• Illustration: Data-Driven Web Sites with FrontPage
• Illustration: Design-Code Split Window
• Illustration: FrontPage XSLT Editor in Action
• Sidebar: Where Did FrontPage Server Extensions Go?

The latest version of FrontPage, Microsoft’s Web content creation tool, includes new capabilities for creating data-driven Web sites, which generate pages and links from external data sources such as databases. Page design and coding features have also improved significantly. Microsoft hopes FrontPage 2003 (FP2003) will appeal both to nontechnical users and professional developers and compete more strongly with products such as Macromedia’s Dreamweaver. To be successful, Microsoft will have to convince Web developers that FrontPage is more than a lightweight tool for authoring simple, static Web pages, which is its primary use today.

FP2003 is particularly useful for creating and customizing sites for Windows SharePoint Services (WSS), a free add-on service to Windows Server 2003 for hosting team collaboration Web sites; in fact, many of the product’s new data-driven features require WSS and Windows Server 2003. This focus could help Microsoft drive adoption of related server products but is a departure from previous FrontPage versions, which are used to create content for both Windows and non-Windows–based Internet Web sites, and could limit the product’s appeal to designers targeting other Web platforms.

What FrontPage Does

FrontPage, acquired in Microsoft’s purchase of Vermeer Technologies in 1996, offers an easy-to-use solution for authoring Web site content. Its most important feature has been a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that allows nontechnical content creators—writers, graphic artists, and product managers, many of whom are not proficient in HTML—to lay out Web pages, insert graphics, and author basic HTML content. The product is also used to a lesser extent by site builders—typically system architects, developers, and business analysts—to design or modify simple Web sites.

FrontPage also is associated with server components called FrontPage Server Extensions (FPSEs), which are designed to help users publish content to Web servers and build more advanced features, such as searching, into Web sites without requiring them to write code or script. FPSEs are available for Windows and non-Windows platforms, which allows developers to build sites in FrontPage that can run on a variety of Web servers, including Linux running the Apache Web server as well as Microsoft’s own Internet Information Services (IIS). Although FPSEs will ship in Windows Server 2003 and FP2003 developers can build sites that use them, Microsoft has added no new FPSE features. The equivalents of most important FPSE features are offered in WSS; however, WSS is a Microsoft-only technology.

While the new version of FrontPage retains simple site authoring features, it is also being touted by Microsoft as a more heavyweight Web development tool for authoring data-driven Web sites. Data-driven Web sites contain static content supplemented with dynamic content generated from external data sources, such as SQL Server databases and other Web-based services. Data-driven Web sites are easier to maintain than static Web sites because changes to data do not require manually modifying HTML pages. For example, an e-commerce Web site linked to a company’s product catalog database will automatically reflect any change to the product catalog, such as a price change. Most of the new data-driven capabilities in FP2003 are only realized, however, when FrontPage is used in combination with WSS.

FP2003 is designed to make data-driven site creation available to a wide audience; it is easier to use than general purpose development tools such as Microsoft’s Visual Studio and could offer a way for nontechnical users to create sophisticated, dynamic Web sites. It could also compete better against popular, platform-independent design tools like Dreamweaver and drive demand for WSS and Windows Server 2003.

Support for Data-Driven Web Sites

Previous versions of FrontPage include some capabilities for connecting external data sources to Web sites (for example, the Database Interface Wizard allows site builders to connect to sources such as Access or SQL Server databases) and crude utilities for formatting that data for display. Nonetheless, the product is primarily used to author "static" content—content that does not rely on external data and thus does not change over time.

FP2003 substantially improves the product’s data-driven capabilities by taking advantage of data retrieval services in WSS, which can retrieve data from a variety of sources, and Web Parts, reusable, interactive server-side Web page components that can consume and display live data. WSS provides a common mechanism for accessing data, which it returns to FrontPage as standard XML; in fact, FrontPage sites can incorporate any data that can be exposed as XML, whether it is simply a local XML file generated by an Office application or a remote Web Service that provides an XML interface to a legacy database application. FP2003 provides utilities that allow site developers to add these XML sources to Web pages and edit and format them for display.

