FP 2002 --- does it restore FP 98, 97, 2, 1, s easy drag and drop link creation?
John Faughnan
creation that was part of FP 98, 97, 2 and 1.0?
BACKGROUND:
FrontPage 98 (an excellent piece of software) allowed me to create an
anchor in one page and drag and drop it to another page that resided
in the same parent window, thereby creating a link. Fast, easy,
beautiful. If I had multiple open pages (always did) I could quickly
bring the two I wanted to work on to the forefront. I could bring a
page into play by clicking on the explorer or by clicking on a link in
an open document, it would open in my editor readily. I could find all
open pages from the window list or by navigating up the file open
menu.
Because FP 2000 changed so that you can't have multiple document
sub-windows within the editor parent window open at the same time the
above act is MUCH harder. You have to ..
1. Open a new instance of the editor (window new). It shows up in the
windows task bar with a useless title. (Distinguishing data is
truncated unless taskbar is huge).
2. Locate the document I want to work on by tediously navigating the
explorer view in window 2. (I can't open it by link or it opens in the
wrong window) The navigator displays file names rather than titles, so
my file names have to have some meaning to them. (Dumb)
3. Make sure I've closed any window 2 documents in window 1 or I may
overwrite my changes with older versions.
4. Bring window 1 and 2 to the forefront of my display, it's not easy
to figure out which I want because there are now often 3-5 FrontPage
instances running.
5. Drag and drop from 1 to 2.
6. Close window 2 lest I get the versioning problem above.
Basically it's easier to create an anchor in document 2, switch to
document 1 and navigate to the right place, type the text, then create
a link.
If you never used FP 98 drag and drop link creation you probably don't
realize what's missing. If you did use it, then FP 2000 likely drives
you berserk. FP 2000 did some things well, some things badly(losing
some key tags, like <small>, mandatory use of absolute font sizes,
poor support for external style sheets, no real <span> support, etc),
and some things, like this, abysmally.
john
www.faughnan.com/fp/traps.html
jfau...@spamcop.net
[meta: jfaughnan, jgfaughnan, FP2000, FP98, FP2002, FP97, FrontPage,
editor, child window, multi window, Office 2000, Office 2002, client,
usability, frustration, design error, us-en]
Cowboy
SDI like FP 2000. However, you can drag from the folder list on to a page in
both FP 2000 and 2002 to create a link.
I, personally, wish they would reinstitute the MDI. I hate the SDI interface
and find myself going to Visual InterDev to copy and paste code rather than
deal with the SDI.
--
Gregory A. Beamer
MVP; MCP: +I, SE, SD, DBA
Author: ADO.NET and XML: ASP.NET on the Edge (4Q 2001)
*************************************************************************
Think Outside the Box!
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"John Faughnan" <jfau...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:5c0dbfb4.01092...@posting.google.com...
John Faughnan
> FP2002 does not restore the MDI (multiple document interface). It still uses
> SDI like FP 2000. However, you can drag from the folder list on to a page in
> both FP 2000 and 2002 to create a link.
> I, personally, wish they would reinstitute the MDI. I hate the SDI interface
> Gregory A. Beamer MVP; MCP: +I, SE, SD, DBA,
Ahh, it's as I feared then. Dragging from the folder list works well
for creating a link to a page, but it's the nature of my work and
style that I create many links to a point in a page (an anchor). In
all versions of FP prior to 2000 it was trivial to create such a link.
I share your loathing for the SDI. What an abysmally bad idea. It's
the sort of mistake only a very powerful company can afford to make. I
think Microsoft really doesn't know what to do with FP -- whether it's
a tool for the office user or a tool for a professional user.
Compared to the competition FrontPage's real strength, for what I do,
was document management and link creation. With the 2000 release it
seems to do both of these less well than in the past. I have,
incidentally, moved a front page folder from one web location to
another and had FP (FP extensions 2000 in IIS 5/personal) fail to
correctly update all links -- it fixed up only about 2/3 of them.
Sigh. I do have to look much more closely at Visual Interdev, and
Adobe's product. (Dreamweaver is insufficiently document oriented for
my purposes, but now that FP has lost much of its previous ease of use
even Dreamweaver is back in contention.)
john
http://www.faughnan.com/fp/traps.html
jfau...@spamcop.net
"Cowboy" <NoSpamM...@home.comNoSpamM> wrote in message
> FP2002 does not restore the MDI (multiple document interface). It still uses
> SDI like FP 2000. However, you can drag from the folder list on to a page in
> both FP 2000 and 2002 to create a link.
> I, personally, wish they would reinstitute the MDI. I hate the SDI interface
> and find myself going to Visual InterDev to copy and paste code rather than
> deal with the SDI.
> "John Faughnan" <jfau...@spamcop.net> wrote in message
[meta: jfaughnan, jgfaughnan, FP2000, FP98, FP2002, FP97, FrontPage,
editor, child window, multi window, Office 2000, Office 2002, client,
usability, frustration, design error, SDI, MDI, multiple document
interface, single document interface, us-en]