FrontPage To Be Discontinued In Late 2006

Wasn't this announced earlier this Spring?

I've been tinkering around with a beta version of Expression Web for quite a while now and I did so after I heard that it will be the replacement for Frontpage.

It certainly may have been announced earlier and I missed it. What MS has not clarified, as fr as I can see to date, is whether (and for how long) they will offer legacy support, such as fixing security holes as they are discovered at least.

This brings up some interesting repurcussions. I heard today of a couple web hosts who plan to discontinue Front Page extensions in the near future because of this concern -- and that's on Windows servers, not just Linux/Unix.

[edited by: tedster at 2:39 am (utc) on Oct. 6, 2006]

Tedster

Thanks for posting that.. At least I can start planning a migration strategy.

I looked through the MS site. I'm not sure if it will run on Linux hosts. I have a bunch of websites spread around on different hosts. Has anyone tried running websites from the new product on a linux box?

Funny thing.. I was getting aggravated with the small windows for the description and keyword tags in the page properties in FP.. Oh well, no sense looking for a patch at this point.

cg

There are versions of FP Extensions available for Linux hosting. But of course, support for that will probably wane. If your pages use common FP elements, like shared borders and the like, I'd say it definitely is time to plan your migration.

One of the best features of MSFP is its website management utilities, which are (to my understanding) managed by the FP server extensions and certain files automatically embedded by MSFP into a FP website.

Does anyone know if the website management functions will be carried forward into MS Expression Engine?

How so, if not through FP-type server extensions?

If the website management functions are not carried forward then add me to the list of geezers who will plunge (bald) head first into developing using LAMP.*

* Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP for my fellow as yet unenlighted MS geezers.

[edited by: Webwork at 3:23 am (utc) on Oct. 6, 2006]

We've had a few threads about this change:

• FrontPage not supported in Office 2007? [webmasterworld.com] April 22, 2006
  
• MS FrontPage Being Discontinued, Now What [webmasterworld.com] May 3, 2006
  
• Next generation FrontPage 12 renamed [webmasterworld.com] Dec. 2, 2005

A few threads about the Microsoft^® Expression^® Web tool:

• Expressions Web Designer [webmasterworld.com]
  
• Microsoft's Expression Web Designer toolset [webmasterworld.com]
  
• Expression Web Designer [webmasterworld.com]

I heard today of a couple web hosts who plan to discontinue Front Page extensions in the near future because of this concern

Technically FP extensions haven't been used since FP 2002/XP version. FP2003 webs will work with the extensions, but they recommend you move the web to a SharePoint server to take advantage of all the CMS aspects of the software.

Hi,

I use FP and I keep my web sites simple to navigate because people tell me that's what they like about my sites and also because I find FP easy to use.
I don't use fancy stuff like databases or php or whatever because I don't need to. I use shared borders but that's about it.
What are my options going to be?

I recently switched over to dreamweaver. A lot of web hosts have stopped supporting frontpage extensions - in particular Media Temple, which I'm planning on using for my current project. For those who haven't switched yet, Dreaweaver really isn't too difficult to use. There is even a Frontpage to Dreaweaver migration kit available here:

[adobe.com...]

However, I recently read some reviews about the new microsoft "expression web" software and it sounds great. Particularly since it is the first web design software that really supports css-only, table-less design. Macromedia supports css, but it seems to me like it's still only half way there. So if you're thinking of switching over, consider the expressions web software too. The beta software is free from the MS site:

[microsoft.com...]

That's GOOD news!

So, if I understand the comments thus far, all a host will need to do is to migrate from deploying the MSFP "server extensions" to MS "sharepoint services"?

Are sharepoint services are backwards compatible for the benefit of websites dependent on the MSFP server extensions?

If not then sharepoint services offers a utility to upgrade/transform the existing website's dependency on the "old technology"?

The "upgrade to sharepoint services" will cost webhosts, that now host MSFP server extended websites, how much? I could see cost being a factor in support being dropped.

Where's a Microsoft rep when you need one? ;0)

This is a great reason for me to completely migrate to Dreamweaver. It is just another attempt from Microsoft to get everybody to upgrade ($$$) to another product.