(For an illustration of how this works, see "Data-Driven Web Sites with FrontPage and WSS".)

Although WSS Web pages can be created and customized with just a Web browser, FP2003 expands on those capabilities in two important ways. First, it provides an easy-to-use interface to connect, add, and configure generic external data sources. Second, it gives site builders a set of tools for formatting, displaying, and updating these sources while insulating them from the data's underlying complexity.

Managing Data Sources

A task pane, called the Data Source Catalog, helps FP2003 site builders find and organize data sources, such as XML files, Web Parts, Web services, and OLEDB databases, which FP2003 accesses through the WSS data retrieval services. Site builders can select data sources from the catalog to include in site pages and manipulate the underlying properties of those sources. For example, FP2003 users can add a SQL Server database to the catalog, select which tables from that database to include, and specify which fields in those tables are returned for display.

These features could help collaborative Web development projects: Web site development teams can organize collections of relevant sources for their projects and share those sources with other teams. For example, the project leader of a self-service human resources intranet application could locate and add a set of Web services that expose records in the company’s central human resources system (time and attendance records, for instance), which would then be available for other site developers to include in Web pages.

Formatting and Displaying Data

Prior to FP2003, connecting Web pages to data sources and formatting data for display generally involved writing server-side script. FP2003 site builders simply drag and drop data sources from the Data Source Catalog onto a page. They can also perform an array of data filtering and transformation operations using the WYSIWYG editor (called the Design View) and other GUI tools without writing code.

FP2003 helps site builders work with WSS data sources in the following ways:

The Data View Web Part serves as a container into which site builders add data sources listed in their Data Source Catalog. Users add a Data View to a page and then drag a data source from the Data Source Catalog into it, which creates a link to the live data source. When the page containing the Data View is rendered by a browser, it displays a view of the live data; thus, changes made to the underlying data are automatically reflected on the site.

Formatting data sources. Once the Data View is populated, site builders format the way source XML data is presented in the FrontPage Design View. (More advanced developers can manipulate the XML directly in the FrontPage text-editing window and preview the results in the Design View window.) For example, a developer could drop the XML representation of a spreadsheet into a Data View and use the FrontPage formatting toolbars to render all items in a spreadsheet column in boldface type.

FP2003 accomplishes this by generating sets of instructions called Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT). XSLT is used to transform, filter, and format XML data for display on a Web page. (For an illustration of how XML is formatted in the FP2003 Design View and the resulting XSLT data transformation, see "FrontPage XSLT Editor in Action".)

The Data View Details task pane gives site builders a detailed, graphical view of the structure of a data source and allows advanced customization of data sources exposed by the Data View Web Part. Developers can select from a list of predefined table styles for presenting data and can add other properties to the view, such as toolbars that allow site visitors to sort and filter a data table from their Web browsers.

Support for WSS Web Parts. Because it relies on WSS, FP2003 also supports Web Parts in general, such as the Document Library and Announcements Web Parts that ship with WSS, and other external Web Parts, such as those included in Microsoft’s online gallery (the MSNBC stock ticker, for example). The Web Parts task pane gives site builders ready access to the parts available for use on their sites. In the Design View, they can perform basic layout tasks such as adding, positioning, and resizing Web Parts, as well as more complicated actions, such as passing data from one Web Part to another.

For example, the Web Part Connection Wizard could help a developer connect a Web Part that accepts search criteria to another Web Part that searches a data source and displays the results on a page.

FP2003 also allows developers to include, reposition, and resize ASP.NET controls, interactive Web components similar to Web Parts that range from simple menu bars to more complicated controls for data charting.

Improved Site Authoring and Development

With this release, Microsoft moves FrontPage up a notch in the spectrum of Web site development and content authoring tools. In addition to the new data-driven site features, FP2003 offers developer features similar to those in Visual Studio and includes a set of professional design tools, some of which mirror important features of Dreamweaver, such as a similarly featured development environment and an extensive set of Web site templates.

