Microsoft FrontPage 2000 Product Features and Information

Microsoft® FrontPage® 2000 - What’s New

For the latest information, please see http://www.microsoft.com/office/

Introduction

New and improved features in Microsoft FrontPage 2000 allow users to:

Easily create great-looking Web sites exactly the way they want
Easily update sites
Work together with Microsoft Office to save time

This document describes the key features in each of these areas.

Easily create great-looking Web sites exactly the way users want.

FrontPage 2000 gives users control of their Web sites like never before. They can position elements exactly where they want them on the page, give their Web site a professional and consistent look across all of its pages, import and edit HTML just as they like, and use the latest in Web technology.

	Feature	Description
	*Tools for creating great-looking Web sites*
Improved	More Than 60 Pre-Designed Themes	Users can choose from more than 60 new pre-designed business-ready Themes to provide a consistent look across a single page, multiple pages, or an entire Web site.
New	Custom Themes	Users can pick from more than 60 pre-designed Themes and then customize their colors, logos, graphics, backgrounds, and bullets to create the right look for their site.
Improved	Cross-Browser Dynamic HTML Animation Effects	Add Dynamic HTML animation effects to pages with the click of a button. Animation effects work seamlessly with Netscape Navigator 4.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, and appear statically across version 3 browsers.
Improved	Enhanced Color Tools	Choose Web-safe colors to apply to graphics and text, or choose custom colors from a color picker. Create custom Themes using pre-set Web-safe Color Schemes, or select a custom color scheme from the color wheel. Custom colors are available everywhere colors are available, and even across editing sessions.
New	Pixel Precise Positioning and Layering	Place page elements like graphics and text anywhere on the page--even layer content, through absolute and relative positioning.
Improved	Cascading Style Sheets	Use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to provide customized and consistent formatting on a page, or with FrontPage 2000, apply CSS to several pages, or even across an entire site.
	*Better-than-Notepad HTML Editing*
New	HTML Source Preservation	Edit existing HTML and scripts (including ASP) worry-free in FrontPage. Bring HTML created in other tools into FrontPage, and it will not modify the code. Tag and comment order, capitalization, and even white space are preserved.
New	Quickly Insert Code in HTML View	Use buttons and drop-down menus to insert code directly in HTML View.
New	Personalized HTML Formatting	Allows users to decide how they want their code indented, what colors they want their tags to appear in, when to capitalize, and when to use optional tags. When pages are imported or new content is created, FrontPage automatically applies those preferences to the new code.
New	Reveal Tags in WYSIWYG View	Users can quickly see what HTML tags create what effects on their pages by selecting Reveal Tags in a page while still in the Normal view (WYSIWYG mode). Allows users learning HTML to see which tags produce which effects.
	*Easy database integration*
New	Easy Database Publishing	Makes creating and updating a database as easy as creating a form by allowing users to send database results to a new Microsoft Access database that FrontPage automatically creates, or to an existing database, or even to a specific e-mail address.
Improved	Database Results Wizard	Allows users without prior database experience to easily and automatically incorporate database queries directly into their pages. The data is dynamic and current data is returned from the database each time the page is loaded or refreshed.
	*Supports the latest Web technology*
New	Pre-Built Web Components	Easily insert advanced functionality directly into Web pages through FrontPage components like the Category Component, and Office Web Components like the Spreadsheet, PivotTable dynamic views, and Chart.
Improved	Edit HTML, DHTML, script, ASP, and XML	Use the HTML tab to view pages and scripts, and edit them directly. Includes HTML, DHTML, script, ASP, and XML.
New	Microsoft Script Editor	Edit and debug scripts including JavaScript and VBScript more quickly with the built-in Script Editor.
	*Extensibility and programmability*
New	Visual Basic for Applications	Build powerful FrontPage-based solutions using VBA. Leverage existing expertise to extend these solutions across Office applications.
New	Application, Document, and Web Object Models	Enable developers to programmatically manipulate FrontPage, FrontPage-created Web pages, and FrontPage-based Webs.
Improved	Integration with Design Time Controls and Visual InterDev	Extend FrontPage functionality by creating Design Time Controls with Microsoft Visual InterDev Web development system.

Easily update sites—quickly and flexibly manage Internet or team intranet Web sites

FrontPage 2000 allows users to do much more than just create Web pages. They can set up and maintain their site as a whole, easily monitor the condition of their Web site and make updates. Workgroups or teams can work together on sites, and companies can install and administer FrontPage 2000 across their company in all of its locations.