This is a great reason for me to completely migrate to Dreamweaver. It is just another attempt from Microsoft to get everybody to upgrade ($$$) to another product.

And of course it has NOTHING to do with the fact that FP2003 is outdated, badly out of standards compliance, and no "real" developer in the world will touch it.

And just for the record, I dropped Dreamweaver in favor of EW Beta. It says something when a Beta is better than an established product...

Well my 30 minutes with EW Beta since reading this post have been very encouraging. It's very dreamweaver in its feel with a more obvious slant towards ASP.NET. Has a few bugs I have seen so far, but then again it is a Beta, but might give DW a run for its money.

EW has much better CSS support than DW, but the downside for some is that PHP support is not there, at least not yet. Supposedly it will be in a later version (of the beta I assume...).

Do you guys work for Microsoft?

All kiddng aside it is doubtful any Microsoft product will truly have PHP support. Why have PHP support when you can push ASP.net through a product they own?

What I like about Dreamweaver is that it is a product that is not owned by a product that pushes a certain technology and you are working in a true FTP environment. Thanks to FrontPage at some point I am going to have to clean up all the bots and useless code it has added to my web sites.

hmm if there is no PHP then its not a product for many webmasters

Particularly since it is the first web design software that really supports css-only, table-less design...

First off, I'm not an *nix freak or an MS basher, but can they really create a product that doesn't churn out proprietary and bloated code? It's just hard to be optimistic and believe that after years of wrestling with MS/IE specific code that they finally decided to "play nice" and jump on the standards-compliance bandwagon.

What I like about Dreamweaver is that it is a product that is not owned by a product that pushes a certain technology...

Errrr...ever heard of ColdFusion? :)

In other news, IT analysis across the globe report experiencing a momentary flux across major networks that could only be described as the global internet letting forth a great sigh of relief.

>> This is a great reason for me to completely migrate to
>> Dreamweaver. It is just another attempt from Microsoft
>> to get everybody to upgrade ($$$) to another product.

> And of course it has NOTHING to do with the fact that
> FP2003 is outdated, badly out of standards compliance,
> and no "real" developer in the world will touch it.

They could always have updated it ... but then there'd be the expectation of a price reduction for existing users.

Not M$ style ;)

First off, I'm not an *nix freak or an MS basher, but can they really create a product that doesn't churn out proprietary and bloated code?

First look tends to say yes, the css and html looks very clean. Haven't seen the code yet that deals with datbase connections so not sure what a load of mess that is going to be. I remember when I tried to use Dreamweavers version, couldn't get rid of that quickly enough and manually coded it instead!

In 1996 I spent an hour using FrontPage, and concluded that my time would be much better spent learning HTML.

My entire site is hand-coded. I can update it myself from any computer that has Telnet. The code is as clean as I've seen. I have complete control over my site's content and appearance.

I know Web designers who refuse to work on sites that were created in FrontPage because of the horrible code it installs. I don't understand why Microsoft chose to add all that redundant code.

I'm not posting this to bash Microsoft. The best advice I could offer people is to learn HTML and whatever else you want to use to code your site. I think you're better off in the long run being self-sufficient and not having to rely on a particular editor, and having complete control of your results.

My entire site is hand-coded.

Sure, and I used to hand-tag text for Ventura Publisher. But times change. Tools get better. Productivity improves. I wouldn't hand-code HTML these days any more than I'd retype a manuscript on a typewriter to incorporate the latest round of edits.

In any case, EWD obviously isn't aimed at the hand-coding/buggy-whip set; it's the successor to FrontPage, and the questions that matter are how it will improve on FrontPage and how current FP 2003 users will handle the migration.

One thing I'm curious about is whether EWD will let me continue to use my current host's Apache server (which runs on FreeBSD) instead of migrating to some new platform. I use FP 2003 mostly as an editor and upload pages with ftp. (I haven't used the server extensions for about a year now.) I haven't had a chance to try the EWD beta, and it's probably incomplete anyway, so I'll just watch and wait until things become clearer.

