Introduction

FrontPage is the Microsoft Office web creation software. In this part of the book, you learn how to use advanced FrontPage features that enable you to create interactive content quickly and organize it into a Web.

Users who are familiar with FrontPage can use this part of the book as a refresher on the latest features that Microsoft added to make FrontPage more powerful as a content creation tool. Fast learners who have never used FrontPage may be able to complete this tutorial without studying more elementary materials. Novice users who are new to FrontPage, however, may find the pace of instruction too fast for a beginner. If you feel overwhelmed by the pace of instruction in this part of the book, you should first complete the Internet Literacy course, which contains a detailed introduction to FrontPage for novices.

The author considered carefully the subject area for the examples in this part of the book. The topic that was chosen is rocks. The subject of rocks is particularly well suited to learning about web design because there are different rock groupings. Deciding how to organize the rocks into the best navigational structure presents a challenge for the web designer. Because rocks are visual, they present an opportunity for the designer to learn
about the advanced imaging features in the latest version of FrontPage. People also buy rocks—in the form of gemstones—so this topic also lends itself to the e-commerce chapter that will teach you how to sell products and services over the Internet.

The sequence of instruction steps you through the design process in the order in which a developer typically goes about creating a website. In Chapter 3, you will use the latest page layout and image editing features of FrontPage to create the content, which comprises nine short pages about the basic kinds of rocks. Chapter 4 teaches you how to visualize webs. By rearranging the rocks pages into different navigational designs, you will learn to feel the shape of a web. In Chapter 5, you will apply and modify a theme to stylize the web’s presentation elements and navigation buttons. Later on, when you make changes to the web’s design, you will appreciate how FrontPage automatically modifies the navigation buttons and stylizes the web pages according to your theme.

Chapter 6 covers web security, which you use to restrict access to a web site and track the users who visit it. In chapter 7, you learn how to socialize a web with discussion forums and e-mail lists that enable your users to communicate. Chapter 8 concludes this part of the book with a tutorial on commercializing a web site. You will learn how easy it is to use a FrontPage e-commerce add-in to offer products and services for sale at your website.