Is Frontpage Still Used

[Olimpia Sawaia]

Im so confused about this thing. I tried to figure this out for ours, but can't seem to find a solution. I'm currently working on a theme for a client, using the components business starter theme. I'm new to theme creation and still didn't quite get the hang of everything. Here is what I want to do:

Most of the time, you don't want to use the default homepage as the frontpage, but define a static page "Home". So I created a static page and went to Settings->Reading, to define my "Home" page as front page.

However, in the theme I startet with, my frontpage stays empty. I don't get any content from my "Home" page there. This is a very basic starter theme, but I think this should be included right? It's a basic function from the WP backend.

I'm trying to get my theme to display the page that is set under "Front page" in the WordPress settings, but I just don't know how. When I change the theme to "twnetyfourteen", the page.php template is triggered instead of the index.php, when I view the homepage. In my theme however, it's still the index.php. How does WordPress decide, which one of both to chose?

If you run down specific template being used (plugin like Query Monitor can help with this) it's front-page.php, here it is in their github repo (and it seems to be moved in theme root, that's what generator thing does).

In this specific case it is being used to implement that "business" configuration of the theme, displaying hero image and testimonials (look at its source). It chooses not to output page content for that case, that's why it doesn't appear.

Personally, it bugs me seeing the extra bloat (unnecessary HTML structure, non-semantic use of HTML tags, embedding CSS directly in HTML) that Frontpage generates. I also dislike use of proprietary, non-standard HTML and CSS. Frontpage's code bloat is bad enough to have inspired such programs as Frontpage Code Cleaner. Here's another Stack Overflow question that deals with removing Frontpage bloat: FrontPage tags - Pain in da HTML.

Frontpage leads to bad habits for some of the same reasons Sarah Vessels lists. I used to use it myself. I was one of those who liked to design in design mode and refine in HTML. The problem was that switching between "design" and "html" views would cause FrontPage to change my precious HTML. And at some point I got fed up with it destroying my markup (something the newer tools are better about not doing).

When I began hand coding every site I worked on from scratch I learned so much more about HTML and CSS in general and how to make lightweight, efficient pages. And at that point I also realized that the markup FrontPage would generate was really old-fashioned with lots of tables and inline CSS. As I learned to do it right I also learned how to make my sites cross-browser compatible on the first try. In the end this allows me to design and build a better site, faster.

If any GUI can do all that reliably, great. But I haven't seen it yet. And by the time you build one, the competition will be hand-coding capabilities that the GUI doesn't know about yet.

For one, FP isn't really supported anymore. The FP extensions honestly suck, they break quite often on the server side. But just as HTML editor, when the latest FP version is used and the settings are right (correct browser version and no server-side FP extensions), it's quite OK.

This is going off topic, but when FrontPage first came out, it was groundbreaking in how easy it was to create websites at a time when the web designer title was nowhere near fruition, but of course, FP has (de)volved into producing bloat.

The original company that created it was named Vermeer, after the Dutch painter and the story of how FP was built and how Vermeer got bought out by Microsoft is an interesting read, giving you insight into startups and Microsoft buyout tactics back then.

Because it's supposed to be catered to the crowd that isn't familiar at all with web development, mostly novices. To an experienced web developer it's fairly restrictive and limited, as is any WYSIWYG editor.

I personally haven't used Frontpage all that much, but I feel that you should really learn to use HTML and CSS and not rely on an application to do it for you. You really learn how things work and you have more control over what goes on.

Frontpage produces terrible code that won't be maintainable by other developers not using frontpage, meaning almost all web developers with common sense - especially since Frontpage got discontinued.

As mentioned - FrontPage became Expression Web. I hated FrontPage, but I think Expression Web is fantastic. I'm a programmer with deliverables, I don't have time to mess arround writing HTML code myself.

