Microsoft Developers: Messing with your head. Again
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Office 2007 no longer has FrontPage. It now comes with a new "improved" HTML editor/designer called Sharepoint Designer. This is basically FrontPage with added extras and some things removed. Such as the incredibly handy in-app preview that didn't require you to actually save a file to disk when quickly slapping 2 lines of HTML together. But I digress. FrontPage was great because it was simple, straightforward, it didn't screw around with HTML too much, it didn't try to impose anything on you (formatting, styles etc). It seems Sharepoint designer uses the same codebase which leads to the question: why did a developer decide that if you highlight one work in a paragraph and try to make it italics, the entire paragraph is italicised. Why? Becuase it seemed like A Good Idea At The Time. Because a single italic word will get lonely? Because you hate me?
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
I really like FrontPage 2003. This one they really got "right". I'm not a web developer myself - so when I want to work on a couple of my web pages I like the fact that I don't have to do all the dirty-work to make it work. The thing I do like, however, is that I *can* dive under the covers and tweak the source code if I need to - throw in some VBScript here and there. You can have my copy of O2003 (and FP 2003) when you can pry it out of my cold, dead fingers! -CB :)
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I read the first six words and was about to reply with words such as "crazy", "are", "you" and was then going to say try Expression Wed Designer. Then I read the next 13 words and my reply is now; you poor bastard. FrontPage rules, find it somewhere on old discs. I'm sure David Wulff could help you... though actually he likes the abomination that is Sharepoint. So maybe he'll just make it worse. Man, I thought Frontpage was bad. Then I tried Sharepoint Designer awhile back, on my freaking lunch break, for fun, and realised Frontpage was a minior minion of the top level of hell where they merely slather you in warm cocoa butter for all eternity in comparison to the Satanic depths of Sharepoint Designer. (Seriously though. Try Expression Webdesigner. I'd almost use it as my "Real Web Dev" tool every day. Almost. It doesn't work on OS X sadly.)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Shog9 wrote:
And with that, Paul closed his browser, sipped his herbal tea, fixed the flower in his hair, and smiled brightly at the multitude of cute, furry animals flocking around the grassy hillside where he sat coding Ruby on his Mac...
I'm downloading Expression Web. May Bob have mercy on my soul...
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote:
FrontPage was great because it was simple, straightforward, it didn't screw around with HTML too much, it didn't try to impose anything on you (formatting, styles etc).
Urrrp! I must have missed the last few releases of FrontPage because this was exactly what it *did* do a few years back.
"I don't want more choice. I just want better things!" - Edina Monsoon
You're right, the older versions of Frontpage were well known for reformatting your HTML code. The most recent version of FP was very good at not reformatting. It's a great WYSIWYG editor for doing page layouts, imo, although, NEVER mention that you use Frontpage for ANYTHING while at a job interview lol It will instantly ruin your credibility, trust me :)
Regards, Jonathan Scott
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I hate any form of working with a web page and have done for about 10 years (since I had a really nice WYSIWYG tool that actually did what you expected). Wish I could remember what it was. Pagemill maybe. Last night, I spent an hour using VS to try and insert a simple table onto a web page. The table sits inside a content place holder. As soon as the table width reaches about half the avalable width in the CPH, it starts to screw up the design of the MASTER page, changing column width etc. Trying to format the table borders is apparrently impossible. I could format the outer border as I wished but the only option I could achieve inside the table was to put a discrete border around every cell - and these borders don't join up. Does anyone know if it is possible to produce useable tables in VS/VWD? Rich
Visual Studio sucks as a page layout tool, imo, and always has, although I hear VS 2008 has incorparated the same payout toold that Expression Web (Frontpage replacement) uses, so this might be a big improvement! I haven't had time to install and use VS 2008 yet though, so just going from what I heard.
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You're right, the older versions of Frontpage were well known for reformatting your HTML code. The most recent version of FP was very good at not reformatting. It's a great WYSIWYG editor for doing page layouts, imo, although, NEVER mention that you use Frontpage for ANYTHING while at a job interview lol It will instantly ruin your credibility, trust me :)
Regards, Jonathan Scott
AspDotNetDvlpr wrote:
NEVER mention that you use Frontpage for ANYTHING while at a job interview lol It will instantly ruin your credibility
No doubt. that is why they had to trash it. No matter how good they made it, it always had that stigma attached. Visual Web Developer Express is rock n roll, with it, who needs front page anyways!
"Half this game is ninety percent mental." - Yogi Berra If you can read thank a teacher, if you can read in English, thank a Marine.
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Office 2007 no longer has FrontPage. It now comes with a new "improved" HTML editor/designer called Sharepoint Designer. This is basically FrontPage with added extras and some things removed. Such as the incredibly handy in-app preview that didn't require you to actually save a file to disk when quickly slapping 2 lines of HTML together. But I digress. FrontPage was great because it was simple, straightforward, it didn't screw around with HTML too much, it didn't try to impose anything on you (formatting, styles etc). It seems Sharepoint designer uses the same codebase which leads to the question: why did a developer decide that if you highlight one work in a paragraph and try to make it italics, the entire paragraph is italicised. Why? Becuase it seemed like A Good Idea At The Time. Because a single italic word will get lonely? Because you hate me?
