Microsoft front page free download

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Introduction

Microsoft FrontPage was and still is an excellent, but underrated HTML editor, a real masterpiece of Microsoft software engineering. If very powerful, very flexible (for example it can be used without FrontPage extensions) and amazingly user-friendly.  I definitely prefer it to Dreamweaver.  Like Windows XP and Office it belong to classic Microsoft products, products create before Microsoft lost leadership and direction and started to imitate Apple.

The quality of FrontPage interface is close to the quality to Excel   interface and that means that it is superior to other Microsoft products and is far above most competitors. Tremendous amount of insight went into designing of this interface and it shows, although unfortunately some features you discover only after several years of use (documentation is not that good and does not emphasize innovative features present as well as optimal ways of using them).

Frontpage can be installed and used on Windows 7, 8 and Windows   There are some nuances on Windows 10 -- see

Many people view FrontPage as a tool for beginners. That's a completely incorrect view. While FrontPage is definitely  "beginner friendly" it is a very powerful professional tool. As such it is suitable for developing/maintaining complex and/or large (like this one) sites.  It has very rich functionality and after almost twenty years (since ) of usage I still discover new possibilities and shortcuts almost each month.

Microsoft FrontPage has come a long way since it was first introduced in Each version up to and including Frontpage was a significant step forward. Version (seventh version) is a mature product that contain probably the best HTML editor on the market (again I do not see much differences in HTML editor functionality between Microsoft Expression Web. and FrontPage and currently I do not plan to switch).  And because its derivative Microsoft SharePoint Designer is free, this is also the best free HTML editor.

As a really powerful and flexible HTML editor, FrontPage has little or no competition. Dreamweaver is definitely weaker in many (but not all) areas and less user friendly; it is also more expensive.  For example I never got used to the crippled way Dreamweaver supports bookmarks. FrontPage support is more logical and more transparent.

Like several other top Microsoft products it is now abandonware.  Looks like in any aging tech company Microsoft brass degenerated quicker then middle level managers and programmers, which create products ;-). That's why such decisions are made.

It can be installed on Windows 7 without problems. Or, more correctly, with minor problems -- selection of a group of files in Folder List does not work as well as in XP. But it can be still done in folder View.

Frontpage and  Microsoft Expression Web also can be used on Microsoft Windows 8 or 10 tablets such as Microsoft Surface Pro (by modern standards this is very small and fast application).

Brief history

FrontPage was initially created by the Cambridge, Massachusetts company Vermeer Technologies Incorporated, evidence of which can be easily spotted in filenames and directories prefixed in web sites created using FrontPage. It was founded in by Charles H. Ferguson ( see his book High Stakes, No Prisoners A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars) and Randy Forgaard. Vermeer was acquired by Microsoft in January and most of the development that led to creation of FrontPage was done under Microsoft umbrella. The difference with early versions is so great that we can legitimately call FrontPage a genuine Microsoft product.  Andrew Schulert was the brilliant technical mind and architect of all version of FrontPage up to and including FrontPage He managed significantly enhance and polish the product during rather brief seven years period of FrontPage development in Microsoft. See FrontPage history

Original Frontpage

The most important versions of original line of software products were Frontpage , Frontpage , Frontpage and Frontpage

Frontpage was the last release of the original line of this sotware. There is no FrontPage -- in a misguided attempt to catch up with Dreamweaver Microsoft replaced it with  Microsoft Expression Web (as of Dec 20, also abandonware) adding people from Dreamweaver team which move the development in a new direction, the direction that I don't appreciate.  Actually the statement that there is no FrontPage is not completely true as Microsoft SharePoint Designer   can generally be viewed as (semi-debugged) Frontpage   See FrontPage history

Microsoft SharePoint Designer

There is a free version of some derivative of FrontPage called Microsoft SharePoint Designer   This is the best free HTML editor available for Windows. Actually for any OS in existence. It's somewhat buggy, even with SP3 applied, but still it is the best free HTML editor by a wide margin. No other free editor even comes close. See Free HTML Editors. Here is some info from Wikipedia:

Microsoft SharePoint Designer (formerly known as Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer) is a specialized HTML editor and web designfreeware for creating or modifying Microsoft SharePoint sites and web pages. It is a part of Microsoft SharePoint family of products.^[2] It was formerly a part of Microsoft Office families of products, but was not included in any of the Microsoft Office suites.

