Business Support Internet

FrontPage 98 - Active Elements and Components

HOVER BUTTON

A Hover Button is an animated button that, when clicked, activates a hyperlink. When a visitor "hovers" over the button - meaning, moves the pointer over the button before clicking - the button changes colour or shape. You can even specify a sound that plays when a visitor hovers over or clicks the button ( or both).

By default, hover buttons are colourful rectangular boxes. If you prefer differently shaped button, you can use this Active Element to place text on top of a graphic to turn the graphic into a button. You can even specify a second graphic that appears "on hover" resulting in an impressive "clickable button" effect.

**WARNING**
FrontPage creates the hover button effect by inserting a Java applet into the page. The Java applet is a mini-program written in the Java programming language. The hover buttons appears only to visitors who use Java-capable browsers ( Such as IE 3.0 or later, or Netscape 2.0 or later).

How to add a Hover Button:
Go to Insert : Active Elements : Hover Button

BANNER AD MANAGER

With the ongoing quest to turn a profit on the Web, many Web sites fund operations with banner ads. Banner ads are rectangular graphics that encourage visitors to buy a products or service. If you Web site attracts enough daily traffic, you may be able to sell the premium spot at the top of your homepage ( and other highly hit pages in your site) to advertisers. Many companies will pay a pretty penny for the chance to tout their wares to your visitors.

The Banner Ad manager helps you maintain a rotating display of ads in your site. You control the amount of time each ad appears on the page and the transition effect between ads.

**WARNING**
Banner Ad Manager images are only visible to your visitors who use Java-capable browsers.

How to add a Banner Ad Manager:

Go to Insert : Active Elements : Banner Ad Manager

MARQUEE

A Marquee is a rectangular banner that contains scrolling text. Marquees are a fun and popular way to highlight announcements or other important information on your Web pages.

**WARNING**
One VERY IMPORTANT aspect of Marquess is that, they are visible only in Internet Explorer. If you view a Marquee in another browser, the thing just appears as regular text.
You can use other means to include scrolling banners in your page. For example, you can use a Java applet to add scrolling banner to your page. Unfortunately, you still have to keep in mind that your visitor has to be using a Java-compatible browser to view you page or they won't see the marquess either.

How to add a Marquee

Go to Insert : Active Elements : Marquee

VIDEO

If a picture says a thousand words, a video clip....well you know. A video clip is a moving picture you insert into your page from some added zing. As long as the clip is saved in AVI format, it is ready for the Web.

**WARNING**
Only advanced browsers, such as IE ( Versions 2.0 or later ) and Netscape (Version 3.0 or later) can play AVI videos.

How at add a Video:
Go to Insert : Active Elements : Video

HIT COUNTER

A hit counter is an odometer-like row of numbers that sits in your page and records the number of visits or hits that the page receives. Each time someone visits the page, the number in the hit counter goes up by one. Hit counters let you brag to visitors about your sites popularity ( Plus, it's fun to watch the numbers increase every day).

**WARNING**
For the hit counter to work, you must publish your Web site directly to a server that supports FP extensions.

How to add a Hit Counter
Go to Insert : Active Elements : Hit Counter

SEARCH FORM

A keyword search is to a Web site what a knowledgeable tour guide is to a big city: Both help you bypass the flotsam and get straight to the stuff you want to see. The Search Form Active Element enables you to add a search function to your Web site in as few as three mouse clicks.

With the Search Form Active Element nestled in a page in your Web site, visitors enter words or phrases into a text box and then click a button to activate the search. In a moment, a linked list of web pages matching the search request appears. From there, your visitors need only to click a link to go to a particular page.

You can add a search form to an existing page or create a separate search page with the help of the Search Page template. To access the template, choose File : New, to open the New dialog and then double-click Search Page in the template list.

**WARNING**
For the Search Form Active Element to work, the Web site must be published directly to a server that supports FP extensions.

How to add a search form (without using a Search Form template)
Go to Insert : Active Elements : Search Form

COMMENT

You can insert explanatory text and reminders to yourself (or to other members of your Web-building team) in the form of comments. Comments are notes that appear only in the Editor, not as a visitor views the page through a Web browser.

How to insert a comment:

Place the cursor at the point where you would like the comment to appear : Go to Insert : FrontPage Component : Double-click Comment : Add your comment in the text box : Click OK

CONFIRMATION FIELD

This component works in concert with an interactive form to confirm information that visitors enter into form fields. You can add confirmation fields to any web page in your Web site and then use that page as your form's confirmation page.

How to set your confirmation field:

Open the Web page you want to be your Confirmation Page : Place the cursor at the point in the page where you want the first confirmation field to appear : Go to Insert : Frontpage Component : Double click Conformation Field : In the Name of the Form Field to Confirm text box, type the name of the field that you want to confirm : Click OK

INCLUDE PAGE

The Include Page Component simplifies the process of inserting the same information in more than one page in your Web site. After you insert an Include Page Component into your page, the component is replaced by the contents of a second page. For Example: If you were to display a list of news headlines in several pages within your Web site. Instead of typing the list of headlines into each page, you create a separate page that contains only the headlines. You then the Include Page Component to include the contents of the headlines page in the other pages in your Web site. If you want to change the headlines later, you update the headlines page, and the Include Page Component will reflect the update throughout the site.