Better Editing Tools

FP2003 includes the following new editing capabilities that improve the way site builders work with site files and content:

Split view editing window. An FP2003 editing window contains two panes or views: a WYSIWYG view of a Web page (called the Design View) and a view of the code that comprises the page (called the Code View). Changes made in one view are automatically reflected in the other view. For example, italicizing text in the Design View automatically generates the HTML tags for italics in the Code View. Developers can also work directly with HTML (or other code, such as XML) text in the Code View, obviating the need for a separate text editor.

(For an illustration of the split-window editing environment, see "Design-Code Split Window".)

Tag selection and editing. The Quick Tag Selector toolbar shows the nested hierarchy of HTML tags surrounding the elements of a Web page, such as images, text blocks, tables, and table cells. Positioning the editing cursor anywhere in the Design View causes the toolbar to show all tags surrounding that location on the page; clicking on a particular tag in the toolbar highlights, both in the Design and Code Views, all page elements within that tag. Developers can edit HTML tags or insert additional tags from the Quick Tag Selector toolbar. This will allow both developers and designers to quickly locate and select specific page elements for editing when working on pages that contain complex nested tables.

Improved HTML and Scripting Support

FP2003 boasts improved features for working with HTML and speedier development of script-based interactive effects in Web pages, including the following:

Improved HTML generation. A frequent complaint among FrontPage users is the verbose and inefficient HTML code generated by the program and the difficulty of incorporating content authored in other Microsoft products, such as Word, which often create non-standard HTML. An FP2003 utility streamlines HTML in two ways, which can improve readability of the HTML in the FrontPage Code View and reduce the size of Web pages, improving performance. First, a design-time menu option lets site developers condense HTML to remove nonessential tags, such as the non-standard HTML code generated by Word.

Second, site administrators can clean up Web pages when they are published, removing specific types of code on production pages but leaving them intact on development pages. This could allow, for example, administrators to eliminate code comments on the pages seen by site visitors, while letting developers work with the more readable, verbose HTML pages locally.

Behaviors are blocks of JavaScript that trigger an action on a Web page when some specific event occurs—for instance, playing a sound when a visitor clicks on an image. Developers can attach predefined or custom-built behaviors to any element of a page, such as a block of text or an image, through the Behaviors task pane, which helps them choose specific events and actions to associate with that element.

Interactive buttons are prepackaged combinations of images with attached behaviors that simulate push-buttons. FP2003 allows users to add buttons to a page from a drop-down list, and change their size, text, and font. A default set of behaviors accompanies the button graphics; for example, the default button image is swapped with one of a lighter color when a site visitor moves the cursor over the button.

Advanced Developer Support

FP2003 has features to support advanced programmers, similar to those in development tools like Visual Studio.

IntelliSense support. IntelliSense is a code completion technology included in Microsoft development products such as Visual Studio. IntelliSense in FP2003 recognizes statements and commands in a variety of languages, such as HTML, JavaScript and JScript, XSLT, ASP, and ASP.NET, and makes appropriate completion suggestions for those statements in the FrontPage Code View window. This helps developers avoid common coding errors, such as leaving out completion tags in HTML statements.

Code snippets. Site builders can build and store collections of code snippets, useful blocks of code that developers can retrieve and include in Web pages as needed to speed site development. Code snippets can be any text format supported in the Code View (HTML and JScript, for example), and are available to site builders from a drop-down menu.

Better Site Design

Microsoft has improved the core Web page layout and design features of FrontPage in the following important ways:

Layout tools. FP2003 Web pages are structured as tables that contain text blocks, graphics, or Web parts. Layout utilities, such as page rulers and a background grid, help align table cells and borders and customize their appearance. Cells can be positioned on a pixel-by-pixel basis, letting designers dictate precisely how a page will be rendered by a Web browser.

Improved Web templates. In addition to including more templates (prefabricated Web sites, such as a corporate presence Web site, that site builders customize by adding content and data) FrontPage also improves the way templates work. For example, site builders can lock sections of a Web page template to prevent the site layout from being altered, while still allowing content creators access to other parts of the page. Unlike previous versions, which allowed only a single template per site, individual pages in FP2003 sites can be based on templates. Changes made to a page template propagate to all site pages based on that template.