If he just wants to make quick, nice looking, clean corporate sites and have a high turn-over of generic sites, Expression Web is great. (The HTML isn't very 'pure' thought - but honestly what client would care?)

A lot of hosting providers have already disabled the FrontPage Server Extensions (FPSE) for quite some time, since they are notoriously known to cause issues after not being updated in years.

Even though Microsoft is ending official support for FrontPage, you can continue to use it to publish your website. However, going forward you will be unable to publish your site using FrontPage extensions, and instead you will want to publish your FrontPage site over FTP.

If you plan on sticking with FrontPage, please note that as web standards evolve over time FrontPage will cease to also do so. A good quote from the Microsoft site on their prerequisites for using Microsoft Expression Web page covers this:

Expression Web users who are using FrontPage Server Extensions for authoring Web sites by connecting to servers using HTTP should adopt modern technologies such as FTP (including SFTP and FTPS), WebDAV, or by using disk-based sites.

The Internet and the web have changed drastically since the days when FrontPage was a very common website editor. Almost every modern website editor these days will require you to have some basic understanding of the concepts of HTML, and CSS coding, instead of the drag and drop design that FrontPage used.

For lovers of Frontpage like me that are going to continue using it forever, the workaround is to run a local web server in your PC and to have a copy of your website running there so you can install Frontpage extensions to create / update locally your website. After that, you can upload your website though FTP. So, in few words, if you need to update your website anytime, you have to update your original copy located in your localhost first and after that you have to upload any files / changes through FTP.

I just bought an OLD online businesses inventory, website, and domain name. I am hoping to resurect it an update it. However, I have learned the website is built on FrontPage. There are MANY products, and they will be changing frequently. This is an online Fabric Store.

Thanks for your comment and congratulations on acquiring the online business, website, and domain. Although it appears you have some work cut out for you, I have some recommendations that may help with the transition/conversion.

I believe that these would be the best alternatives to make this transition smooth for you. However, I also know that WordPress makes it very simple to create websites in general. So if push comes to shove and you need to just rebuild the site, WordPress would be the simplest way to go about, not only building a new website, but also adding functionalities like E-commerce and many others.

I have had serious computer problems for the last few years caused by a bad hard drive, etc. and I realized that Microsoft Front Page was not working because it was discontinued, not because of my hardward issues. I downloaded the Expressions program, but I have no idea how to transfer my webpage info to it? Can you help?

While counters have been out of favor for quite some time with webmasters using tools such as analytics for much mroe accurate data, you can still find code around the web. We do not currently have any of our own, but you can certainly find many by doing a web search.

I am not comfortable in posting the URL out here; however, should you wish to help (which I appreciate very much), you can simply tell me whether there is some other application / program which I can use to collect form data, without having to depend on FP extensions. This is a generic question and you do not need a URL to answer this

I am getting a 403 error when anyone fills up data on the form and tries to submit it; the rest of the site seems to be working fine. I just need the forms for capturing client and visitor information / inquiries. Is there any other way to do this, while integrating it within the FP site?

The only FP extension that my site uses is for Forms. Can someone please suggest if there is a way where I can retain my FP site (publishing by FTP perhaps) and use some kind of add-on module for the form functionality? Essentially, I have neither the time nor the expertise to re-create a 200 page site on some other software. What can I do?

I am not sure what you mean by the navigation links disappearing. Do you mean from within Expression Web? If so, unfortunately we cannot troubleshoot that as that software does not run off of our servers.

As an aside, I looked at your site, and noticed a ton of hidden Louis Vuitton references and the bottom menu is a set of links to sites other than your own. It appears to have been hacked mildly, so you may want to remove that code the next time you edit it.

Thank you for contacting us. I understand your frustration, but any server that continues to support Frontpage is opening itself up to serious security risks. Putting them all together would just compound the security problem. This is not fallacious, but is an industry-wide move, because Microsoft themselves ended support for Frontpage extensions in 2006, and is no longer patching new security holes.

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