Earn Money Now!!! asp.net and FP2003

[Dennis Blondell]

If this post isn't marked as spam and deleted, I would like to make an
offer - albeit a light hearted one. Do any of you MVP's or guys that have
published books on FP2003 have or know where to get a reference on how to,
at the least, work with (edit) asp.net pages in FP properly. I am willing to
pay for it as am getting very frustrated. I will buy a book on FP2003 soon,
as the program help is a little lacking and I need guidelines on using
advanced features.

I have mention in some posts that I can't edit within <aspanel> tags. I
have a site that has about 300 lines of mostly html within the aspanel
tags. I want to change some tables etc but find that I have to scroll
through the html to do it. In FP2k I could at least apply styles and font
colours etc to those funny little <?> boxes within the tags, not in FP2003.
It is like FP is saying "Ooo, don't touch that, you'll break it" - please,
trust me, FP! If I change the tag to something like <#aspanel> I can edit
the panel area, but have to be very careful then not to cause a bigger
problem as FP starts getting very confused and likely to crash or decide to
format the code itself. I have found a way to break into panels in
Dreamweaver just by telling FP to open them in Dreamweaver. Any of you guys
got suggestions about FP?

What I don't need as an answer is:
Use VS.NET (I will, but takes time to learn and it isn't a HTML editor like
FP)
Design it first in FP then code it (I wish I was that organised and focused
on finished design before starting)

Thanks for any responses

 

[Jim Cheshire]

Dennis,

Concerning your "answers I don't want", I just wanted to comment on both:

1. Use VS.NET - Not a good answer anyway. The table editor in FrontPage is
WAY ahead of the table editor in VS.NET.
2. Design the UI first in FP before you get started with VS.NET. - The
really isn't the way you should work. While it is certainly easy to
separate your UI design from your implementation, you still need to follow
good programming practices. If you're going to design your application
using object oriented techniques (and you absolutely should), you will need
to do plenty of planning and mapping out objects before you start designing
the UI of your site.

With all of that said, in this edition of FrontPage, you can't edit ASP.NET
server controls inside of the user-interface. The fact that ASP.NET
recognizes ASP.NET server controls is no small feature because it prevents
FrontPage from breaking any ASP.NET code when you are working with both
FrontPage and VS.NET.

I suspect that Microsoft will greatly enhance this feature in future
versions. I wouldn't be surprised to see the next version of FrontPage
provide complete support for ASP.NET server controls. In the meantime, what
I've done on some pages is copy all of the HTML code enclosed within the
<aspanel> tag and paste it into another page. After I've edited it and
finished my design, I then copy that code and paste it back into the
original page, overwriting the code that currently exists inside of the
panel tags.

Hope that helps.

--
Jim Cheshire
Jimco Add-ins
http://www.jimcoaddins.com
===================================
Co-author of Special Edition
Using Microsoft FrontPage 2003
Order it today!
http://sefp2003.frontpagelink.com

 

[Dennis Blondell]

Thanks Jim,

Thanks for at least not answering the questions the way I though they might
be answered (follow that?). I thought that good programming practice was
having everything so perfectly laid out before starting, that the UI could
be designed first or along side the business and data layers. I will
therefore continue my bottom up approach and try to use more code copy and
paste into temp pages until get the desired UI results. I suppose once one
is used to doing things that way, editing asp.net pages might not seem to be
too much of a mission.

As both Jims have been so helpful I feel like buying both your books and
between them may just be able to get the hang of FP2003. Perhaps just before
the completely asp.net friendly and compatible next FP release. Then I'll
have to start again. Thomas A. Rowe needs a book too so I can buy it as well


btw: Would it be possible for plug-ins to help with asp.net and FP. eg. Drag
and drop asp.net controls, open un-editable areas like <aspanel> and such
like?

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

Dennis, why would I need a book? <g>

--

==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, Forums, WebCircle,
MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================

 

[Dennis Blondell]

No, what I was meaning was, I'm surprised you haven't written a book and if
you had I would probably buy it as well You seem to answer many posts
very successfully.

I did just notice in a thread, your preference to get info from web sites
etc. not books, so I suppose if you don't read 'how to' books you wouldn't
want to write any. Getting online help is good, eg this NG, but for those of
us that still have a dialup and not enough time or knowledge to type in the
exact technical keyword or phrase, a book with contents and index is well
worth the money. Also,of course, the easier on the eyes aspect as well.

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

I wish I had the time to write a book, but writing a book is like a
full-time job (without money, until finish, etc.), and I just have too many
projects.

It is not always easy to find the info needed on line, like everyone, I also
have problem trying to determine the best terms to search under for any
given subject.

--

==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, Forums, WebCircle,
MS KB Quick Links, etc.
==============================================

 

[Jim Cheshire]

Dennis,

If you are designing some business objects that will take data and pass it
to a data layer, you won't be able to design the UI until you know what kind
of data you need to collect. Therefore, the design of these other layers
must be known prior to building the UI to interact with them. They don't
have to be built prior to UI design, but they do need to be modeled.

In order to add the ability to drag and drop ASP.NET controls, you'd really
need to write that into FrontPage. An add-in simply won't give the kind of
functionality you'd need.

--
Jim Cheshire
Jimco Add-ins
http://www.jimcoaddins.com
===================================
Co-author of Special Edition
Using Microsoft FrontPage 2003
Order it today!
http://sefp2003.frontpagelink.com

 

[Dennis Blondell]

Sorry, Jim, I've been away for a few days and haven't been able to reply.

If you are designing some business objects that will take data and pass it
to a data layer, you won't be able to design the UI until you know what kind
of data you need to collect. Therefore, the design of these other layers
must be known prior to building the UI to interact with them. They don't
have to be built prior to UI design, but they do need to be modeled.

Yes, this is basically what I have been doing, at least on paper, but
normally not working like I expect when it comes to creating the project
Right from FP98 I have just been working with web sites and usually
pritty basic stuff. It is only now that I am leaning towards .NET and have
to get my head around real programming concepts. I was a little confused
about 'bottom up' and 'top down' concepts, UI, business and data layers.
With the inability of FP to handle ASP.NET well (in my mind), I thought I
had to detail everything so well on paper that the UI could be created in FP
as pritty much the final draft. Then ASP.NET coding added in VS.NET and back
to FP for publishing. I just need to work around FP's short comings and get
on with the job.

In order to add the ability to drag and drop ASP.NET controls, you'd really
need to write that into FrontPage. An add-in simply won't give the kind of
functionality you'd need.

Thought as much. A real pitty it can't do that. Will be interesting to see
what MS has planned for the next FP. I really would like to see it merge a
bit with VS.NET or at least have more crossover ability. Suppose I was just
hoping too much for FP2003