SharePoint Designer and its sister product, Microsoft Expression Web are successors of Microsoft FrontPage. While Expression Web serves as the full-featured successor to FrontPage, SharePoint Designer features focuses on designing and customizing Microsoft SharePoint websites. For instance, it only includes SharePoint-specific site templates. It retains more FrontPage features than Expression Web, such as web components, database, marquee, hit counter, navigation bars, map insert, etc. Although SharePoint Designer (this first version of this product) could be used as a generic HTML editor, SharePoint Designer (the subsequent version) may no longer operate in absence of Microsoft SharePoint Server or Microsoft SharePoint Foundation.^[3]

All-in-all SharePoint Designer is a weaker version of incredible Microsoft HTML editor FrontPage I used it for a week and found mass of errors even with SharePoint Designer Service Pack 3 applied.  The whole product a little bit smells with outsourcing :-(. Some annoying for me (I am a longtime FrontPage user, your mileage might vary):

1. Replacements in code view produces some strange side effects sometimes doubling the first letter of the sentence in which replacement was performed. I am not kidding.
2. Replacements of html tags are performed incorrectly. For example when I tried to replace with in the code view, the resulting code in several places contained closing bracket that was converted to which invalidates the HTML.
3. Interpretation of  I and B buttons via styles with insertion of inline CSS stylesheet is questionable. The same is true about conversion of changing color for a fragment into span with style. It should be an option.  There might an option to turn this behaviour off. 
4. Attempt to shift code right does not insert tag like in "old" FrontPage, but generates a style definition for inline CSS stylesheet and adds a style to the paragraph.  It's plausible, but very questionable solution. If they want to be that clever they should give the Web page designer a choice as it deviates from "old FrontPage" behavior.   tag is not a deprecated tag so it's legitimate for indented parts (which are typically quotes). IMHO the blockquote tag has not changed from HTML 4 to HTML 5 and can be used with cite tag, like in
5. There is no application of custom CSS stylesheet to code view.
6. SharePoint Designer changes modification dates of many files that were not edited making tracing you changes based on modification date of the files virtually impossible. That's a really stupid bug .  

You can probably write a "demonoronizer" script to deal with all this idiosyncrasies but for personally that does not look an attractive alternative to commercial version (Frontpage ).

NOTE: But if want go this road and is a good programmer but want to limit yourself to WISIVIG interface, you can write similar script for Ms Word which might as also not so bad idea, although it essentially deprives you of many thing that Frontpage provides.  You can also enjoy much better spellchecker.

Expression Web

Another alternative is now free Expression Web . Expression Web was a product that replaced Frontpage   and which was developed (without much success) from till (ten years, longer then Frontpage development). 

Expression Web development lasted till end of (the last released version was version 4) and now it also became abandonware. The design direction taken was questionable and it is not free from problems. I used it only occasionally so in no way I am expert in this product. The most serious issue is that there is no feel that the same talent that produced previous versions of FrontPage up to and that Expression Web developers were substantially weaker in architectural thinking then the previous team. They also did not have a clear vision of what product should be and it shows. For example, despite four versions released there was no noticeable improvements of  the HTML editor. Those suckers were even unable to change definitely broken regex engine ;-).

After all those years as an HTML editor it is still not much better then FrontPage and contains mostly the same errors. I tried Expression Web twice (Initial Expression Web and Expression Web ) and for me upgrade is not worth hassle.  I might be wrong, but key deficiencies that I have found in Frontpage are still present in Microsoft Expression Web but macros are gone. 

• Much weaker that in MS Word spellchecker. The quality of spellchecker is still dramatically lower then in MS Word. that did not manage to improve it much since Frontpage  
• Complete inability to understand the value of macros. Weak macro capabilities without the ability to record macros: VB macro capabilities were removed in Expression Web and no viable alternative is present in Expression Web It is not that in FrontPage they are perfect. The designers for some reason thought that developers should use DOM model is analyzing HTML text. I strongly doubt that this is the only or the best approach to writing macros in HTML editor. Also there is no macrorecoder which make learning API more difficult (you can use Word as a proxy but there no one-to-one correspondence. )

• The same semi-debugged and idiosyncratic regular expression engine. Again,those suckers were even unable to change definitely broken regex engine ;-).

• The same inability to treat custom CSS stylesheets as first class objects (adding styles from the custom spreadsheet to styles menu).  

Only one annoying problem with FrontPage was fixed in Expression Web -- the inability to apply styles from the attached stylesheets.

Microsoft changed the way Expression Web can be extended in version 4. Version 1 and 2 rely on old VBA modelo  of macro programming. It looks like this API is still available and can be used using Visual Studio with www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar, but details are fuzzy. Version 4 relies for extension on .Net add-ons and that idea looks even worse that an old way in a sense that it make the number of developers capable of extending FrontPage even smaller.

Frontpage macro facilities

Initial attempt to introduce macro facilities into Frontpage was a failure. What they implemented was difficult to use and barely better then nothing.  These macro facilities existed in almost unchanged form till Expression Web They are not very well documented and very difficult to use. See Frontpage Macro Programming for more information

New macro facilities, introduced in Expression Web can be called one step forward and two step back. Here is one a telling response in the thread And what I do with vba macros in Expression Web 4

ShqTth

New system has me playing around with too many files and too many settings. VB macros was easier.

I don't think the new system is that well integrated, example creating new addins is a pain in the ____. There should be a guided editor system for creating them. And screw the XML. xml sucks ____. Editors make xml, i shouldn't have to mess with xml and manifest files.

the VB macro editor was easier, everything was divided into subs/functions, and the screen spilts and groups stuff so you know what is what, and what is where.

The vb macro editor took me 5 mins to figure out and to write my first macro, but the new way has me hunting for solutions because the lack of integration.

