http://frontlook.com How-to Tips for FrontLook Products en-us Copyright 2004, DPA Software. support@frontlook.com support@frontlook.com http://frontlook.com/images/DPALogo75.gif http://frontlook.com 75 35 Add-ins for Microsoft FrontPage http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip1-1.asp Many FrontPage users simply haven't taken the time to learn how to quickly and efficiently manipulate images in their image editor. This tutorial focuses on how to resize a set of images of varying dimensions to a fixed width for use in the presentation applet. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip1-2.asp Pre-made web templates provide you with a quick way of producing a professional looking web site, however, the template isn't always available in the color scheme you want. The FrontLook Chameleon is a totally unique and wonderfully simple tool that allows you to transform an existing template to the color scheme you need, with no graphics and theme editing knowledge required! http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip1-3.asp While FrontLook JFX supply a healthy selection of audio files, it is often desirable to add or edit custom sounds for your FrontLook Applet. In this article will talk about the tools and procedures used in recording and converting sound files for FrontLook Java Applets. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip1-4.asp Once in a while I have to use a non-FrontPage web editor for various reasons, but then I couldn't use the FrontLook applets that I had become so accustomed to when making FrontPage web sites. So I came up with the solution which takes a few steps and some time to accomplish, but the extra work is worth it to to able to use the applets in these non-FrontPage web sites. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip1-6.asp When applying a Super Theme to a web that already has shared borders, a backup of the old shared borders will be placed in the _borders directory. It may be desirable to copy information from the previous shared borders to the new shared borders. This section outlines the procedure for doing this operation. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip1-7.asp Customers have asked us how we implemented our left border navigation system on our web site. It is really quite simple if you are willing to use a little Active Server Page (ASP) code and are running a Microsoft server both locally and remotely. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip1-8.asp Splash Pages can act as a doorway to your web site, providing fun ways to highlight the latest news or just entertain your viewers. It is common to provide the user a doorway link and a automatic redirection to your home page after a couple of seconds. This done using the Refresh System Meta tag. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip1-9.asp Using FrontLook Page Effects is a great way to add appeal to your web pages. The FrontLook Page Effects product comes with Customizable animation templates so you can make your own FrontLook Page Effects animations. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip1-11.asp It is sometimes desirable to change the font type, style, color or alignment. This is done via the FrontPage Theme browser in FrontPage http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip1-12.asp Sometimes it is desirable to change the look of a list picture bullets. Often FrontPage themes have overly large first level picture bullets, that you might like to make smaller http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip2-1.asp Can multiple Super Themes can be applied to a single web? Because a web may only have one set of shared borders, it is not possible to apply multiple Super Themes to a single web, but using FrontPage sub-webs you can accomplish exactly that. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip2-3.asp This month's tip looks at how easy it is to add a FrontLook Page Effects splash page to your web and how you can set the Splash page to be your default page on your web without messing up your FrontPage navigation. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip2-4.asp The Image Effects applet is ideal for showcasing a your company logo or any image you would like your viewers to notice. Often times it is desirable to put a frame around the applets image to set it off from other images on the page, but not have the frame image affected by the applet http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip2-5.asp Sometimes when working with a Super Theme, it is desirable to replace a Scroller applet in the Left or Top border with some other component. Luckily its pretty easy to switch components using the following steps: http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip2-6.asp Often your company or web site client has a "company color" or standard color that must be used in the web design. Using a Super Theme, the Chameleon and a utility called the "Eye Dropper", you can usually colorize the Super Theme, FrontPage theme and other site graphics to the desired color http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip2-7.asp The Button bar creates JavaScript button bars to control the sequencing of the Component Effects components. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip2-8.asp When creating a Slide Show presentation, it can be a time consuming task to setup all your images to fit the height and width of the applet or component. In the past you had to do this manually, but with our new Component Effects product, we have added an image scaling feature to scale the images to fit the component area. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip2-9.asp Make your FrontLook Component Effects slide shows interactive by allowing the viewer to click on a text or image hyperlink to jump to a particular slide in the presentation. This month's tip shows you how to add a simple line of JavaScript to the a text or image hyperlink to enable your viewer to navigate your presentation. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip2-10.asp Microsoft FrontPage has excellent support for adding images and other items from the clip board. In this FrontPage How-to article we will explore the process of capturing and then adding screen shots to a web page. