Web Hosting Reviews & Ratings

February 09, 2009

What You Should Know About FrontPage Hosting

Microsoft introduced the world to its FrontPage application in 1996.  Every since then, this popular website development and management tool has been used to create a large number of personal and enterprise-class sites.  The benefit of FrontPage is all in the simplicity it offers.  As a part of the Microsoft Office suite, it features tools and menus commonly found in other MS applications.  This provides a comfortable environment for anyone familiar with Microsoft Office products.  The fact that the program doesn't call for any knowledge of server or client-side programming makes FrontPage a hit among inexperienced users.

Easy to Use and Robust in Nature

Anyone that has ever used FrontPage will agree that Microsoft created the program with the novice in mind.  This is all made apparent with the WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) editor, a user-friendly interface that allows you to edit web pages and view them exactly as they will look when your site goes live.  With drag-and-drop functionality, you can easily edit HTML while experiencing little to no errors.   Creating an entire website is almost as simple as cutting and pasting content in a Microsoft Office application.  Even advanced webmasters can benefit from using FrontPage as it provides the ability to insert your own HTML code.

Not Just for the Novice

Though FrontPage was built on simplicity, it does enable advanced website creation with support for Active X as well as a variety of browser plug-ins and Java Applets.   It also allows you to create more feature-rich, interactive web pages.  Hit counters, discussion forums, built-in search engines, form handlers and link bars can all be incorporated without any complex server-side programming.   These features can be enjoyed by simply using the icons and drop-down menus to insert your content.

In order to reap the benefits of all FrontPage to offer, you will need a web hosting provider with the relevant FrontPage extensions installed on their server.  FrontPage extensions are server-side extensions that give a web server ability to deliver functionality of the FrontPage client.  Without FrontPage extensions, all the applications you create will not function.  While these extensions were designed to perform on the Windows platform, they are also available on Linux and other Unix-like servers.  A FrontPage web hosting provider should provide you with detailed instructions on how to install FrontPage extensions.  In most cases, the process is as simple as clicking a button to enable them.

Advantages and Disadvantages

FrontPage offers many benefits including the ability to create a site with easy navigation and view your traffic statistics.   The advantages are plentiful but that are a few drawbacks you need to be aware of.  For example, you may be required to perform a little freehand coding to get your website to display properly on a browser like Netscape or Opera.  This could be a problem for someone who does not know anything about programming.   There will also be limitations on how dynamic and interactive your site can actually be.  Even with such minor disadvantages, the benefit of simplicity and power make FrontPage a viable option for website development.

Tags: create website,  client-side programming,  benefits of FrontPage,  WYSIWYG,  webmasters,  Microsoft Office,  HTML,  FrontPage Hosting,  FrontPage