A better program than MS FrontPage?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Walter R.
  • Start date Start date
W

Walter R.

I am currently using FrontPage 2003 for my personal website (below). When I
run my pages through an HTML validator, it comes up with more HTML code
violations then I can shake a stick at. This may, or may not, effect my
search engine ratings.

If I were to replace FrontPage with another website design program, which
are the two most prominent competitors? I am an amateur and would like to
consider a program that is not very complex and which does not have a steep
learning curve. Cost is not very important.

I hope it is not heresy to ask this question in the FrontPage newsgroup. If
so, my apologies. :-)
 
You're assuming a "better" product's code would rate better in one of those
validators, which may not be the case. Frontpage produces code as clean as
any other GUI editor I would have thought. It shouldn't really be assumed
that any GUI HTML editor is going to be 100% valid without a bit of tweaking
by hand.

Frontpage obviously generates code associated with its webbots, and may
favour Internet Explorer as far as some features go, but Microsoft are
bringing out a new product "Expressions Web Designer" in the next 6 months
or so; this will be more compliant with the current standards.

Frontpage is the simplest product to learn. There are others from makers
like Macromedia and Adobe. But they are more complex than Frontpage.

Otherwise there's a heap on the 'Net that are free HTML editors. Try the
www.tucows.com site for a starting place. They offer shareware or freeware
products.

The best way to make sure your pages validate is to learn HTML, in
conjunction with using Frontpage, and to learn why code in your pages are
returned as "invalid" according to those validators.
 
It's the operator, not the tool. You could have avoided all 144 of those
page validation errors with a little HTML knowledge. Using any HTML
authoring system without this knowledge would have likely produced the same
number of validation errors.
This may, or may not, effect my search engine ratings.
Click to expand...

It will not.
consider a program that is not very complex and which does not have a
steep
learning curve.
Click to expand...

Without an understanding of HTML (and perhaps CSS), any of them will have a
steep learning curve.
 
Murray & Murray are right -- as always.

That said, take account of other considerations: you've created the website
you want. You'd rather do something else than become an HTML expert. The
invalid code doesn't seem to be harming your website. And, as it's not a
commercial site, if it does cause a problem occasionally in some oddball
browser, so what. It's an exercise in cost/benefit.

I know: that's rank heresy. I'm for maximizing your utility, not some
validator's.
 
The invalid code doesn't seem to be harming your website

Have you checked in all the browsers? Invalid code, especially code that
involves unterminated tags, can cause serious rendering differences
cross-browser/platform. And I'm not talking about oddballs, either - just
IE/FF/Safari Mac/PC.

However, you are right about the personal site thing. If it's a hobby site,
and that's all one is ever interested in building, then just do it in
Word....
 
Both Murray's are right that used properly and without the webbots FrontPage
can produce valid code but that's not how many (possibly most) people use
it. They treat it like Word and go click happy.

One error is related to not using a doctype - FrontPage ships with doctypes
but don't use them since they induce quirks mode use the one in the code
snippet tutorial at
http://mvp.wiserways.com/tutorials/codesnippets/index.html

Using a theme and spacer gifs causes most of the other errors. Boiled down
you have the same error over and over again.

Javascript with no type and invalid a both related to the rollover behavior
Images with not alt attribute.
Nesting errors, those are frequently caused by editing in design view and
not getting all of a tag deleted.

Only the first type of error is directly related to FrontPage and that's
because of a choice to use a theme with javascript rollovers that could have
been done using CSS. When you use point and click there are trade offs. None
of these errors should effect SEO except possibly no alt attributes on your
image elements that are not spacer gifs. To fix those right click on the
image and in the picture properties dialog box type in a text description.
That will also help those who can't see the images for whatever reason (that
includes file paths that break, those using devices with images turned off
due to low bandwidth connections, etc.)

--
Cheryl D Wise
FrontPage MVP
http://by-expression.com
Online Instructor led training at http://starttoweb.com
Next session starts Aug 20,2006 offers classes in CSS and Expression Web
Designer
 
Both Murray's? There's only one here. This is Andrew (surname Murray) - I
think you're confused. :-)
 
Have you checked in all the browsers?

I checked it in IE , Firefox and Netscape. As I don't have a Mac, I enlist
a friend who does, and that's a good suggestion for this case.
Realistically, if it doesn't render properly in Safari or Opera, how much
has this designer lost? Not even a rare customer.

I'm not suggesting we all get sloppy, but there are tradeoffs. For someone
whose skills and interests are elsewhere, if it works in these four
environments, perhaps time is better spent on improving or adding to the
content than studying HTML and poring over the FP-created code in order to
pass a validation test.
 
Murray said:
It will not.
Click to expand...

<http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx?t=SEARCH_WEBMASTER_REF_GuidelinesforOptimizingSite.htm#A>
clearly suggests "well-formed HTML code". It's absolutely conceivable that
well-formedness violations might affect the search engine's ability to
parse a page.

It's easy to parse invalid code such as

<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, <foo>consectetuer</foo> adipiscing elit.</p>,

you just have to ignore the "foo" element and process its content. On the
other hand, code that is not "well-formed", such as

<p class="Class1>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.</p>,

is much more difficult to parse. Where does the "p" tag end?
 
I agree with Thor. I work in a project management office by day and
three of the big questions on any project are:

1. What is the benefit to the business?
2. What is the return on the investment?
3. What is the risk of not doing it?

And like a lot of people say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
 
I have sites where 10% of the visitor are using Macs the majority of which
(6% of total site visitors) are using Safari. I care. 6% to me is not "rare"
and Opera statistics can be hard to extract since some versions by default
report Opera as IE.

--
Cheryl D Wise
FrontPage MVP
http://by-expression.com
Online Instructor led training at http://starttoweb.com
 
Murray Summers and Andrew Murray seem close enough to use "Murray" for both
to me when y'all had the same thing to say. :->
 
As a Mac user, I think a fourth question might well be this: What is the
purpose of the internet? It might also be helpful to review the roots of
the web, starting with NGs like this, only possible with a common
language that can be shared by anyone, on any computer, on any OS,
anywhere. From that simple beginning we've come a long way to the internet.

Whatever OS you choose to use is a personal choice and matters little to
anyone else in your private moments. But when you choose to present or
share info across the web, then I think it behooves any site owner to
keep in mind the original intent of the web and that a common language
exists and is readily available for use for those inclined. FP is not
the problem. It is a powerful and sophisticated site manager that can
and does serve the internet community well. I have very few problems
with FP sites in any browser. The problem, imho, is stilted, short
sighted thinking by some site designers that excludes some visitors. And
as Murray already said, "It's the operator, not the tool."

To me, it's not about ownership, builders, browsers or OS. It's about
communicating to anyone with a desire to hear to you. If you don't want
to communicate with the widest possible audience, then imho that's not a
visitor's problem or even FP's. It's your problem and yours alone. If
any of your sites conduct business, do you honestly believe that
business has the luxury of turning potential customers away at the door?
If your answer to that last question is yes, do your clients know that's
what you believe?
 
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