Jim Cheshire

There is an add-in builder that was written by one of the guys on the product group for Web 4. It makes it really easy to create a manifest without looking at XML. www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar

As someone who has programmed macros and add-ins for FrontPage and Expression Web for almost 15 years, I can tell you that the new extensibility model is far easier than the old API. If you're truly interested in extending the product, I encourage you to seriously check out the new model. Based on your comments, I can't believe you've given it much of a look.

Jim

Jim Cheshire

I'm not at all a professional developer. I am a hobbyist developer, and I have to say, not a very good one at that! Programming is not my talent.

A Web developer absolutely must know JavaScript to design a modern site. That same developer must also know HTML and CSS. These are the exact same skills necessary to develop add-ins for Expression Web 4.

VBA and the VBA Editor in Expression Web were actually part of Office. When Expression Web 3 moved away from the Office code, macros were no longer available. However, if you're still interested in extending Expression Web using Visual Basic, you can certainly still do that using Visual Studio. That object model is still available to you.

Jim

The built-in macro language (VBA) is powerful, but extremely obscure (to the level of un-usability) Macro Programming capabilities.  They are very difficult to use and this probably the most grave design blunder which Frontpage developers committed. They also failed to include Macro Recorder,  but they do have value. Even simple macros can dramatically improve what you can do with Frontpage, especially if you know Perl.  For example a simple macro like

1. Save file
2. Run external program on the file
3. Load file

gives you possibility of using external scripts (for example Perl scripts) to process your pages.  Not that it is easy to write :-), but you need to do it once.  This macro is available from Microsoft Examples and can be used immeduatly. See Frontpage Macro Programming

I would like to stress it again: I am using FrontPage from on daily basis and so far learned only tiny fraction of its capabilities.  And in no way I would be able to support such a huge website with other tools.

Support of regular expressions

Frontpage supports regular expressions in search (with buggy and idiosyncratic regex engine), has good, transparent support of CCS (although support of  external style sheets is inferior) and you can edit you we-site from multiple windows by selecting Window/New Window (separation of activities is your responsibility, as attempt to edit the same page can lead to loss of last changes). 

You then can open several projects and cut and paste folders and files between them. You can also drag and drop or copy and paste content from one page to another and from IE or Firefox to Frontpage (IT exports way too much markup and is annoying in this regard). Firefox has a good mechanism for export of small HTML fragments into your documents, but when exporting the link to the page from the navigation bar it does not substitute title.

In case you change the name of the file linked to other pages on your web site all references will be changed automatically. This is an excellent very attractive feature of Frontpage.

In case you change the name of the file linked to other pages on your web site all references will be changed automatically.

Unfortunately FrontPage does not support SSI: you can use them but if you move page, you need to correct path manually, unless you use absolute path. For external stylesheets and internal links and images FrontPage corrects links for you which is a big help.

Truth be told sometimes Frontpage tries to be a little bit too helpful: when you paste fragment of Web page from IE, FrontPage paste the stylesheet used automatically for your complete pleasure :-). In most cases this is an overkill and to delete this crap is an annoying repetitive task. At the end I stopped using IE with FrontPage.  

One serious problem with Frontpage as HTML editor is that it does not understand external CCS  (it render page according to them, but they are not preset in styles menu). At the same time it works really well with "inline" styles. So you can use internal styles while developing page and automatically replace them with the link to external style sheet when you deploy the page.

Although many professional Web builders dismiss FrontPage in favor Dreamweaver, and Dreamweaver is somewhat better for working with CCS FrontPage is pretty competitive and it remains one of the most popular solution for editing websites.

Also there is a widespread misunderstanding that if you use FrontPage you need to use FrontPage extensions on the server (I actually never used them).  What is funny is that Dreamweaver product manager (Wayne Smith,) came around  and try to mold FrontPage in Dreamweaver fashion. He definitely succeeded in the area of CSS support which would be done by the team anyway, but the value of other changes and level of real progress is unclear: as of EW 4 I would say the product suffer from the lack of vision and lack of attention to HTML writers needs.    

To really get the most out of FrontPage, though, you have to know how to use some of its not-quite-intuitive features. Among them:

• Ability to working in split windows (with two views: rendered HTML and raw html) simultaneously
• Customizing your menus, and creating custom buttons for the macros you write.  
• Automating simple tasks using stored "Search and Replace" operations
• Ability to create a small library of code snippets  and insert them in pages (only in code view).
• Ability to drag a file from Folder list to create internal links
• Ability to correct links in case page is moved to the other folder.
• Ability to resize images and set transparent background color (great for eliminating pictures monochrome background)

FrontPage Code Snippets

Type while in the Code Pane to open the Code Snippet window. Select the first option for customizing the list. Click Add. Type a Keyword and Description to help you know what the code snippet is for, then type the code snippet into the bottom box.

Tip: You can use pipe symbol to mark the caret position after insertion

Here is short information about code snippets as this is a really powerful productivity tool few FrontPage users know about (code snippets menu is active only in code view, the key combination is ):

To create a code snippet

1. In FrontPage, open the Tools menu and click on Page Options.
2. Click on the Code Snippets tab.
3. Click Add.
4. In the Add Code Snippet dialog box, enter the following values:
   Keyword: css1
   Description: CSS reference
   Code:
5. Click OK.