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip2-11.asp FrontLook Media Maker provides an easy-to-use interface to create CD-Based HTML Presentations. In the example below, you will walk through the process of creating a project folder, converting your web to an HTML presentation, building the media files and making a CD. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip2-12.asp Microsoft FrontPage 2002 supports a new type of Navigation bar called Link Bars used in making fixed navigation bars or theme consistent roll over buttons. If you have applied a Super Theme to your web and are using FrontPage 2002, we recommend you replace the top navigation bar with a custom link bar. This provides you with more flexibility in the setup of the Navigation structure. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip3-2.asp In the past I have been asked, "how can I put a Page Effects on just part of the page instead of the whole page"? This month's tip shows you how to contain a Page Effect in a rectangle using Inline Frames in FrontPage 2002. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip3-3.asp When adding a Page Effects Splash page to your web site, a little bit of text in the right place can make the page even more personal. In this tip we will explore the use of the FrontPage Pictures Bar Text Tool to customize a splash page image. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip3-4.asp Java applets do not support a transparent background so you have to fake it by selecting the background color or image of the page as the background of the applet. If you are using a FrontPage or FrontLook Super Theme, then the background image is not easily accessed. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip3-5.asp Its easy to setup a FrontLook Site Search Engine on your web site. It is assumed that you have already installed the FrontLook Site Search Engine product (demo version is available on your personal download page).. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip3-6.asp The Quick Search Form dialog inserts a html search form to allow the user to enter a search term on any page and then press GO or a search button. The user will then be taken to the search page (previously inserted) and he will then be able to see the results of the search and refine the search further using the full tools of the search page. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip3-7.asp Attaching a DWT to your web for the first time (Requires FrontPage 2003 and the DWT Browser) http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip3-8.asp FAQs regarding upgrading to FrontPage 2003 and FrontLook http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip3-9.asp When using tables to control your page layout, pixel precision is often crucial. As you may have noticed, just setting the pixel width and height of the table rarely keeps things in place under all browser viewing conditions. Using transparent spacer gif images can save you loads of time and keep you from pulling your hair out trying to get something spaced properly http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip3-10.asp With many Non-Microsoft servers, the default page of the web must be "index.htm" which also must also must be the home page for FrontPage Navigation. A splash page does not make a good home page for web navigation. This article describes one work-around for this problem using FrontPage subwebs. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip3-11.asp Often times there is a reason to change the configuration of the shared borders on a particular page, but when using the Format->Shared Borders Dialog you could accidentally delete shared borders by resetting the default for the web. This article will discuss the Shared Border Meta tag using in FrontPage and discuss how to set it safely to reconfigure the shared borders on a particular page. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip3-12.asp If you are using a FrontPage template on your web (i.e., not shared borders), then adding a FrontLook Site Search Engine page to your web that has the same look of your web requires a couple of extra steps. This procedure is outlined in this tip. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip4-1.asp There are many situations where you would like to search documents other than .htm that are viewable in a browser, for example; PDF, Word and PowerPoint files. While the current version of the FrontLook site Search engine does not directly search these files, a simple workaround can make it do just that. In this tip, a technique is outlined to enable the search a PDF file and bring up the page in the browser if it selected by the user. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip4-2.asp In this months tip we answer some frequently asked questions about the way image and sound files are managed in the FrontLook Effect products (Java Effects, Component Effects and Page Effects). http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip4-3.asp Since you are most likely a web developer, you probably have access to an FTP site that you might not even be using. Use it to remotely backup your system data. The FrontLook Data Backup Pro automatically compresses, encrypts and copies any set of folders to any number of FTP servers. This month's tip is tutorial on how to setup a scheduled backup. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip4-4.asp Recently we have released a new set of template designs in both Dynamic Web Templates (DWTs can only be used in FrontPage 2003) and FrontPage Web Template (FPWT) forms. We recommend the use of DWTs in web development for many reasons, but if you are using FrontPage 2000 or 2002, you can use FrontPage Web Templates to update the look of your web. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip4-5.asp Several FrontLook Site Search Engine customers have asked if it is possible to add a "Clear" or "Reset" button to the search engine page. This will allow the user of the search page to clear the search results in order to start a new search. We have devised a small piece of code to insert on the page next to or near the submit button that will perform the "clear" function. http://www.frontlook.com/newsletters/tip4-6.asp Several FrontLook Site Search Engine customers have asked if it is possible to add a Search Areas drop-Down menu to the Quick Search Form, much like Amazon.com com does (we have added this feature to our Home page Quick Search Form in the right border). This tip will take you through the steps to add this menu to your Quick Search form.