Manually Creating Web Templates

This section describes the steps need to create web templates with FrontPage. This procedure will create a web template called Sample:

• Create a web using the FrontPage Explorer on your local web server, or copy a web from a remote server to a local web server.
  
  
• Use the Windows Explorer to locate the folder containing the web’s content. By default, this is a folder under “C:\FrontPage Webs\Content”. For example, if your web is called Test, then the web content is located in “C:\FrontPage Webs\Content\Test”.
  
  
• Using the Windows Explorer, create a folder called Sample.tem under the Webs folder of where the FrontPage client is installed. By default this is would be the “C:\Program Files\Microsoft FrontPage\Webs” folder.
  
  
• Copy the web’s images folder (if any) into Sample.tem. For example, if the web is called Test, copy “C:\FrontPage Webs\Content\Test\images”into Sample.tem. If you are using the Windows Explorer, be sure to hold down the CTRL key when doing the copy, or else the folder will be moved, not copied.
  
  
• Copy the web’s pages in the main web directory (“C:\FrontPage Webs\Content\Test”) into Sample.tem. Do not copy access control files, such as #haccess.ctl.
  
  
• Using NotePad, create a file called Sample.inf, in the Sample.tem folder.
  
  
• Create an [info] section in Sample.inf with appropriate title and description keys. For example, set the title to “Sample Web” and the description to “Create a sample web from a template.”. Add any tasks or web meta info variables in their appropriate sections.
  
  
• If you have any content in the web directory _private, repeat the above steps, copying the pages to the same subfolder (_private) in the web template.
  
  
• If your web includes any content in the pre-defined subfolders (images or _private), you will need to create a [FileList] section in the Sample.inf file as described above, in order to make sure those files get uploaded properly by the FrontPage Explorer.

The FrontPage Explorer will not create new web sub-folders when loading web templates. To create deep webs from existing content, use the Import Web Wizard, or simply drag and drop a folder from the Windows Explorer or desktop onto the appropriate folder in the FrontPage Explorer’s folder view.