Dear Joe,
The "dark brown rectangular box" that you refer to in your question is
called a banner. A FrontPage 'banner' is an ordinary .gif file; it is
inexplicably hidden from you in a folder you cannot see, and you may
not have even known existed in your website. You cannot modify it
outside of the FrontPage interface (save for importing your own, and
then THAT image becomes hidden), and is really only the backdrop for
the final image displayed on every page. In the folder, /_derived/, on
your site, an individual banner is created every time you add a page
to your site, and add it to the NAVIGATION VIEW- the final banner is a
unique .gif created by FrontPage (without your knowledge) that has the
NAVIGATION VIEW title superimposed over it. In your case, the original
image is located at:
http://www.miafacts.org/_derived/index.htm_cmp_exp_mod100_bnr.gif.
FrontPage is a funny bird. Most of the MVP's here got their first
taste of .asp coding through it, as did I. When it first came out in
the late '90's, it did things with a few clicks (like site searching,
data collection and display, site reports and management, proto-CSS
theming, navigation bars, hit counters, etc.) that required huge
amounts of time and a great deal of experience in any other program,
if those features were possible at all.
On the other hand, it is often an absolutely insane dictator, imposing
it's own proprietary and usually illegal HTML (HyperText Markup
Language) snippets into your work (e.g., <meta name="Microsoft Border"
content="tlb">), sneaking around behind your back creating "_vti_cnf"
folders within every folder you create, bragging about itself in
secret through the use of completely unnecessary and absolutely
useless 'meta' tags (e.g., "<meta NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Microsoft
FrontPage 6.0">"), and omitting important tags such a 'DOCTYPE'
declaration.
Joe, you can examine the validity of your HTML code for your home page
at:
http://www.htmlhelp.com/cgi-bin/val...miafacts.org/index.htm&warnings=yes&input=yes
and
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=h...(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0.
While on the subject of DOCTYPE declaration, I encourage ALL users of
FrontPage gimmicks (such as borders and themes) to add the following
code to ALL pages with ANY HTML code at all on them, just before the
<html> tag, at, or near, the top of the page in FrontPage 'Code' view:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
This declares the document to be HTML 4.01 Transitional. While it will
not actually correct the crazy code that FrontPage inserts, it will at
least repair a glaring omission in your pages. The use of the
"DOCTYPE" HTML 4.01 Transitional, while now obsolete, comes the
closest to describing the correct rendering of FrontPage's eccentric
code snippets to browsers, search engine spiders, and HTML validators.
According to HTML standards, each HTML document requires a document
type declaration. The "DOCTYPE" begins the HTML document and tells a
validator which version of HTML to use in checking the document's
syntax. You will have at least one less error to correct when
attempting to create valid HTML pages in FrontPage.
Anyway, Joe, back to your problem.
By using a page banner, you can quickly add titles to your Web pages.
If you have applied a theme (a set of coordinated graphic elements to
a document, page, or across all pages in a web site) to the active
page, page banners use the same styles and graphics as the theme.
Otherwise, the page banner just displays text, which you can format.
Before you can use page banners, you must set up your Web site's
navigation structure in Navigation view (the view in FrontPage that is
used to create, display, print, and change the navigation structure of
a Web site. Navigation view includes a folder-like view, from which
you can drag and drop pages into your site structure.). A page banner
is not visible on a page unless the page is included in the navigation
structure. Page banners use the page titles from Navigation view; if
you change this title for a page, its page banner label will also
change.
After you add a page banner to a page, you can change the text that is
displayed on it, and you can specify whether to display a graphic or
just text. The page banner picture that is displayed is the banner
that is associated with the theme for that particular page.
To fix your problem, open your site in FrontPage. Switch to Navigation
view (on the View menu, click Navigation). Change the titles of the
pages in Navigation view by right-clicking on the image of the page,
and selecting 'Rename'. Remember to keep the title shorter than the
banner will allow, considering banner font size and font. Attempt to
make the page titles about the same length; it make page changes less
jarring. When you have finished renaming all pages with banners,
double click your home page image to return to the page editor view.
FrontPage will (again, behind your back) save your navigation changes
so that the banners become visible.
You might have to close all open browsers to see the changes;
FrontPage themes cache in your 'Temporary Internet Files' folder
exceedingly well. You may even have to clear your browser cache and/or
purge your temporary FrontPage files (Tools -> Site Settings... ->
Delete Temporary Files), in order to see the results. Also, you may
find it helpful, in a complex FrontPage web, to print the navigation
structure. Here's how: on the View menu, click Navigation - on the
File menu, click Print. Set the printing options, such as the printer
name and number of copies that you want, and then click OK.
Further insights into Navigation view can be read at the following
link -
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/frontpage/HA011873861033.aspx?pid=CL100570711033
- it is an article excerpted from the book: "Microsoft® Office
FrontPage® 2003 Inside Out" by Jim Buyens.
The full Microsoft FrontPage online course, really a comprehensive
multimedia classroom, is at:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/CR061832701033.aspx.
Even some Microsoft FrontPage MVP's would learn a thing or two from
that instruction.
Oh, one more thing - and this is really important - your search page
is named "search page.htm", but is rendered at
http://www.miafacts.org/search page.htm.
Do NOT use spaces in web file or folder names! There is no such thing
as a 'space'; the syntax of 'HyperText Markup Language' changes
spaces to read "%20". If you want to separate words in file names for
ease of use, use an underscore (e.g., search_page.htm). Just go and
change the page's file name (right-click on the page in the folder
view, and select "Rename") from the existing "search page.htm" to
"search_page.htm" in FrontPage; when it asks you if you want to update
hyperlinks to that page, answer yes. Rename any other files or folders
with spaces the same way, and never use spaces again in web file
names. Never.
I hope my answer and references have been helpful, and assist you in
solving your issue. I look forward to seeing the site after you have
finished this troubleshooting episode. The best way to become a good
webmaster is through learning to anticipate and avoid errors, and that
can only happen by making mistakes. I have been a software engineer
for over a dozen years and have goofed thousands of times. But I never
made the same mistake twice. I expect no less from you.
I hope to hear from you soon. Until I do, Joe, I remain,
Sincerely,
Nicholas Savalas -
http://savalas.tv
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