How to insert a Include Page Component:

Place the cursor in your page where you would like the component to appear : Go to Insert : Frontpage Components : Double-click Include Page : In the Page URL to include text box, type the URL of the page in your Web site you want to include : Click OK

INSERT HTML

This component helps you to insert HTML tags into your page.

How to insert HTML tags:

Place the cursor where you would like to insert the HTML : Go to Insert : Frontpage Components : Double-click Insert HTML : Enter you HTML tags into the HTML markup to insert text box : Click OK

**REMINDER**
Because Frontpage does not check HTML tags that you enter using this dialog box, the Unknown HTML will appear in the page, even if the HTML tag is valid. If you preview the page in a web browser, the inserted HTML should work just fine.

PAGE BANNER

With this component, you can create a decorative page banner that you can use in place of a page header. This Frontpage Component works with themes, and it superimposes the page's navigational structure label on top of the theme's banner graphic to create the banner.

How to insert a page banner:
Place the cursor at the point in your page where you would like the banner to appear : Go to Insert : Frontpage Components : Double-click Page Banner : In the dialog box, mark the Image radio button : Click OK.

SCHEDULED IMAGE

The Scheduled Image Component inserts a single image into your Web site and works like the Include Page Component, except that the inclusion only appears during a specified time period . The Scheduled Image Component is Handy if you flag additions to your Web site with a New! Icon. Because things are New! Only for a limited time, you can use the Component to remove the icons after a week or so.

How to insert a Scheduled Image:
Place the cursor where you would like the image to appear : Go to Insert : Frontpage Components : Double-click Scheduled Image : In the image to include text box, type the URL of the image you would like to include : In the starting date and time area, choose the date and time at which you want the inclusion to first appear : In the ending date and time area, choose the date and time you want the inclusion to disappear : ** : Click OK

** If you want to include a different image before and after the inclusion period, type the URL in the text box named Optional Image URL to include before or after the given dates before you click OK.

SCHEDULED INCLUDE PAGE

The Scheduled Include Page Component inserts the contents of a page into another page in your Web site and works like the Include Page Component, except that the inclusion only appears during a specified time period . An example of how this component can help you, suppose you use your Web site to announce upcoming events. Instead of keeping track of event dates and making sure that you update your Web site before the event occurs, you can create a separate page for the announcements. Then you can use the Scheduled Include Page component to include the contents of the page in other pages in your Web site, specifying the time period during which the announcements apply. After that time period is over, the announcements will disappear.

How to insert a Scheduled Include Page:

Place the cursor where you would like the Include to appear : Go to Insert : Frontpage Components : Double-click Scheduled Include : In the Page URL to include text box, type the URL of the page you would like to include : In the starting date and time area, choose the date and time at which you want the inclusion to first appear : In the ending date and time area, choose the date and time you want the inclusion to disappear : ** : Click OK

** If you want to include a different page before and after the inclusion period, type the URL in the text box named Optional Page URL to include before or after the given dates before you click OK.

SUBSTITUTION

The Substitution Frontpage Component enables you to display placeholders in your page that replace themselves with bits of information called configuration variables. Configuration variables describe certain details about the page or contain snippets of information that you specify. Similar to the Include Page Component, which includes the contents of another page in your Web page, the Substitution Component includes the value of the configuration variable you choose.

Displaying Standard Configuration Variables

Frontpage maintains a standard set of configuration variables on each page:

AUTHOR - is the user name of the person who created the page.
MODIFIED BY - is the user name of the person who most recently edited the page.
DESCRIPTION - is a description of the page.
PAGE URL - is the current location of the page.
Some Web sites created using the FP Explorer's site templates contain additional standard configuration variables.

How to insert the Substitution Component:
Place the cursor where you would like the component to appear : Go to Insert : Frontpage Components : Double-click Substitution : In the Substitute with list box, choose the name of the configuration variable you want to display : Click OK

**WARNING**
If you use the Substitution Component to display the Page URL configuration variable, the URL that appears corresponds to the computer on which the page is currently located. If you later publish the page on another Web server, the old incorrect URL will remain displayed on the page. To solve this problem, after you publish the Web site, open the Web site directly form the Web server on which the site is published and then open the page displayed the Page URL configuration variable. Click the URL and press the Delete key to delete the Component. Now reinsert the Substitution Component and set it up to display the Page URL configuration variable. ( The same way it was originally done) The correct URL will appear. Save the page to make the change visible to the rest of the Web.

FIXING A BROKEN FRONTPAGE COMPONENT

If while looking over your Web site or pages created with Frontpage in the FP Explorer you notice a page with a red triangle next to it, that means that the page contains a problem or a Frontpage Component that is not set up correctly.

Here is how to repair the afflicted component:

1. In the Explorer, right click the page's icon and choose Properties from the popup menu that appears.
   The Properties dialog box will appear, with the Errors panel visible. In the Description box, you find a detailed description of the problem.
2. Click OK to close the Properties dialog box and, depending on the problem outlined in the Description box, proceed to repair the Frontpage Component.

   Depending of the type of Frontpage Component, you may need to open the page, double-click the component to display its associated Properties dialog box, and proceed with the repairs there. Or you may need to perform a task in the Explorer, such as correcting a configuration variable.

   After you complete repairs and save the page containing the Frontpage Component, return to the Explorer and choose "View : Refresh" to refresh the Web site ‘s display. The red triangle should disappear.