The new code snippet appears in the list of available snippets on the Code Snippets tab in the Page Options dialog box, and you can insert the code snippet into your files by using the keyword "css1".

To insert a code snippet

1. Switch to Code view and position your insertion point where you want to insert the code. Press CTRL+ENTER. You see a drop-down list (similar to the IntelliSense drop-down list) with all the code snippets available on your computer.
2. Type css1. As you type the keyword that you assigned, notice that the selected code snippet changes. In many cases, you do not even need to finish typing the keyword before FrontPage highlights the correct code snippet.
3. Press Enter. FrontPage inserts the code into your page at the insertion point.

If you often work in Code view, you may want to turn on the Code View toolbar, which includes access to all code snippets. To display the toolbar, on the View menu, click Toolbars, and select Code View. To use the toolbar, position your insertion point where you want to insert the code, and then click the List Code Snippets icon on the Code View toolbar and double-click the code snippet that you want to insert.

Note   The Code View toolbar is available only in Code view or when the insertion point is in the code window in Split view. It is not available in Design view or when the insertion point is in the design window in Split view.

FrontPage distributed database

Frontpage uses a set of special file which constitute Frontpage database. Among them the most important are subdirectories prefixed such as which are automatically created (and recreated, if deleted) in each directory of the web site. See  List of Special Files and Directories Maintained by FrontPage. This directory contain Frontpage database with one file per file contained in web directory, for example for file

\Public_html\Algorithms\bit_www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar

there will be database record

\Public_html\Algorithms\_vti_cnf\bit_www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar

Data base record contain all links of the current page to other pages on the web site. In other words folders hold meta data regarding the files in particular directory such as  date last published, DWTs attached to which pages, include files included where, links to other pages etc.
These folders are NEVER published - they exist only on your local machine.  If extensions are installed on the remote website the meta data there will be updated during the publish process - again the files themselves are not transferred.

Records in  folders allows Frontpage automatically correct internal links if you move the page into other directory or rename the page. You can even move folders from one subtree to another and all links will be automatically corrected.

The presence of those file on your local machine also allow Frontpage track the changes to your site, so it knows what files are new, changed and so on so it can determine which files actually need to be published. They are also useful so you can see (in design time) the features such as shared borders and include pages working on the spot, instead of having to publish the page to the web (like
you would if using standard Server Side Includes).

Frontpage data base is very scalable and can support web-site with 10K pages or more.

The other big part of special files is implementing Frontpage extensions. I advise you not to mess with them. They contain script, images for buttons and background, styles, etc which provides a uniform and eye pleasing web of you web site. But both scalability and reliability is a problem, especially when you web site grows beyond, say, pages.

Due to presence of Frontpage database there are some errors that are often manifest themselves with the message The server "" timed out. The current request did not complete successfully.

Here is a good descript of the problem:

The server "" timed out. The current request did not complete successfully.

Asked by: pgithens 

I've been working on the same website with FP for nearly a year with no problems. The website has grown but is not huge. Two days ago I went to open it and make a couple of changes and I suddenly get the dreaded server "" timed out message. I've searched the web and there appear to be a variety of different causes for this, none of which seem to apply. I'd made no change to the theme or anything else of significance in recent weeks. To be sure, I deleted the folder that had my last updates in it. That didn't solve anything. (I've since put it back.) At this point, I can't open the website folder or any of the files from Frontpage.

Bear in mind, this is just when I open Frontpage on my local computer . . . not when I try to publish the site. I've tried stopping the firewall in case it was trying to hit the website at startup for some reason but that fixed nothing either.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

To the best of my knowledge, the problem is that at some point, your computer stopped working while you were working on a web site. There is corruption in the folder.

A couple of minor breakthroughs on this front.

• This is a local error and it affects a branch of web site tree, not the whole tree.
• The first thing to clean all FP temp files.
  • Go to  www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar  and download FP Cleaner ( with Expression Web Designer and SharePoint Designer support ) Download links are at the bottom of the page. Run the functions that clear: The Hidden Temporary files. The Hidden Cache (*.web) files."
  • Run "recalculating hyperlinks". ()
    
• If this does not help, then create a blank, or empty site using the same name of a different disk. You then copy over your files from your existing web and, hey presto, it all opens and works again.
  • "I created a new directory, and copied all of the information from the old directory. Then, I deleted the folder. When I opened the new folder in front page, it asked if I wanted to ad the Frontpage information to the folder; I answered yes. You will notice that you can access the folder through front page, but that the navigation and other front page specifics are missing. I copied the file "structure" found in the folder from the old folder to the new one, while front page was closed, and was able to recover my navigation. I just rebuilt the rest as needed. "

Note this is a basic explanation based on my understanding of (some) of the Frontpage capabilities.