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
You really must be dreaming, either you or me. I found frontpage to be endlessly frustrating, it was fine for 1->3 pages but once your web got a little interesting it regularly corrupted pages on upload (navigations esp.) and randomly adjusted formatting. I could kill the developers. Now I use either Eclipse (free), or Coldfusion (not free but uber-powerful) and my days of pain are behind me. No way will I ever touch a Microsoft web development tool ever again.
---------------- Toujours Le Meme
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Office 2007 no longer has FrontPage. It now comes with a new "improved" HTML editor/designer called Sharepoint Designer. This is basically FrontPage with added extras and some things removed. Such as the incredibly handy in-app preview that didn't require you to actually save a file to disk when quickly slapping 2 lines of HTML together. But I digress. FrontPage was great because it was simple, straightforward, it didn't screw around with HTML too much, it didn't try to impose anything on you (formatting, styles etc). It seems Sharepoint designer uses the same codebase which leads to the question: why did a developer decide that if you highlight one work in a paragraph and try to make it italics, the entire paragraph is italicised. Why? Becuase it seemed like A Good Idea At The Time. Because a single italic word will get lonely? Because you hate me?
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Chris Maunder wrote:
Office 2007 no longer has FrontPage. It now comes with a new "improved" HTML editor/designer called Sharepoint Designer.
Actually the replacement for FrontPage is the Expression family; Sharepoint Designer can be used as such, but was mainly designed for SharePoint Services 3.0. If you do not use SharePoint Services it is recomended to use the Expression family. See Here... [http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/frontpage/FX100743231033.aspx](<a href=)[^]"
DB_Cooper1950 Either enjoy life, Or Hate Life, Just quit SITTING ON THE FENCE!
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AspDotNetDvlpr wrote:
NEVER mention that you use Frontpage for ANYTHING while at a job interview lol It will instantly ruin your credibility
No doubt. that is why they had to trash it. No matter how good they made it, it always had that stigma attached. Visual Web Developer Express is rock n roll, with it, who needs front page anyways!
"Half this game is ninety percent mental." - Yogi Berra If you can read thank a teacher, if you can read in English, thank a Marine.
VWDE is a GREAT product for development, although for page layout, I'd still load up FP2K3 or the new Expression Web (Need to buy this yet, as my trial expired!). I hardly ever do page layouts anymore, so 95% of my time is spent using Visual Studio .Net 2k3 and just starting to use 2k5, which is quite nice imo! I am excited to try 2k8, if it meshes the FP/Expression Web WYSIWYG stuff w/ Visual Studio!!!
Happy programming!
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VWDE is a GREAT product for development, although for page layout, I'd still load up FP2K3 or the new Expression Web (Need to buy this yet, as my trial expired!). I hardly ever do page layouts anymore, so 95% of my time is spent using Visual Studio .Net 2k3 and just starting to use 2k5, which is quite nice imo! I am excited to try 2k8, if it meshes the FP/Expression Web WYSIWYG stuff w/ Visual Studio!!!
Happy programming!
True yeah, I guess this post was about layout and not so much code development! My bad. The only experience I have with Expression Web so far is in XAML and WPF. I haven't yet tried it for web sites - gonna hafta do that. I've been using VS 2005 since it hit the shelf and love it for web dev. Can't wait for '08. Here is a good video of Soma and Guthrie talking about what we can expect in Orcas: http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=329443[^]
"Half this game is ninety percent mental." - Yogi Berra If you can read thank a teacher, if you can read in English, thank a Marine.
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Office 2007 no longer has FrontPage. It now comes with a new "improved" HTML editor/designer called Sharepoint Designer. This is basically FrontPage with added extras and some things removed. Such as the incredibly handy in-app preview that didn't require you to actually save a file to disk when quickly slapping 2 lines of HTML together. But I digress. FrontPage was great because it was simple, straightforward, it didn't screw around with HTML too much, it didn't try to impose anything on you (formatting, styles etc). It seems Sharepoint designer uses the same codebase which leads to the question: why did a developer decide that if you highlight one work in a paragraph and try to make it italics, the entire paragraph is italicised. Why? Becuase it seemed like A Good Idea At The Time. Because a single italic word will get lonely? Because you hate me?
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
I had some issues with FrontPage when javascirpt is involved. It adds some tags automatically that sometimes prevents my own javascropt from running. In addition, it also adds a lot of "automation" code that make a html page difficult to clean up.
Tom Z. (PMA)
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Office 2007 no longer has FrontPage. It now comes with a new "improved" HTML editor/designer called Sharepoint Designer. This is basically FrontPage with added extras and some things removed. Such as the incredibly handy in-app preview that didn't require you to actually save a file to disk when quickly slapping 2 lines of HTML together. But I digress. FrontPage was great because it was simple, straightforward, it didn't screw around with HTML too much, it didn't try to impose anything on you (formatting, styles etc). It seems Sharepoint designer uses the same codebase which leads to the question: why did a developer decide that if you highlight one work in a paragraph and try to make it italics, the entire paragraph is italicised. Why? Becuase it seemed like A Good Idea At The Time. Because a single italic word will get lonely? Because you hate me?
