit or delete records through a web page that’s created with this wizard, while allowing everyone who can browse to the site to add new records and view existing ones. It allows users to filter data more quickly find what they are looking for.
• #12: The process of getting web sites onto the Internet has been greatly improved with FrontPage version 2002 in some key areas. First, you can simply right-click on any pages and send them directly to your web server with single page publishing. Second, you can exclude certain pages from being published (such as uncompressed graphics that you want to keep with your web but don’t want to send to your web server). Third, there’s a new publishing dialog that lets you see both the source and the destination web servers and click and drag files between them. Lastly, there are publishing log files so you can keep track of all of your publishing activities.
• #13: FrontPage version 2002 offers major improvements in the ability to really grow your web site cultivate productivity and teamwork with others. You can increase communication and collaboration among team members with the SharePoint Team Services team web site solution. Once you answer a few questions during installation, an instant team web site is created for you. One of the groundbreaking features in SharePoint Team Services is that visitors to the site can actually contribute to it directly from their browser instead of having to have a webmaster post all of the content. You can decide who can see the site and who can contribute to it. SharePoint Team Services-based sites help you store, find, and share information, and you can fully customize the site using all of the features and functionality in FrontPage version 2002. FrontPage version 2002 and the Microsoft bCentral Commerce Manager service make it easy to sell products on your web site. You simply install the bCentral Commerce Manager Add-in for FrontPage, sign up for Commerce Manager services, and FrontPage helps step you through creating products pages, categories pages, and list of all of the categories of products you offer. And of course, all of the pages are fully customizable with FrontPage version 2002. FrontPage version 2002 makes working together across the globe on web content easier than ever. It is available in 26 languages, and with Unicode support you can create pages in whatever language your operating system is set for, regardless of what language you purchased FrontPage in. Additionally, a wide variety of partners around the world support FrontPage technology by supporting the FrontPage Server Extensions or by creating applications that extend the functionality of FrontPage, such as the many third-party e-commerce applications that are available. With these features, FrontPage version 2002 helps you cultivate productivity and teamwork like never before.
• #14: SharePoint Team Services allows you to quickly set up a team web site for intranet or Internet users to store, find, and share information, documents, & web pages. Use FrontPage to customize the site, create and apply custom Themes, graphics, Link Bars, and insert lists like Announcements, Events, Contacts, and Surveys. SharePoint Team Services comes with FrontPage version 2002, and you install it on a server running Windows 2000 Server or Advanced Server with Internet Information Server (IIS). Install only takes a few minutes, and when you’re done, the result is a complete team web site ready for you to contribute content to or customize with FrontPage version 2002. Key technology in SharePoint Team Services are lists for structured data, and document libraries for collections of documents. SharePoint Team Services was built on the 5+ year experience we have with the FrontPage Server Extensions and is even being offered by selected Web site hosting companies for Internet-based sites. FrontPage version 2002 and the bCentral Commerce Manager service help users sell products on their web site easily and inexpensively. FrontPage helps step you through creating products pages, categories pages, and a list of all of the categories of products you offer. Simply sign up for the bCentral Commerce Manager service, and then use the Add-in to generate all of the pages you need in order to have the Commerce Manager service handle all of the e-commerce transactions for you. FrontPage is available in 26 languages, which is 11 more languages than with FrontPage 2000, so that users all over the world can see the FrontPage interface in their language of choice. Unicode Support allows authors to create web pages in all of the languages installed on their computer’s Windows operating system. This includes support for bi-directional character set and Unicode. This means that an author can buy FrontPage in a particular language, but author content in virtually any language. There are many third party e-commerce applications that integrate into FrontPage to allow people to sell services and merchandise from their Web sites. Many of these applications are being updated and enhanced for FrontPage version 2002. In addition, there are hundreds of web site hosting companies that support the FrontPage Server Extensions and many coming onboard to support the SharePoint Team Services team web site solution.
• #15: See the FrontPage and SharePoint Team Services demo scripts for instructions.
• #16: Comparison of FrontPage and Its Competitors FrontPage is the clear leader in the web site creation and management category, and has been since FrontPage was introduced in 1996. The biggest competitor to FrontPage is Macromedia Dreamweaver. It is gaining in market share relative to others, especially from a revenue perspective because it is significantly more expensive than FrontPage. Even loyal Dreamweaver users admit that it is a tough application to learn and use because its user interface is confusing and because the documentation is poor. Also, because Macromedia also produces Flash, many believe that if they use or aspire to use Flash, they should use Dreamweaver. In fact, users can integrate Flash animations into FrontPage-based web sites, so that’s not necessarily true. These facts make Dreamweaver popular with web professionals who have the time to learn the tool and probably create Flash animations. There are few features that Dreamweaver has that FrontPage doesn’t, though, and there are many features that FrontPage has that Dreamweaver doesn’t (e-commerce, usage analysis, SharePoint Team Services, etc.). Adobe GoLive is in third place in this category by market share. It is similar in many ways to Dreamweaver in that it is a tough application to use (looks like it was ported over from the Macintosh platform so isn’t easy for Windows users to learn) and integrates well with another tool that Adobe makes—Adobe PhotoShop. However, Adobe tutorials are quite good so they make it easier for users to learn. As with Dreamweaver, there are few features that GoLive offers that FrontPage doesn’t, and there are many features that FrontPage has that GoLive doesn’t (e-commerce, usage analysis, SharePoint Team Services, etc.). There are many low end competitors to FrontPage, and they come and go in the market. None of the low end tools have maintained much share for long. They are lower in price than FrontPage, but don’t offer the functionality and the support that users have come to expect from Microsoft.
• #17: Pricing, Packaging, and Licensing [slide is self-explanatory]
• #18: Where to go for more information [slide is self-explanatory]
• #19: Why You Should Buy Microsoft FrontPage version 2002 FrontPage version 2002 was developed in response to customer requests, site visits, and usability lab and focus group research. It was designed as a complete web site creation and management tool so that users, whether novices or experts at creating web sites, could first create exactly the site they want , complete with attention-getting graphics and features that would save them time by being easy to learn and understand because FrontPage is a member of the Microsoft Office product family and looks and works like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Second, we wanted to give users the power and control they wanted to be able to confidently manage their web site . To do this, we have given them the ability to analyze how their site is used with new usage analysis features, and given web professionals precision, control, and formatting choices to make FrontPage a tool that even experts can’t outgrow. We’ve also make improvements in helping to get sites onto the Internet faster than ever. Third, we’ve made some major new enhancements in the team collaboration and workgroup space with the SharePoint Team Services team web site solution, e-commerce functionality, and a wide variety of third party services and partners that build solutions on FrontPage. All of these major improvements make FrontPage version 2002 a complete web site authoring and management tool that has ease of use to get users started quickly, along with all of the tools and sophisticated technology to make it a tool users just don’t outgrow.