Additionally, FP2003 templates are compatible with Dreamweaver templates, which could help FrontPage site builders collaborate with other developers or teams working in that product, or give them an easy way to move Dreamweaver sites to FrontPage.

Multilayered pages. New FP2003 features make it easier to work with layered content—content that is embedded in a Web page but is invisible until site visitors perform specific actions. Site builders can create and position content on layers, control their visibility, and they now have tools to control how layers are rendered on a live Web site. For example, without writing script, a site builder could create images that move across a page or that switch to alternative images when a site visitor moves the mouse over the original image.

FrontPage Futures, Concerns, and Limitations

FP2003 is a significant product overhaul that integrates new technology and upgrades the product’s base feature set and is a logical choice for customers who already plan to deploy Windows Server 2003 and WSS for intranet team sites. However, customers looking for a tool for building advanced, platform-independent Internet sites, or those who are not interested in advanced data-driven features, should consider the following:

FrontPage is a Microsoft-focused product. Today, FrontPage is used to build standard HTML-based sites that run on both Windows and Unix-based platforms, and many application service providers offer Unix-based Web hosting services that support FPSEs. This is made possible by the fact that FPSEs are available for both Windows and Unix.

Although FPSEs will ship in Windows Server 2003 and FP2003 developers can develop sites that use them, Microsoft has added no new FPSE features, opting instead to have WSS subsume many of these features and focusing new development there. Although many improvements in the product are not WSS or Windows specific (the design and coding features, for instance), the apparent phasing out of FPSE, coupled with FP2003’s dependence on Microsoft-only server technology to deliver data-driven features and its minimal support for non-Microsoft technology such as PHP (a scripting language popular with Apache Web developers) suggests that Microsoft does not view FP2003 as a long-term solution for building advanced, data-driven Web sites on other platforms.

(For more details, see the sidebar "Where Did FrontPage Server Extensions Go?".)

WSS positioned as an intranet technology. Today, FrontPage is commonly used to author Internet-facing Web sites for anonymous access. However, Microsoft has positioned WSS as a platform for intranet-based, team collaboration Web sites for authenticated users in a corporate domain. Although WSS could be used for Internet Web sites, and Microsoft has begun to promote this idea, few Web hosters have signaled any intent to do so.

The strong tie between FP2003 and WSS could therefore dampen the uptake of FP2003 in the hosting market, despite broad improvements to the product.

WSS and Windows Server 2003 are required for data-driven site development. The FP2003 client uses WSS to access live data sources while a site developer works on a site. Consequently, FP2003 requires access to a Windows 2003 server running WSS for data-driven site development.

New technology. Finally, because of the scope of changes to the product some features may not be mature. For example, although it is trivial to insert an Events List Web Part (a simple WSS Web Part for displaying important team events) into a Web page, a site builder cannot add new events to that Web Part with FP2003. This is done by design; FP2003 users work with read-only views of underlying data. Nonetheless, this creates an inconvenience for someone creating a WSS site; that person would need to open a separate browser window to populate the events list.

In addition, because Web sites running on Windows Server 2003 cannot access features in FPSEs and WSS simultaneously, porting a FrontPage site that makes use of FPSE features to a WSS and Windows Server 2003 infrastructure may require that site, or some parts of it, to be rewritten. Although Microsoft will provide documentation and tools to assist with migration to FP2003 and WSS, site developers will likely need to recode parts of these sites.

Availability and Resources

FP2003 will run on client computers running Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 (SP3), Windows XP, or a later OS. Web sites created with FrontPage can be viewed with any Web browser, and FP2003 sites that do not take advantage of the product’s data-driven features can run on Windows and Unix-based Web platforms. As described earlier, taking advantage of the new data-driven features in FrontPage requires WSS and Windows Server 2003.

FP2003 will be sold as a separate product and will not be part of an Office 2003 bundle. The product is scheduled for release in Oct. 2003 along with other components of the Office System. Microsoft estimates the retail price for FP2003 to be US$199 for the complete product and US$109 for an upgrade from previous versions.

For more information on FrontPage 2003, see www.microsoft.com/office/preview/frontpage/default.asp.