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
I thought Frontpage had been replaced by Expression Web?
Anna :rose: Linting the day away :cool: Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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Office 2007 no longer has FrontPage. It now comes with a new "improved" HTML editor/designer called Sharepoint Designer. This is basically FrontPage with added extras and some things removed. Such as the incredibly handy in-app preview that didn't require you to actually save a file to disk when quickly slapping 2 lines of HTML together. But I digress. FrontPage was great because it was simple, straightforward, it didn't screw around with HTML too much, it didn't try to impose anything on you (formatting, styles etc). It seems Sharepoint designer uses the same codebase which leads to the question: why did a developer decide that if you highlight one work in a paragraph and try to make it italics, the entire paragraph is italicised. Why? Becuase it seemed like A Good Idea At The Time. Because a single italic word will get lonely? Because you hate me?
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
FP doesn't mess up your HTML?? Hmmm...that's news to me. I don't touch FrontPage with a ten-foot pole precisely because it refuses to let me be the boss. In typical Microsoft fashion, it assumes that you're just some know-nothing schmuck who needs to be saved from his own ignorance, when it would appear that I actually know a lot more about presentation-layer coding for the Web than the developers of FrontPage. So far, I haven't found a WYSIWYG html editor whose WYSIWYG features I actually use. The code-assist features in Dreamweaver and the Eclipse plugin for HTML editing are about all the automation I'm willing to accept. Attempting to use HTML, CSS, and ECMAScript as if they constituted a windowing toolkit is a miserable enough struggle as it is without the intrusion of any "help" from the likes of FrontPage. It never ceases to amaze me how much effort people are willing to expend in order to avoid doing something the right way.
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Real programmers would rather use EDLIN than FrontPage (or any of it's evil bastard spawn).
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001Even though this post was meant as humorous, it's still basically correct. The real web developers don't use WYSIWYG tools to lay out sites. Yes, I mean lay out. That might start to change with Expression and VS08, but I doubt it. There's still no substitute for a good hand-written, standards-based, CSS-based web site. I actually don't allow my team to use a designer for their markup.
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Real programmers would rather use EDLIN than FrontPage (or any of it's evil bastard spawn).
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
I'm downloading Expression Web. May Bob have mercy on my soul...
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
Chris Maunder wrote:
I'm downloading Expression Web.
I'm not sure, but don't Sharepoint Designer and Expression Web, share the same base HTML editor / IDE. You may be in for a disappointment ;-)
Michael Thanks to all for your kind words and support on my return to CP. This place and you guys and gals are just the best
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No, but I'm not sure FrontPage '98 had the option to do so... and ok, so it's unfair to judge the current (or last) version on a bad experience, but... FrontPage - once bitten, twice shy!
"It was the day before today.... I remember it like it was yesterday." -Moleman
FrontPage 98 was a pain. 2003 is really nice to work with.
ed ~"Watch your thoughts; they become your words. Watch your words they become your actions. Watch your actions; they become your habits. Watch your habits; they become your character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -Frank Outlaw.
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True yeah, I guess this post was about layout and not so much code development! My bad. The only experience I have with Expression Web so far is in XAML and WPF. I haven't yet tried it for web sites - gonna hafta do that. I've been using VS 2005 since it hit the shelf and love it for web dev. Can't wait for '08. Here is a good video of Soma and Guthrie talking about what we can expect in Orcas: http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=329443[^]
"Half this game is ninety percent mental." - Yogi Berra If you can read thank a teacher, if you can read in English, thank a Marine.
Thanks for the link... I had already saw that a couple weeks ago, and it definitely sounds like there's some cool things happening in 2k8!
Happy programming!
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I thought Frontpage had been replaced by Expression Web?
Anna :rose: Linting the day away :cool: Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
It has
Happy programming!
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I hate any form of working with a web page and have done for about 10 years (since I had a really nice WYSIWYG tool that actually did what you expected). Wish I could remember what it was. Pagemill maybe. Last night, I spent an hour using VS to try and insert a simple table onto a web page. The table sits inside a content place holder. As soon as the table width reaches about half the avalable width in the CPH, it starts to screw up the design of the MASTER page, changing column width etc. Trying to format the table borders is apparrently impossible. I could format the outer border as I wished but the only option I could achieve inside the table was to put a discrete border around every cell - and these borders don't join up. Does anyone know if it is possible to produce useable tables in VS/VWD? Rich
I think a lot of your frustration comes from the fact that editing a Word document, and a web page are totally different, and people don't like that. All the little subtle layout quirks that exist when doing web page layouts, and trying to get it to look the way you want it take time to figure out. Not to mention all the different browsers that render things slightly different... it is a nightmare for us web developers :)
Happy programming!