Lesson 1: Building a New Web Site

Creating a Web with FrontPage

A Web site is the collection of a home page and its associated pages, graphics, documents, multimedia, and other files. Web sites are stored on a Web server or on a computer's hard drive. FrontPage-based Web sites also contain files that support FrontPage-specific functionality and allow Web sites to be opened, copied, edited, published, and administered with FrontPage.

In the previous procedures, you learned how easy it is to create a Web page with FrontPage. As soon as you start the application, you can start typing and editing, then save the document to your hard drive -- much like a word processor. While you can certainly choose to put together an entire Web site like this, it can take a lot of manual work and attention to detail to maintain hyperlinks and source files, and keep your content up to date.

When you save your pages to a Web site, FrontPage can automatically manage and repair hyperlinks, organize files and folders, maintain dynamic navigation bars, check spelling across all pages in the Web site, and generate reports that point out problems with your pages and files.

To create a new Web site

In the Answer Wizard, type:
How do I make a new Web site?

1. On the File menu, click Close to close the current page.
2. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Web.

   FrontPage displays the New dialog box. Here, you can choose from several Web site templates and wizards, specify where you want to save your Web site, and what you want to call it.

3. Make sure the One Page Web template is selected, and then press TAB.

   Pressing the TAB key moves the selection to the field where you specify the name and location of the new Web site.

4. In the Specify the location of the new Web box, change the suggested name to C:\My Documents\My Webs\Millennium and then click OK.

   FrontPage creates a new Web site named "Millennium" and displays its name in the title bar at the top of the FrontPage application window. Because you'll be working with several files in your Web site, FrontPage also displays the Folder List, where you can see the files and folders in your current Web site, similar to files and folders in Windows Explorer. You'll learn how to use the Folder List later, in Lesson 2.

   Navigation icon
5. Click the Navigation icon on the Views bar.

   When you have a Web site open, the icons on the Views bar let you look at the information in your Web site in different ways.

   Navigation view shows a graphical representation of the structure of your Web site. Because you created a one-page Web site, FrontPage has automatically designated it as the Web site's home page -- indicated with a small icon of a house. While in Navigation view, FrontPage also displays the Navigation toolbar, which you can drag anywhere on your screen.

   Next to the Views bar, FrontPage displays the optional Folder List, just like it did in Page view.

In a moment, you'll replace the new, empty home page with the one you created earlier in this lesson. First, however, you'll create the structure for the other four pages that the Millennium Celebration Web will have.

Creating a Web site structure in Navigation view enables features such as page banners and navigation bars that are automatically updated whenever you change, add, or remove pages in your Web site. This makes it easy to change things around. You'll learn more about these features later.

To create a navigation structure

New Page button

1. In Navigation view, click the New Page button on the toolbar.

   FrontPage creates a new page labeled "New Page 1" below the home page. Pages in Navigation view aren't the actual pages in the current Web site; they are placeholders that point to them. This way, you can easily experiment with the structure and organization of a Web site before you create its content.

2. To quickly create the remaining three pages, hold down CTRL on your keyboard and press N three times.

   CTRL+N is a keyboard shortcut for the New Page command. FrontPage supports common Windows and Microsoft Office accelerator keys that help speed up repetitive tasks. The pages you just created appear below the home page, because the home page was selected when you issued the command.

   In Navigation view, the selected page is blue, while others are yellow.

3. With the home page still selected, press TAB.

   Pressing the TAB key moves the selection to the next page in the structure and activates the page title for editing.

4. When New Page 1 is selected, type Background and then press TAB.

   "Background" is the page title of one of the pages you'll create for the Millennium Celebration Web. Next, you'll specify the page titles for the other pages.

5. When New Page 2 is selected, type Destinations and then press TAB.
6. When New Page 3 is selected, type Photo Album and then press TAB.
7. Finally, when New Page 4 is selected, type Links and then press ENTER.

   Pressing ENTER after editing a page title saves the new title without selecting another page. To deselect all pages, click anywhere outside the pages in Navigation view.

Your screen should now look like this:

An Alternate Way to Add Pages
You can add new pages in Navigation view by right-clicking a page and choosing the New Page command from the shortcut menu. This command will create a new page below the selected page.

You can quickly open pages in Page view for editing by double-clicking the pages in Navigation view or in the Folder List.

Next, you'll replace the blank home page FrontPage created from the Web site template by importing the home page you created and saved to your My Documents folder earlier in this lesson.

To import a page into a Web site

In the Answer Wizard, type:
How can I insert a file on my page?

1. In Navigation view, double-click the Home Page to open it in Page view.

   FrontPage opens the blank home page that was created from the Web site template.

   Folder List button
2. On the toolbar, click the Folder List button to hide the Folder List in Page view.
3. On the Insert menu, click File.

   FrontPage displays the Select File dialog box. Here, you can insert Web pages, word-processing documents, text files, and other documents on the current page.

4. In the Select File dialog box, navigate to the My Documents folder.
5. When My Documents is displayed in the Look in list of the Select File dialog box, click the file named homepage, and then click Open.

   FrontPage imports your previously saved home page to the current page.

   Save button
6. To save the current page to your Web site, click Save on the File menu, or click the Save button on the toolbar.

   FrontPage displays the Save Embedded Files dialog box. Here, you can preview, rename, save, and update embedded files that the current Web site will use.

   When you previously saved this page to the My Documents folder on your file system, FrontPage left the two pictures you inserted in their original location -- the FrontPage Tutorial folder. The home page merely pointed to the picture files without copying them to the same folder the page was saved to. To keep Web sites portable, however, you should always keep associated pages and files as part of the Web site that uses them.

7. In the Save Embedded Files dialog box, click OK.

   FrontPage saves the home page as Index.htm and saves copies of the embedded picture files, 2000.gif and Fp2000.gif, to the current Web site.

Home pages have reserved names
FrontPage will automatically name home pages one of two reserved names that you should not change unless you need to. If you are running local Web server software such as Microsoft Personal Web Server or Internet Information Services (IIS) on your computer, the home page will be named Default.htm. If you do not have a local Web server installed, or when you save a page to your local hard drive instead of a Web site on a Web server, the home page will be named Index.htm.
These names are reserved for home pages because Web browsers will automatically look for them when a site visitor types the URL to your Web site without a specific page reference.