Please note that several directories are present of server side if you are using Frontpage extensions. They are required for Frontpage extensions to function properly. You do not need them if you do not use Frontpage extension on your web site. See

Using Frontpage  as a poor man personal wiki engine

At the beginning you usually don't need anything complex and powerful html editor (for example Frontpage or some free version of it) can serve as your wiki engine.  In no way you need Apache and MySQL to run you personal database, unless it became really, really big which will happen in 10 years or so ;-). As long as you have less that several thousand pages you do not a complex engine to run you wiki. Frontpage capabilities are more then enough and it can serve as both an editor and presentation engine. While I recommend (and use myself) a commercial product (FrontPage), two abandonware alternatives are available too. One is SharePoint Designer The second is Microsoft Expression Web

Categories and subcategories can be imitated using subfolders -- name of subfolder is the name of the category. For example

./Suse/Applications ./Suse/Applications/Apache ./Suse/Authentication ./Suse/Backup ./Suse/Bulletin ./Suse/Hardening ./Suse/Images ./Suse/Installation ./Suse/Installation/Downloads_and_burning ./Suse/Installation/Guidelines ./Suse/Installation/Novell_book ./Suse/Installation/Oracle ./Suse/Installation/PXE_boot ./Suse/Networking ./Suse/Performance_tuning ./Suse/Quotes ./Suse/Registration ./Suse/Security ./Suse/Security/Images ./Suse/Startup_and_shutdown ./Suse/Startup_and_shutdown/Images ./Suse/Troubleshooting ./Suse/Troubleshooting/Images ./Suse/Upgrades_and_patching ./Suse/Upgrades_and_patching/Packages ./Suse/Upgrades_and_patching/Whatsnew ./Suse/Yast

Frontpage can link html pages made from saved emails and helpdesk tickets which can be held in a separate websites.

On a regular RPM harddrive Frontpage scales to, say, hundred thousand HTML pages. Multiply this at least by factor of two in case you use SSD disks.  The main problem is slow search and slow creation of Frontpage reports (which are pretty useful tool, especially recently modified files report). Slow down in creation of reports is really noticeable after 10K pages but still manageable till one hundred thousand pages. Global operations speed is also affected. For example replacing some string globally (in all pages) can take several minutes.  Speed of loading pages for editing or reading does not depend on the number of files in your web.

Frontpage provide some capabilities of indexing of documents and capability to search them from the editor as well as several useful repot (recent change, etc).  Frontage search  and replace is very helpful. Replace can work with the set of pages (one or several folders) or even the whole website.

When page is moved Frontpage adjusts relative links automatically both on the page you move and in all pages that reference this page.  

Frontpage HTML editor is simply great. It's not as powerful and flexible as MS Word, but no other editor comes close because it provides view of raw html. You can even use it instead of MS Work for creation of small documents.  I do.  The only noticeable deficiency is that spell checker is much worse then in MS Word.

Frontpage  can and should be augmented with standard Unix utilities as all you pages are text (html) files and grep and find work with them perfectly well. Search and replace operation can be stored. See Frontpage Tips

Frontpage also provides adequate Web publishing capabilities with skin and other cosmetics and creation of index and menu for pages. Those capabilities called Frontpage extensions work both for  Unix and Windows. 

Just systematic browsing through your old records open a wealth of forgotten but extremely useful information for you. In a very deep way changing database format and reloading your knowledge database in a new format is a very constructive and useful activity. This is time well spend.

I think that for the first ten years or so you can easy use Frontpage only personal database (and publish some branches as public web site using Frontpage extensions, see below). 

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NEWS CONTENTS

• : Can I run MS Front Page on Windows 10 ( Aug 26, , www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar )
• : How to Set Compatibility Mode for Apps in Windows 10 by Melanie Pinola ( Aug 24, , www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar )
• : FrontPage to Windows 10 ( Jul 29, , www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar )
• : Understanding the Libraries Feature in Windows 7 ( Apr 22, , www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar )
• : Get CrossOver and run Windows Software on Mac or Linux CodeWeavers ( Nov 10, , www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar )
• : Using special mouse button as save button for Frontpage. ( Dec 24, )
• : Copying files from folder list of one instance of Frontpage to another Fronpage instance (from one web site to another website) ( Feb 08, )
• : TIP: Search of string with leading blanks ( Feb 08, )
• : Expression Web is now available as a free download from the Microsoft Download Center, and no new versions will be developed ( Expression Web is now available as a free download from the Microsoft Download Center, and no new versions will be developed, Dec 22, )
• : Microsoft Expression Web now FREE ( December 20, , Microsoft )
• : Download SharePoint Designer ( Microsoft Download Center )
• : To see end of paragraph mark, broken tags and comments in design view of Frentpage ( Nov 16, )
• : Page options has setting for tag autocompletion. ( Nov 16, )
• : Windows Web App Gallery - Install an App ( Windows Web App Gallery - Install an App, Apr 26, )
• : How to process loaded page (or all opened pages) with the external program ( How to process loaded page (or all opened pages) with the external program, Apr 25, )
• : Download details SharePoint Designer ( Download details SharePoint Designer , Oct 04, )
• : Special Paste ( Aug 09, )
• : Customizing Code Snippets in FrontPage ( Customizing Code Snippets in FrontPage , Apr 05, )
• : Microsoft FrontPage to Expression Web ( Microsoft FrontPage to Expression Web, )
• : Office FrontPage is out, blogging is in - News - Office Software by David Flynn \ ( Office FrontPage is out, blogging is in - News - Office Software, May 24, )
• : Wayne Smith on WinFX by Matt Nicholson ( Wayne Smith on WinFX, )
• : Re MS FrontPage - TechNet Forums ( Re MS FrontPage - TechNet Forums, May 16, )
• : Reviews Nvu for Linux: FrontPage Who ( Reviews Nvu for Linux: FrontPage Who, Apr 17, )
• : Office Developer Center Working with HTML Using the FrontPage Object Model ( Office Developer Center Working with HTML Using the FrontPage Object Model, )
• : Creating Custom Behaviors in FrontPage ( Creating Custom Behaviors in FrontPage , Dec 7, )

