This tutorial will show you how to use Microsoft FrontPage 2000  to create a website - a group of web pages that are linked to one another. FrontPage 2000 is not the current version but almost everything explained here should be valid also for the current version.

Your website will NOT be accessible on the internet unless you or your teacher publish it to a hosting provider - this normally costs money and is not something your teacher will do for you unless your website is one of the very best. But even if your website is not published to the internet you can still test it in Internet Explorer and see what it would look like on the internet. If you want to have your own space on the internet to which you can publish directly then consider getting a subscription with a hosting provider like www.1eurohosting.nl. If one Euro a month is too expensive for you then be aware that some companies offer FREE web site hosting, provided are you willing to subject people visiting your site to advertising.

You are visitor number to this page since January 12 2003.

If you are reading these instructions in a browser then you can switch back and forth between these instructions (now open in your browser) and your website (which you are about to open in FrontPage) by using the taskbar at the bottom of your screen. Or you may wish to print this page (right-click this text and choose print).

CREATING a web site is a little tricky in MS FrontPage 2000 just because Microsoft forgot to put a 'browse' button in the site creation dialog box so I MAY have already created a site for you.

If I have NOT already created a site for you then create a one page website now by doing this:

It's a good idea to start every FrontPage session by switching to navigation view like this so that you can get an overview of your site and add extra pages if necessary. In the navigation view, you can see a blue rectangle representing the home page and, if the 'folder list' is open at the left side of your screen, you will see that your site contains a file called index.htm - this is the file name of your home page. You also don't need to worry about the Folder List so, if you see the list, hide it by clicking the Folder List icon at the top of the screen. If it reappears in a different view, just hide it again. While we're talking about things that you don't need to learn about until you reach expert status, you should be pleased to know that the only two views that you will need in the views bar are page view and navigation view. You also don't need to learn about the HTML and Preview modes that are accessible by tabs at the bottom of the screen either, so all you really need to learn about is the menus and icons at the top, most of which you already know since you are expert in Word!

Adding Pages

Let's learn already how to add additional pages to our website - it's very easy! ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN NAVIGATION VIEW BEFORE ADDING PAGES. This ensures that FrontPage can create links to the new page automatically - it does this according to the structure of the 'family tree' that we will now build in navigation view. The automatic generation of links is a great feature of FrontPage!

Make sure that your home page is selected - it's icon should appear dark blue, not yellow. If the page is not selected then click on it once to select it. Don't double-click the page otherwise the page will open for editing in page view and you will have to switch back to navigation view in the Views Bar. Now click the New Page icon at the far left of the toolbar at the top of the screen - a new page is created under the home page. Think of the navigation hierarchy as similar to a family tree - the page at the top is the home page and underneath it are its 'child pages'. Note that every page except the home page has one and only one parent.

Rename the new page 'School Work' by right-clicking its label and choosing 'rename' or with the usual 'left-click, wait, left-click again' method. It's always a good idea to rename new pages immediately after creating them. Rename the home page as Welcome, too.

Remembering that every new page is always created as a child of whichever page is currently selected, create some more pages until the navigation hierarchy looks like this: 

Modifying the Navigation Hierarchy

Oops! There seem to be a couple of mistakes in the hierarchy above - Excel is probably not one of your favorite hobbies! The Excel page should be a child of the School Work page. In navigation view, simply drag the Excel page from its current location under the class notes page to its correct location, so that the hierarchy now looks like this:

Deleting Pages

Oops - there is another mistake in the hierarchy - the C++ page should not be there at all for we never studied the programming language with that name. We need to delete that page - a very easy task, of course. In navigation view, click ONCE on the C++ page to select it then press the Delete key on the keyboard. FrontPage will ask you whether you want to simply remove the page from all navigation bars (i.e. remove it from the family tree), or whether you want to completely remove the page from your web - choose the latter. Your hierarchy should now look like this:

You have now finished your first lesson on FrontPage - follow the links at the top or bottom of this page for more...