Creating Files and Folders with FrontPage

The first thing we have to decide on is how we want to use FrontPage to work with our Weblog.  Working with a single page is pretty easy.  Just open FrontPage, design the page and save it to your Radio WWW folder with a .html file extension.  The next time you start radio it will get upstreamed to your site and you're done.  If we're going to be working with a bunch of pages or the whole Weblog, to create a new theme for example, then there's a little more to consider.  In these tutorials we're going to be working with a number of files and then we're going to integrate them into our current Weblog theme, as I've done here.

Should I use the WWW folder

Not yet.  Here's where I made my first mistake.  When using FrontPage you deal with two types of webs; server-based and disk-based.  The first step you're told in any FrontPage tutorial is how to open your web.  You do this by choosing File, Open Web and either selecting a folder location on your hard drive, such as C:\MyWebs\ (disk-based web) or a server location such as http://www.mydomain.com/ (server-based web).  

So why can't you just choose File, Open Web, C:\Program Files\Radio UserLand\www and work with the web that way? It all goes back to to what I was saying about upstreaming.

When you open a folder in FrontPage the first thing it wants to do is add the FrontPage Server Extensions to the folder if it doesn't already have them (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1  Adding FrontPage Information to the Folder

The FrontPage Server Extensions are a set of programs on a web server that support administering, authoring, and browsing a FrontPage-extended Web site.  To accomplish this, when a web site is created using FrontPage Special FrontPage Directories and Storage Locations are added to your web. These Server Extensions allow you to do the following:

• Administer FrontPage-extended webs.  This includes setting permissions for authors, administrators, and Web site visitors.
• Author FrontPage-extended webs.  This includes automatically maintaining hyperlinks, generating and maintaining navigation bars across all pages, and automatically formatting pages to give them a uniformed appearance. 
• Add functionality to your Web site. This includes interactive discussion groups, hit counters, and search forms. 

If you've ever looked at a FrontPage web in Windows Explorer or by opening your web site with an FTP program you'll notice a number of hidden directories named _vti*.  If you look inside of some of these directories you'll see what appears to be a duplicate set of your files, except they aren't.  They contain special information that FrontPage uses to maintain your web site.

If you open the Radio WWW folder in FrontPage it will add the FrontPage Server Extension information to all of the folders under it and they will get upstreamed to your Radio Weblog the next time you open Radio.  So why is this a bad thing?  First, it will double the number of files on your site and all of those files will get indexed when a search engine catalogs your Weblog.  So instead of seeing the file you intended a user may see something like the following:

vti_encoding:SR|utf8-nl
vti_author:SR|AETH\A812349
vti_modifiedby:SR|AETH\A812349
vti_timecreated:TR|04 Mar 2002 21:04:52 -0000
vti_timelastmodified:TR|04 Mar 2002 22:01:13 -0000
vti_filesize:IR|4871
vti_title:SR|Creating Files and Folders with FrontPage
vti_metatags:VR|HTTP-EQUIV=Content-Type text/html;\ charset=windows-1252 GENERATOR Microsoft\ FrontPage\ 4.0 ProgId FrontPage.Editor.Document
vti_progid:SR|FrontPage.Editor.Document
vti_generator:SR|Microsoft FrontPage 4.0
vti_extenderversion:SR|4.0.2.3406
vti_backlinkinfo:VX|folder/toc.html folder/workingwithradio.html
vti_nexttolasttimemodified:TR|04 Mar 2002 21:49:52 -0000
vti_cacheddtm:TX|04 Mar 2002 22:01:13 -0000

In addition, if you go to Radio to edit a story or daily Weblog you may see duplicate entries for each entry making it harder to maintain your Weblog and defeating the whole purpose and simplicity of using Radio. It can also make quite a mess.

Creating a Workspace

So where should you do your work?  For now we'll be working outside of the Radio WWW folder.  Open Windows Explorer (or My Computer) and create a new folder on your Hard Drive.  Ex: C:\Radio. Now open FrontPage and choose File, Open Web, C:\Radio and click Yes to the dialog box in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.2 The WWW Folder

If you intend on using images and linking to other files in your Weblog remember that you need to follow the standard hierarchy of folders like you would in any web site.  For example, since my ultimate goal is to create a Category for these tutorials and then publish the files to that folder, after I created my web I put all of my images (the Figures used throughout these tutorials) into the images folder and created a folder under the root called radioTutorials (the name I intend to give to my category). I then created all of my .html files in that folder.  Why did I do that?  I chose to set up my web (C:\Radio) like that so when I copied the files to my Radio WWW folder (see Figure 1.2) the links would remain relative to the root.  You can just as easily use absolute URLs if you prefer but that just makes things harder if you decide to move your Weblog to another server.

Creating our Files

Creating our files is actually the easiest part of working with FrontPage and Radio.  You create your files in FrontPage the exact same way that you would for any other web page.  The only thing you need to remember is never to use any features that require the FrontPage Server Extensions since Radio Weblogs don't support them.

There's also another benefit to working with Radio.  Although you can apply any type of formatting you'd like to your pages, such as setting your fonts, because of the templates already present in your Radio Weblog you can leave out some of these elements and allow Radio to apply them when you upload your files and integrate them into your existing Weblog theme.

Last update: 1/20/2003; 8:30:49 PM.

All products and company names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. Microsoft® and FrontPage® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.