Old News ;-)

[Aug 26, ] Can I run MS Front Page on Windows 10

Notable quotes:

" Although FrontPage was not evaluated, Andre Da Costa found that core programs of Office such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Publisher back through Office work just fine on Windows "

Aug 26, | www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar

They changed the title of my original post so I thought I'd try it again: I Know that my web sites will work on windows 10 but:

I run a website I started in , pages and built with old school html and (when it came out) MS Front Page. I've modified many pages of these old pages to be w3c compliant using good old html. It is super hot in the search engines and works excellent in all browsers and on all mobile devices. Front Page is like putting on a comfortable pair of shoes. Yes, I've tried Dream Weaver and all the other "options" but it doesn't do a very good job with the original code, in fact some of the modifications and programs I have tried have been a disaster. SO I'm currently running windows 7 with the xp package to support Microsoft Front Page Version My server guys have no issues with the MS Front Page Extensions and it is very fast and stable. What do you think the chances are of running MS Front Page on Windows 10? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Original Title: FrontPage

DavidF2

Though MS does indeed say that FP is not compatible (MS says that versions of Office older that Office are incompatible with Win) , that does not mean that it will not install and run. You might be happily surprised. In my experience MS tends to discourage the use of older programs even if they will run.

Although FrontPage was not evaluated, Andre Da Costa found that core programs of Office such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Publisher back through Office work just fine on Windows

Reference: A look at running older versions of Microsoft Office on Windows www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar

With that said if you are dependent upon FPSE then you might start looking for an alternative to FP. MS quit support of the server extensions many years ago and the number of web hosts that offer them are becoming few and far between.

Eventually you should plan on them not being available and should start looking to migrate your sites to another program. Better now before it is too late.

DavidF

[Aug 26, ] How to Set Compatibility Mode for Apps in Windows 10 by Melanie Pinola

Running Frontpage on windows 10 requires using compatibility mode. Some features like "Most recent files" do not work even with this mode.

Aug 24, | www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar

Most software created for previous versions of Windows run well in Windows 10, but you might have some older apps that don't work well or even at all with the new operating system. You can try to fix any issues you have running these older desktop programs in Windows 10 by changing their compatibility mode settings.

Windows has a built-in tool called Program Compatibility Troubleshooter that could automatically fix any compatibility problems for you. If the troubleshooter can't fix the problem, you can manually make an app run in compatibility mode, which will run the app using the settings from an earlier version of Windows. You can have the troubleshooter automatically search for apps that could have issues in Windows 10 or manually run the troubleshooter on a specific app. Here's how to do both.

How to Use Windows' Program Compatibility Troubleshooter

1. In the taskbar search box, enter "run programs", then click "Run programs made for previous versions of Windows."

2. Click Next and the troubleshooter will try to detect potential issues with your apps.

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3. Select the app that's having issues in the next window and click Next.

4. Select a troubleshooting option: use the recommended compatibility setting or choose compatibility settings yourself.

If you choose to use the recommended settings, the troubleshooter will test the app using a previous version of Windows so you can see if that resolves the issue.

If you choose the choose to troubleshoot the app, the troubleshooter will ask you which problems you're experiencing. Depending on your selection, the troubleshooter will offer tests and suggestions to resolve the problem, such as testing the display settings for the app.

5. Click the Test the program button and then click Next.

You can then either choose to save the settings for the app, try different settings, or report the problem to Microsoft and view help articles online.

You'll have to run the troubleshooter for each app you're having compatibility problems with.

MORE: Windows 10 Settings You Should Change Right Away

How to Run an App in Compatibility Mode

Alternatively, you can go into a app's properties to change its compatibility mode settings. With compatibility mode, you can force an app to use settings from an earlier version of Windows -- helpful if you know the app ran well in, say, Windows 7 or Vista. You can also change the display and color settings for the app.

1. Right-click on an app and select Properties. You can do this from the app's shortcut or by navigating in File Browser to the EXE file.

