Publishing with Microsoft FrontPage 2000


Microsoft Corporation

March 30, 1999

Introduction

This article defines what it means to publish with the FrontPage® 2000 Web site creation and management tool and discusses your choices of where to create and host your site. The article gives you step-by-step instructions on how to publish with FrontPage 2000 and highlights the differences in publishing with FrontPage 98 and FrontPage 2000. If you're new to FrontPage 2000 or you've been publishing using FrontPage 98, you'll find answers to many of your questions about publishing here.

What does it mean to publish a Web site using Microsoft FrontPage?

First of all, it's important to understand what a Web site is. A "Web" is a group of files that are interconnected by hyperlinks that allow you to jump from one page to another, usually by simply clicking your mouse. While it's possible for a Web site to be a single HTML page, a Web site usually comprises several pages that can include images, hyperlinks, and more advanced technology like forms and databases.

Publishing a Web site generally means copying all of the files that make up a Web site to a particular destination. In FrontPage, you would typically publish your site when you want to:

Note   FrontPage includes server components, called FrontPage Server Extensions that are required to enable certain features. See the section of this article "How do FrontPage Server Extensions Affect Publishing" for details.

The Fundamentals of Publishing with FrontPage

When you first create a Web site in FrontPage 98 or FrontPage 2000, you have the option of saving your Web to several different places.

dialog box

Figure 1. FrontPage 2000 New dialog box

You have the option of creating your Web site on a hard drive, network drive, or Web server; the latter allows others locate and view it through their Web browser.

You can publish or save your Web:

The table below summarizes the effects of publishing to these different locations.

Table 1. Microsoft FrontPage 2000 -- Publishing Locations versus Features Enabled

When you publish... Others can edit your pages Links and images work Special features enabled*
To your hard disk or to a network location X X You can add the features, but they won't be enabled until published
To your Personal Web Server If they have permission X X
To your company intranet Web server If they have permission X X
To a World Wide Web server If they have permission X X

* Some features require a server with FrontPage Server Extensions installed. See the section "How do FrontPage Server Extensions affect publishing?" for details.

Using Publishing to Move a Web Site from Staging to Production

As mentioned previously, the area where you create and work on your site, where others cannot view it, is often called a "staging" area. Once you have tested your site and are ready for others to view it on your intranet or the World Wide Web, you use the FrontPage publishing feature and direct FrontPage where to publish your site.

If you are publishing to an intranet, you would enter in FrontPage the path to a location on your company network that has been set up by your intranet Webmaster as the intranet Web server, such as \\server\share\path or http://CompanyWeb/. FrontPage then copies your site's files to that path.

If you are publishing to the World Wide Web, you would enter the address of the destination Web host, which could be a server on your network if you host your own site, or a server at your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Web presence provider (WPP). See below for step-by-step instructions.

Using Publishing to Create a Backup of Your Entire Web Site

The other use of the publishing feature in FrontPage is to make a copy or a backup of your site. To do this, you open the Publish Web dialog box (from the File menu, select Publish Web). In the "Specify the location to publish your Web to" drop-down box, you enter the path of a directory on your hard disk or on a network drive. FrontPage then copies the files to that location, maintaining all of the proper links.

How Do I Publish Using FrontPage 2000?

Step-by-step instructions

Before publishing, it is a good idea to check to make sure that your site is complete and thoroughly tested and that you've reviewed your task list.

To publish in FrontPage 2000

  1. From the File menu select Publish Web. The following dialog box appears.

  2. Specify the location for publishing your Web by typing the path or clicking the Browse button and then selecting the location.

    Here are examples of locations to which you can publish:
    Note   There are two methods of publishing to your Web hosting service, but both work the same way. If the Web hosting service has FrontPage Server Extensions installed on their server, you just enter the address (or URL of your Web site), as you would when viewing it in your browser. If FrontPage Server Extensions are not installed on the server, you can use FTP (file transfer protocol) to copy the files to the server.

To enter an FTP server location in the Publish Web dialog box:

Simply type the FTP server location (ftp://ftp.server.com/~folder) in the Publish Web dialog. (Be sure to type ftp:// before the server name). A dialog box will prompt you for your username and password.

To specify (or change) a saved FTP location:

  1. In the Publish Web dialog box, click the Browse button.
  2. In the top portion of the Open Web dialog box that appears, expand the list of locations next to "Look in." At the bottom of the list, you will see a location called FTP Locations.
  3. Click Add/Modify FTP Locations and specify the path to your FTP location (ftp.server.com/~folder).
  4. Select "Anonymous" if there is no user name or password required, or "User" to enter the appropriate user name and password.
  5. Click OK to save. This new FTP location is now available to choose from the FTP Locations menu.
  6. Specify your publish options by clicking the Options button. The Publish Web dialog box expands, displaying four options.

  7. Click Publish, and then you will see a progress bar that shows you that publishing is under way.

    FrontPage also includes a feature that synchronizes the files on your source with those on your publishing destination. If FrontPage finds a page on the publishing destination that does not exist in your source files, it will ask you if you wish to remove that file, as shown in this dialog box.



    This feature helps you to get rid of unused files that would otherwise clutter your Web site and use up disk space unnecessarily.

To verify that your Web was successfully published, click the hyperlink that is displayed after the Web has been published, and your Web browser will open to the site you just published.

Note   If you cancel publishing in the middle of the operation, files that have already been published remain on the destination Web server.
Tip   To publish only pages that have changed to the same location you previously published to, click the Publish button , located on the FrontPage toolbar. If you haven't previously published this Web site before, pressing this button will bring up the same Publish dialog box that's also available from the File menu, under Publish Web.

How Do FrontPage Server Extensions Affect Publishing?

The FrontPage Server Extensions are a set of programs that you or your Web hosting service can install on a Web server to support administering, authoring, and browsing a FrontPage Web. While it is not essential that you host FrontPage-based Web sites on a server that has the FrontPage Server Extensions installed, some FrontPage features are enabled by the Server Extensions, including:

If you include any of these features in your FrontPage Web, you need to publish to a server that has FrontPage Server Extensions installed; otherwise, the features will not work.

What's New and Different Between Publishing in FrontPage 98 and FrontPage 2000?

If you are familiar with publishing in FrontPage 98, you will be interested in these enhancements, which are new in FrontPage 2000.

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