I wanted to install EW to check it out, but it says I have to uninstall my Office 7 first, which seems rather bizarre. Hopefully that will go away when these products are actually released. I have a beta of the Sharepoint Design that came in our action pack, but I'm still unclear as to whether or not you need to be running IIS to use it (we're FreeBSD only)

First off, I'm not an *nix freak or an MS basher, but can they really create a product that doesn't churn out proprietary and bloated code?

Yeah, it's actually called Frontpage ;-).

Frontpage itself never really added a heck of a lot besides its webbots. Most of the old "code bloat" talk was from folks pasting formatted text in from MS Word and the like, that's where all the extraneous junk came from. It only takes 5 minutes or so to set up FP to write whatever kind of code you want. I'm currently using it for a couple of tableless, CSS-designed, perfectly valid HTML strict sites where there's no hint in the code that they were developed using FP.

But alas, now that EWD is on the way, I have delved into the PHP world just to be prepared.

<<I'm curious about is whether EWD will let me continue to use my current host's Apache server>>

It appears to me that anything more than basic functionality will have to be coded in ASP.net, which (correct me if I'm wrong) must run on a MS server.

Can anyone confirm/deny?

First off, I'm not an *nix freak or an MS basher, but can they really create a product that doesn't churn out proprietary and bloated code? It's just hard to be optimistic and believe that after years of wrestling with MS/IE specific code that they finally decided to "play nice" and jump on the standards-compliance bandwagon.

What I find most interesting in that and other comments is the amount of people bashing the program without even trying it or looking at it.

And just for info, I am in the process of totall updating an old FP website, and without ever doing one bit of hand coding except to make the little <!-- type notes, so far 26 pages 100% pass w3c xhtml and CSS...

Try it THEN complain and whine about it.

Frontpage itself never really added a heck of a lot besides its webbots. Most of the old "code bloat" talk was from folks pasting formatted text in from MS Word and the like,

That is actually about 90% correct.

FP's major problem was that it was aimed at the old Word crowd - who could barely spell website, much less make one.

So far too often it was a cut and paste operation from Word, Publisher, Word Perfect, or some other non HTML program.

And if you think it is just amateur FP users that do stupid things, just a couple of days ago I got a 12 page PDF file that someone had made.

They scanned 12 pages, and then made each huge image into a PDF file...

I wanted to install EW to check it out, but it says I have to uninstall my Office 7 first...

The problem is that the two beta's are at different points in the development cycle, so while you might have the same file NAMES, they are not exactly the same.

There is also an update for Office 2007 that has to be installed for both of them to work. In fact I thought I read that if you had the update installed you did not have to removed Office 2007.

[edited by: Wlauzon at 6:44 pm (utc) on Oct. 6, 2006]

It only takes 5 minutes or so to set up FP to write whatever kind of code you want.

Okay, you got me. Busted! I think FP2K is the only version I've messed with, so I can't say anything about FP2K3.

I'm currently using it...there's no hint in the code that they were developed using FP...Frontpage itself never really added a heck of a lot besides its webbots...Most of the old "code bloat" talk was from folks pasting formatted text in from MS Word and the like.

I just finished a migration of 90+ sites on our company Intranet where at least half were done with FP2K, and out of those about 75% contained some type of database functionality. If anyone who uses FP on a regular basis has NOT looked at any of the database related code, you should really check it because you will see exactly what I mean about bloated. Many of the parameters are included in webbot tags which make it very difficult to make any changes without firing up FP. I'm not saying this is good or bad design, just that it's not quick or easy to do by hand.

My "bitterness" towards FP comes from dealing with too many projects that were created by the secretary/receptionist/webmaster where all they knew was how to copy-N-paste or "Save as HTML" from Word, and use those *bleeping* Java applet menus. EVIL! And because they had no idea what they were doing, they also contributed to the gazillion orphaned and/or nested font tags that accounted for half of the file size. GRRRRRR!

Oh yea, I almost left out the best part. The Sr.Developer has pretty much banned FP from being used to maintain any site post-migration. w00t! Happy day

Hand code your pages?

Seriously - that is completely ridiculous. 10 years ago it came in handy, but I would hate to be your customer if you charged me by the hour. How long would it take you to create a 5 x15 table?

Any HTML editor (yes even Frontpage) could do this in 3 seconds.