2. Select the Compatibility tab, then check the box next to "Run this program in compatibility mode for:"

3. S elect the version of Windows to use for your app's settings in the dropdown box.

4. Hit Apply , then run your app and see if this fixed your issues.

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[Aug 26, ] FrontPage to Windows 10

Notable quotes:

" I have MS Expressions Web 4 which is now free as MS is discontinuing it, and it's running on a Windows 10 PC. I used FP, but this upgrade is now free. "

Jul 29, | www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar

Question

I have been a happy user of FrontPage. Bought Expression Web and it worked fine with my Windows XP Professional.
I have not used it all since and want your recommendations what to do as I want to start using Expression Web again making changes to my different Web Pages.
I want to use my new laptop today with windows , that I will upgrade to Windows 10 in the near future.

I read about all the problems Windows 8,1 has occurred and I want to be free from that that's why I would be very pleased to get your professional recommendations what to do.

• Will the free Expression Web (4) work on windows 10?
• Can I then work with my webpages from ?
• If not, what program can be used to work with my web pages?
• Or, do I have to start up my old XP machine again?

Thankful for your advise

Hans Trim Wednesday

• 0 Sign in to vote Yes. Yes. You won't need one. No. Wednesday, July 29, PM
• 0 Sign in to vote Assuming you were able to install MS-FrontPage onto your Windows 10 machine, properly, you may notice that right clicking a .htm or .html file, then clicking "Open with," shows one or two "Microsoft Frontpage Server Administrator" associated programs. Neither of these worked for me, claiming that two DLL files are missing (I installed them, but that didn't help). Fortunately, there are two ways to access FrontPage for an HTML file:

  1) Open FrontPage. Open the desired file from there.

  2) Right-click the desired HTML file. Then click "Edit". On my machine, it automatically loads FrontPage with that HTML file.

  I did nothing special for either method to get them to work as stated.

  Good luck! Saturday, December 17, PM Reply | Quote

• 0 Sign in to voteI have MS Expressions Web 4 which is now free as MS is discontinuing it, and it's running on a Windows 10 PC. I used FP, but this upgrade is now free. I use Site Publisher that goes for dirt cheap to upload the HD files to my web server, as most sites are not allowing FP extensions. This FTP program also has an Exclusion function to not send the hidden vit_cnf and \vti_cnf files on the hard drive that FP and Expressions uses to locate files when searching and moving files/folders then fixing the links.

  So you can keep FP, but I would suggest the free Expressions Web 4. Just install and point it to your HD's web folder. Using this specific FTP program also has a Cache ability. Once you upload your site, you can turn on the Cache and it will remember the web site files and folders. After the initial upload and after making changes, it checks the WS then the HD, then only copies those files that have changed on your HD. I have a 53K file site and Expressions Web 4 and this program has been working for many, many years without any problem. Sunday, April 01, PM Reply | Quote

• 0 Sign in to vote MButkus,

  EW has built-in FTP publishing. It won't publish files that you don't tell it to publish, and it does not publish _vti files. There is no need to recommend a different FTP program. There is also no need to answer old threads that already have an answer, as this one does.

[Apr 22, ] Understanding the Libraries Feature in Windows 7

Looks to me like soft links -- ability to have directories from all over the place grouped as links in a single folder.

They can be used in applications that do not have Favorites feature, like Frontpage, to imitate frontapge.

You can create as many libraries as you wish. It's not nessesary to merge multiple folders in one library.

Apr 22, | www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar

The libraries feature in Windows 7 provides a central place to manage files that are located in multiple locations throughout your computer. Instead of clicking through a bunch of directories to find the files you need, including them in a library makes for quicker access.

[Nov 10, ] Get CrossOver and run Windows Software on Mac or Linux CodeWeavers

Codewaever for Linux ($59) is able to run Frontpage

Nov 10, | www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar

[Dec 24, ] Using special mouse button as save button for Frontpage.

One of the major deficiencies of Frontpage is absence of auto save. That means that if Frontpage froze or your tower computer lost power you can lose all your work in opened but not saved pages. There are multiple ways to alleviate this problem. Here is the most recent tip which involves using mose that have more buttons than standard. In this case one button can be assigned to save.

This trick works well with

[Feb 08, ] Copying files from folder list of one instance of Frontpage to another Fronpage instance (from one web site to another website)

See Frontpage Tips for more details.

If you open two instances of Frontpage (same site or two different sites) you can copy files from folder list of one to another. That's great for reorg of your web site.

[Feb 08, ] TIP: Search of string with leading blanks

See also Frontpage Tips

Frontpage automatically deleted leading blanks if you select the search string in the text and press Ctrl-F. You need to reinsert them manually

The same is true for replace

[Dec 22, ] Expression Web is now available as a free download from the Microsoft Download Center, and no new versions will be developed

Expression Web

The web is now about applications as well as traditional web sites, and this requires a new set of tools. Microsoft is committed to offering a unified approach to focus on web design and development features in Microsoft Visual Studio

As part of this consolidation, Microsoft Visual Studio provides the leading web development tool, which enables you to design, develop, and maintain websites and web applications. Visual Studio makes it easy to build CSS-based websites from the ground up with new CSS layouts, HTML5 support and full featured capabilities for working with and debugging JavaScript. Learn more about Visual Studio Express for Web and WebMatrix 2.