	Feature	Description
	*Site management reports and views summarize a site at a glance*
New	Page View	Page View is where users create and edit individual pages. Page View also allows users to see their content in Normal (WYSIWYG), Reveal Tags in Normal, HTML, or Preview in browser views.
Improved	Folders View	Allows users to see all of the Web pages, graphics, and files in their Web.
New	Reports View	Users can quickly see the pages, graphics, and files in their Web, and easily run reports listing slow pages, unlinked, recently added or changed files, broken hyperlinks, component errors, review status, name assigned to, categories, publish status, or checkout status for any of the files.
Improved	Navigation View	Quickly create navigation bars, easily view the navigational layout of the site, persist settings across editing sessions, and zoom in to work on specific parts of the site.
Improved	Hyperlinks View	Graphically see all of the items that link to or from a specific page or Microsoft Office document, and visually see if any links are broken.
Improved	Tasks View	Track what tasks need to be done and to whom the tasks are assigned, and quickly see the status, description, and the priority of the tasks.
	*Flexible publishing features*
Improved	Page-Level Control Over Publishing	Users decide exactly which pages are to be uploaded to the server by setting specific pages as “do not publish” or by publishing only pages that have changed.
New	Create Webs Anywhere	Users do not need to have access to a Web server in order to create Web content. They can create a complete Web site right on their hard drive or Personal Web Server, then publish to a server when ready.
Improved	Publish Anywhere	Easily publish to a server that has or doesn’t have the FrontPage Server Extensions installed using the FrontPage built-in FTP. ISPs can choose to host FrontPage-based Web sites on Microsoft Windows NT or a broad variety of UNIX platforms and operating systems.
Improved	Progress Indicator when Publishing	Progress indicator makes it more clear what is happening during the publishing process.
	*Flexible collaboration features*
New	Microsoft Office 2000 Save To Web	Users can lighten their workload because every team member can open and save Office 2000 documents directly to their FrontPage-based Web.
New	Nested Subwebs	Set rights to the Web as a whole and also set specific rights to subgroups so they can be in total control of their sub-sites.
New	Check In/Check Out	Reserve a file in the FrontPage-based Web so that no one else can edit it. This prevents another user from saving edits on top of the file they are currently working on. It also allows you to quickly revert to the previous version of a file.
New	Workflow Reports	Users can assign responsibility for a page to a team member when pages are saved, and even set up and assign approval levels or stages in their own publishing process.
Improved	Multi-User and Remote Authoring and Management	Multiple users can author and add content to FrontPage-based Web sites at the same time, allowing teams to work together easily. Users can author content directly to a server running the FrontPage Server Extensions, save user environment preferences across editing sessions, and administer FrontPage-based Webs remotely.
	*Automate routine tasks*
New	Category Component	First, create pages that are saved with customizable category fields. Then use the Category Component to automatically create and update a list of links to all of the documents in a specific category. Saves time because when documents in a category are added to a Web, the Category Component automatically updates the list.
Improved	Automatic Hyperlink Fix-Up	Rename or move a page or graphic in the FrontPage-based Web site, and hyperlinks are automatically fixed. Even works on Microsoft Office documents.
	*Web sites that work anywhere*
New	Target Specific Browsers, Features and Servers	Pre-select which environments to target (browser, server, FrontPage Server Extensions, ASP, DHTML, CSS, Java, script), and FrontPage automatically restricts features that will not work on the targeted systems.
Improved	Database Results Wizard	Allows users without prior database experience to easily and automatically incorporate database queries directly into their pages. The data is dynamic and current data is returned from the database each time the page is loaded.
Improved	Works Great with Other Widely Used Microsoft Products	Uses the same management console as Windows NT Server, Internet Information Server, and other BackOffice family applications, and ships with Windows NT Server, Microsoft Site Server and Visual InterDev.

Work together with Office to save time—creating a Web site has never been easier

Most FrontPage users also use one or more Microsoft Office applications. FrontPage 2000 was designed to function more like Microsoft Office so that users can get up and running with FrontPage more quickly than ever.

