FrontPage 2000 Navigation

[Nancy E.]

Is it possible to build a FrontPage site without using the navigation
structure or system that is built in? If so, how would I link the pages? Is
there a tutorial that could show me how? (Sorry to ask but I couldn't find
anything it the Help sectiona about this).

 

[Rick Budde]

Nancy:

If I have read between the lines correctly, I would guess
you are very novice at web site design.

If so, you could simply create "hyperlinks", what you
have called "links". A hyperlink in its simpliest form is
text that when clicked jumps to another web page. This is
the most very basic concept in web site design and in
fact the Internet itself.

You would start by creating some text that is descriptive
of the page the user would jump to should they click on
it. For sake of example, say that the text is "News".
Highlight the word "News" and then right click your mouse
to call up a context sensitive menu. One of the options
listed is "Hyperlink". Click on that. A dialog will be
presented that will allow you to select from the various
web pages on your site. Let's say that the one you want
to go to is titled "national_news.htm". Click on that and
you have your hyperlink. When you have completed those
steps the text, "News", will contain an underline which
tells the user that a hyperlink exists.

The Navigation view that you referred to in your question
is used when you want to create a set of "buttons" with
text on them that will allow the user to navigate through
your site. Using buttons will add a bit more pizzaz to
your site as compared to simple text hyperlinks.

You did not ask but there is also a special type of
hyperlink called a "bookmark" that is useful when you
want to allow the user to jump to a particular spot on a
web page whose content is long enough that the scroll
bars are necessary to see the whole page.

You should be able to find out more on both hyperlinks
and bookmarks in Front Page help.

Before you struggle too much you might want to invest
some money and time in a basic book on web site design
for the version of Front Page you have.

 

[Nancy E.]

Hi Rick,

Thanks so much for your answer. I am a newbie to this and you have helped me
a lot. I think I now have the general concept. Is there something I should
be concerned about by not using the built in navigation? (I'm going to B&N
this weekend for a book).

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
Is it possible to build a FrontPage site without using the navigation
structure or system that is built in? If so, how would I link the pages? Is
there a tutorial that could show me how? (Sorry to ask but I couldn't find
anything it the Help sectiona about this).

What you do is hit new..page...blank page, write all

your pages, include the hyperlinks, save them properly
and click on view navigation then click and drag your
hompage into the blue area, then click and drag all the
other pages under it, enable your hyperlinks first then
preview it in the browser to make sure they all work.

 

[Rick Budde]

The "built-in" navigation is just a tool in the Front
Page software that allows you a more visual approach of
defining a navigation structure for the user.

It will also help you visualize the structure of your
site into an organization similar to the menus that
pulldown in today's Windows & Mac software programs.

The big advantage, as I said in my earlier reply, is when
you decide to use "buttons" to direct the user to the
navigation structure of your web site. To continue the
analogy with software menus, these buttons would
represent the top menu bar (File, Edit, etc with, of
course, titles specific to your site) you see in software
programs. Most sites use some sort of buttons even if
they appear to be textual in nature.

In order to use buttons in Front Page, you must first
apply a theme to the site. The next thing is to Insert a
link bar (which contains the buttons) somewhere on your
web page. This link bar should be viewable from all of
your web pages (again think in terms of the software menu
analogy which are in view no matter what you are doing
with the program).

Your B&N book should help you with this process. Another
thing that will help you is to create a web site using
one or more of Front Page's templates or wizards. You may
not elect to keep the site but creating these sites will
assist in your learning curve.

 

[MJ Baldwin]

I personally like the build in Navigation Frontpage offers, as it makes
ongoing site management a lot easier.

If you couple this with share borders, navigation becomes a breeze.

I also personally stay away from Themes in Frontpage, and use CSS for
styling, to ensure pages are served up quicker.

A great book to get you started is How to do everything with Frontpage 2002
http://shop.osborne.com/cgi-bin/osborne/0072133643.html - the FP 2003 book
is also available - http://shop.osborne.com/cgi-bin/osborne/007222973X.html.
This book will help you out learning HTML basics and an introduction to
CSS - http://shop.osborne.com/cgi-bin/osborne/0072231297.html.

Also, some useful CSS websites are:
http://www.mako4css.com/
http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp
http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/index.html
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/css/references/css2ref.html
http://css.maxdesign.com.au/selectutorial/index.htm
There's probably a whole host of others as well.

Mike