Expression Web is now available as a free download from the Microsoft Download Center, and no new versions will be developed. Customers who previously purchased Expression Web will receive support through the established support lifecycle.

Frequently Asked Questions

• What's the difference between the free and paid versions of Expression Web and Design? The features and functionality are the same between the free download and paid versions. The key difference is that the free versions are not supported, meaning they come as-is and no Microsoft technical support is available (these products are supported via the community).
  
• How do I get technical support for Expression products? If you purchased Expression Studio Ultimate, Expression Web Professional or Expression Encoder Pro: you're eligible for the same support as today via assisted support, self-support, and the community. Support is available on the Expression support webpage
  
• Where can I purchase Expression Encoder 4 Pro?

  Expression Encoder 4 Pro is available in select online Microsoft Stores. For customers in Japan, please visit Japan's Microsoft Store.
  

[Apr 29, ] Microsoft Expression Web now FREE

Expression Web went the way of FrontPage. Expression Design 4 and Expression Web 4 are now available for download at no charge. Technical support will not be available for these free versions.

December 20, | Microsoft

The proliferation of rich interactive web applications across the cloud and mobile devices continues to create new opportunities for creative design and development. As these technologies evolve, Microsoft is committed to providing best-in-class tools for building modern applications. In support of these industry trends Microsoft is consolidating our lead design and development offerings - Expression and Visual Studio - to offer all of our customers a unified solution that brings together the best of Web and modern development patterns.

• Blend will continue to ship as a standalone tool with Visual Studio , as part of a consolidated designer/developer offering. Blend for Visual Studio provides a rich design-centric environment for building Windows Store apps and Windows Phone apps. In addition to that, WPF, Silverlight and SketchFlow support is available today as a preview and will be released in Visual Studio Update 2.
• Expression Studio 4 Ultimate and Expression Studio 4 Web Professional are no longer available for sale. For customers who previously purchased these products, all components within Ultimate and Web Professional will be supported through their support lifecycle.
• Expression Design 4 and Expression Web 4 are now available for download at no charge. Technical support will not be available for these free versions.
• Expression Encoder 4 Pro will be available for purchase through Expression Encoder 4 remains available for download at no charge.

Download SharePoint Designer

All-in-all SharePoint Designer in comparison with FrontPage is a semi-debugged junk. I used it for a week and found mass of errors even with SharePoint Designer Service Pack 3 applied. The while product smells "IBM" and outsourcing :-(. Among them:

1. Replacements in code view produces some strange side effects sometimes doubling the first letter of the sentence in which replacement was performed. I am not kidding.

2. Replacements of html tags are performed incorrectly. For example when I tried to replace <strong> with <i> in the code view, the resulting code in several places contained closing bracket that was converted to /strong> which invalidates the HTML.

3. Interpretation of I and B buttons via styles with insertion of inline CSS stylesheet is questionable. The same is true about conversion of changing color for a fragment into span with style. It should be an option.

4. Attempt to shift code right does not insert <blockquote> tag like in "old" FrontPage, but generates a style definition for inline CSS stylesheet and adds a style to the paragraph. It's plausible, but very questionable solution. If they want to be that clever they should give the Web page designer a choice as it deviates from "old FrontPage" behavior. <blockquote> tag is not a deprecated tag so it's legitimate for indented parts (which are typically quotes). IMHO the blockquote tag has not changed from HTML 4 to HTML 5 and can be with cite tag, like in

5. There is no application of custom CSS stylesheet to code view.

6. SharePoint Designer changes modification dates of many files that were not edited making tracing you changes based on modification date of the files virtually impossible. That's a really stupid bug .

Microsoft Download Center

[Nov 16, ] To see end of paragraph mark, broken tags and comments in design view of Frentpage

Show all (Ctrl-*) or click on the paragraph mark button in the standard toolbar

[Nov 16, ] Page options has setting for tag autocompletion.

In many cases this is unnecessary and could be unchecked.

[Apr 26, ] Windows Web App Gallery - Install an App

Looking for the latest everything? Look no further. This will get you Visual Web Developer Express Service Pack 1 and the RTM releases of www.cronistalascolonias.com.ar MVC 3, IIS Express, SQL Server Compact with tooling, and Web Deploy It's the value meal of Microsoft products. Tell your friends!

Note: This bundle includes the Visual Web Developer Express SP1 web installer, which will dynamically determine the appropriate service pack components to download and install. This is typically in the range of MB and will take minutes to install, depending on your machine configuration.

[Apr 25, ] How to process loaded page (or all opened pages) with the external program

kievite

Hi,

What is the best way to process the current page (or all opened pages) with the external program and how can I create a custom button for such operation ?

Let's assume that external program is a custom script in Perl, Python or other scripting language.

Something like :! in vi editor.

Pages are assumed to be in editing mode, so the most primitive way would be would be somehow save the file, close the view, invoke external program on the files, open file in editor again. May be you can pipe content in the external program and replace the bufeer which would be a better way. Does anybody have a similar macro already?