	Feature	Description
	*Simplified features make creating Web content easier than ever*
New	Integrated FrontPage Editor and FrontPage Explorer	It’s easier than ever to get started using FrontPage because all of the Web page creation and site management tools users need are in one easy to use application.
Improved	Looks Like Microsoft Office	Office 2000 and FrontPage 2000 share common Themes, toolbars, menus, shortcuts, and tools like the Format Painter, HTML Help, and background spell checking.
Improved	Shared Web Themes	With Office 2000 and FrontPage 2000, Themes are shared so that pages created in Word and FrontPage can share the same look.
New	Format Painter	Users can quickly apply the formatting from one piece of text to another by placing the cursor on the text with the format they want, pressing the Format Painter button, and then highlighting the text to be formatted.
New	Background Spell Checking	FrontPage 2000 brings users the familiar red squiggly lines to show misspelled or unrecognized words, and allows them to right-click on these words for suggestions on the correct spelling.
New	Personalized Menus	Only the items used most often are prominently featured on the menu. Menus are easily expanded to reveal all commands; they also expand automatically based on IntelliSense rules.
New	Personalized Toolbars	To reduce screen clutter, toolbars intelligently share space on the screen based on usage. This allows multiple toolbars to be stored in a single row on screen. As a part of a toolbar is used, it is “promoted” and displayed in a hierarchical fashion.
New	Customizable Toolbars	Toolbars are easier than ever to customize with Yes/No customization and drag-and-drop command controls on the toolbar.
New	HTML Help	HTML Help allows users to see help while continuing to work within FrontPage, which means that they can follow the steps more closely and get questions answered more quickly.
New	Answer Wizard	Lets users get answers more quickly because they can ask questions in natural language, and FrontPage infers what the user needs help with from the way the question is phrased.
	*Works great with Microsoft Office*
New	Office 2000 Uses HTML as a Native File Format	HTML has been elevated to the same level as the Office proprietary file formats. This means that HTML documents can be used in much the same way that Office binary files (.doc, .xls, .ppt, .mdb) are used today, and can be readily saved to and edited from a FrontPage-based Web.
New	Open & Save Office 2000 Documents to FrontPage-Based Webs	Office users can save Office documents and Web pages directly to FrontPage-based Web sites as easily as saving a file to a hard drive.
New	Integrated HTML Editing with Office Applications	When users edit an Office 2000 file from their FrontPage-based Web, the Office application in which they created the file launches so they can continue to edit in the application in which they created the files.
Improved	Automatic Hyperlink Fix-Up	Rename or move a page or graphic in the FrontPage-based Web site, and hyperlinks are automatically fixed. Even works on Microsoft Office documents.
Improved	Access Database Connectivity	Easily incorporate Microsoft Access databases into FrontPage-based Web pages, and then users can add to the databases directly from their browsers.
New	Add, Edit, and Manage Office 2000 Web Components	Microsoft Office Web Components (such as the Spreadsheet, PivotTable views, and Chart) allow users to add the functionality of Microsoft Excel directly to Web pages, from within FrontPage 2000.
New	Common Server Extensions	Office Server Extensions incorporate the functionality of the FrontPage Server Extensions. This allows users to host FrontPage-based Webs on servers running the Office Server Extensions.
	*Designed for worldwide use*
Improved	Available in 15 Languages	The FrontPage 2000 user interface is available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, as well as the newly added languages of Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Korean, Traditional Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Danish, and Finnish. Additionally, with any language FrontPage product, users can create and manage Web content in the language of their Windows operating system.
Improved	Single Worldwide Executable	One worldwide executable means that companies can standardize the base Office 2000 or FrontPage installation around the globe, then add support for appropriate languages when required.
New	Global User Interface and Multilingual Editing	When additional languages are required, the user simply installs them from the appropriate language pack. Users can also have the FrontPage user interface in one language, but create content in other languages.
New	Set Language by Page	FrontPage 2000 allows users to select which language the proofing tools should use for each page, making it easier than ever for one user to create Web content in multiple languages. This also allows search products like Microsoft Index Server to offer search capability by the language the page was created in.
	*Get up and running quickly and easily*
New	Windows Installer Technology	Uses the Microsoft standard Windows Installer Technology, the same installation program as Microsoft Office, so companies can easily roll out FrontPage 2000 along with Office 2000.
New	Install on Demand	Programs and components are installed as needed, saving space on a hard drive until users need the functionality.
New	Self-Repairing Application	FrontPage 2000 determines at launch if essential files are missing and where they can be found. It then reinstalls the missing files with little or no user intervention.
New	Microsoft Office Custom Installation Wizard (CIW)	This tool allows administrators to help deploy customized versions of Microsoft Office 2000 and FrontPage 2000 that contain pre-selected configuration options at the individual feature, menu and toolbar level.
Improved	Easier Web Server Administration	Uses the same management console as Windows NT and Internet Information Server, and allows users to manage FrontPage-based Webs remotely.
New	Roaming User Profiles	Set up the FrontPage work environment, and FrontPage saves preferences on a server so that whatever computer a user logs in from, the FrontPage environment looks the same.

Pricing

FrontPage 2000 has an estimated retail price of $149 and includes a $40 (US) or $60 (CDN) rebate coupon for current users of selected Microsoft Office products.

For more information: http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/

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