Microsoft Front Page 2003 Test Review

A continued what it had started with Office XP, by disuniting FrontPage of its Office offer? The product is not thus any more integral part of the continuation and is marketed like software alone. Frontpage 2003 profits naturally from the joint base of innovations brought by Office 2003, the first of which the very new interface. So in the past FrontPage was particularly thick-skinned, this version 2003 proves to be flexible and fast; a true comfort for those which knew FrontPage 97! It should be said that Microsoft deployed many efforts to make Frontpage a 2003 major update of its software of creation of HTML pages.

First innovation of size, FrontPage proposes a split view which consists in posting in the higher part of the window the code of the page, and lower part returned sound. The code is put naturally up to date according to your additions in editor WYSIWYG. In connection with code it is necessary for us to finish of them good once for all with hunting for the witches to specify that FrontPage 2003 generates a clean code contrary to the first versions. Thus the multiple changes of working are managed

today in an intelligent way and Microsoft offers a tool for cleaning of the code which will optimize it by removing it from spaces or tags superfluous. This proves particularly useful for the copy to stick coming from Word documents, sometimes even if the tool shows still some weaknesses as regards purification. To always make the edition of code more transparent, FrontPage profits from the IntelliSense technology which makes it possible to modify since the editor scripts JavaScript or VBScript.

Another improvement of size, FrontPage proposes a fast selector of beacon which makes it possible to select of a click an existing tag to insert or publish code HTML. With that is added a fast editor of beacon which by selecting text makes it possible to modify the beacons which surround it, to insert it in a new beacon or to insert a new code HTML to even remove the aforementioned beacon. The function of search for Frontpage was significantly improved to make it possible to seek HTML beacons. It is even possible to create rules which make it possible to automate certain tasks by adding for example a specific beacon on all the pages which are deprived by it.

A long time available on the competitor software, FrontPage 2003 now has a library of code which makes it possible to store and to re-use with leisure of the bits of code frequently used. Frontpage 2003 also contains new dynamic models Web whose principal characteristic is to be propagated on the whole of a site using them as soon as a modification is made. Moreover these models use a syntax identical to that employed by Dreamweaver 4 what makes it possible easily to migrate a Dreamweaver site towards FrontPage. In order to ensure the portability of the sites created, FrontPage henceforth has a function of improved previsualization. The latter makes it possible to visualize your page in the navigator of your choice while profiting from an outline corresponding to the desired resolutions of posting (800x600, 1024x768, etc).

During the phase of edition, FrontPage permanently posts an estimate of time necessary for the loading of the page according to the speed of preset connection. Practical, the tool even makes it possible to check compatibility with the navigators by indicating the parts of the code to you which could pose problem with such or such navigator. Other new possibilities make their appearance in FrontPage 2003 like management of the interactive buttons or the introduction of the design by layer. The manner of Photoshop which manages the copies, FrontPage henceforth makes it possible to organize the elements by layer what makes it possible to post them or to mask them with its own way. The assumption of responsibility of the Flash was slightly improved with the appearance of a dialog box making it possible to define the properties of animation by a simple double click.