Using FrontPage to maintain a site made with GoLive

[audiolizard]

I have an upcoming web project where my company is responsible for the site design and coding. My development environment is GoLive CS2 on a Mac. The client, who has some limited knowledge of web authoring, is used to using FrontPage (I believe FP2002) on a PC. The client wishes to be able to maintain the site using FrontPage after it is completed. I am not familiar with the more recent versions of FrontPage. If the site is designed with web standards in mind, I believe it would be possible to use either editor for maintaining the site. However, I know that both editors insert some proprietary tags.

Are there any potential problems or pitfalls with using FrontPage to maintain a site created in GoLive CS2?

[The Contractor]

no, as long as you stick to valid HTML code and let neither GoLive or Frontpage rely on any "theming" etc you will be fine. The client could upload via Frontpage in the future although I prefer to use a FTP client instead of "any" HTML editors upload client.

[pageoneresults]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld audiolizard!

Are there any potential problems or pitfalls with using FrontPage to maintain a site created in GoLive CS2?

I may be mistaken, and it has been awhile, but doesn't GoLive use proprietary tags for quite a few things? If so, I do believe the client will have issues trying to maintain a GoLive produced site in FrontPage. Tags such as...

<csobj>
<csimport>
<csactions>
<csactiondict>

Hopefully someone who has made the trek will chime in and give us some positive feedback.

[audiolizard]

Thanks for your kind welcome and fast responses. Yes, GoLive does insert some proprietary tags. I plan to remove these for XHTML validation before publishing. To add to my original question, do recent versions of FrontPage offer any advantages over GoLive CS2?

[pageoneresults]

Yes, GoLive does insert some proprietary tags. I plan to remove these for XHTML validation before publishing.

Hmmm, a user with FrontPage working on XHTML validated pages? That might be cause for concern in itself. I've been working with FP since it was a Vermeer product (quite some time). I've built a few XHMTL valid sites using FP and I still miss <br /> these at times which of course will break validation.

I would definitely recommend that the user upgrade to FP2003. The latest release of FrontPage is a real powerhouse.

To add to my original question, do recent versions of FrontPage offer any advantages over GoLive CS2?

I personally cannot comment on that as I've not done a side by side comparison. If the user is familiar with Microsoft products like Word, Excel, etc. the user interface of FrontPage will be familiar to them and make it easy to use. The program will need to be manually configured so it does not overwrite your code and also outputs XHTML.

I spent about 30 minutes this morning reading a few sites from GoLive gurus. They of course rave about the program and I'm sure they are valid raves because I am an Adobe product user myself, just not GoLive. When I first looked at it a few years ago I noticed that it relied heavily on proprietary tagging and those tags did not pass validation so I passed on using the program.

If you are a Mac user and familiar with Adobe products, I would imagine GoLive is just like using any other Adobe product, it fits right in. A typical user of FrontPage probably would not want to work in GoLive because it is an unfamiliar interface and a bit more complex than FrontPage may be.

[audiolizard]

Hmmm, a user with FrontPage working on XHTML validated pages? That might be cause for concern in itself.

Why? I should note that I don't mean strict xhtml. I'm using an xhtml1-transitional doctype declaration. I don't think <br /> breaks xhtml transitional validation, as I've validated some of my pages that I believe use it. I could have just as easily declared an html 4.01 doctype. but I'm used to xhtml syntax rules, and from what I've read xhtml seems to be more future oriented. I'm still a little fuzzy on the advantages of each, but that's another topic.

I'm used to hand-coding(on a PC), but the more I learn GoLive's tools and site management features, the more I like it. And at work I use a Mac.

What I'd like to know primarily is if GoLive and FrontPage will play nice together, and to a lesser extent, which is better, and why?