FP2003 and DWT requirements?

[Gerry Hickman]

Hi Jim,

As for FP not being a suitable application, I suspect (based upon your other
comments in this post and in others) that you know next to nothing about the
architecture of ASP.NET, so I wouldn't consider you a valid source for that.

Well I was in the initial BETA tester group for .NET and have been using
ASP.NET ever since, but not with .NET 2.0

We've just putting a test suite together for Win2003, SharePoint, .NET
2.0 and VS.NET 2005 team builder.

I did ask two of our developers to test using Frontpage 2003 as a
replacement for VS.NET 2003 for two hours, including remote web server
debugging over DCOM. The comments that came back probably can't be
repeated on here

Part of the problem with this type of comparison though, is that there's
not many people that have used both Frontpage _and_ VS.NET for web
development. For example if we posted this discussion over on the .NET
groups they would instantly dismiss Frontpage as a development tool, but
probably for the wrong reasons.

 

[Jim Cheshire]

I did ask two of our developers to test using Frontpage 2003 as a
replacement for VS.NET 2003 for two hours, including remote web server
debugging over DCOM. The comments that came back probably can't be
repeated on here

I would definitely not ever recommend using FrontPage as a replacement for
VS.NET! However, the two do compliment each other quite well.

Part of the problem with this type of comparison though, is that
there's not many people that have used both Frontpage _and_ VS.NET
for web development. For example if we posted this discussion over on
the .NET groups they would instantly dismiss Frontpage as a
development tool, but probably for the wrong reasons.

I encounter people all the time (including myself) who do this.

--
Jim Cheshire
JIMCO Software
http://www.jimcosoftware.com
http://www.jimcoaddins.com

The premiere add-in and software source
for Microsoft FrontPage.

 

[Gerry Hickman]

I backed it up straight from the source. I also have considerable
experience in working with the world's largest corporations on difficult
ASP.NET issues with scalability, performance, etc.

Very unlikely. You make some big claims but don't back them up with
facts. "Straight from the source" could mean anything.

If you really did know something about ASP.NET in large corporations,
I'd have met you long before now in the more serious Mircosoft
newsgroups, not in "Frontpage Client", LOL!

 

[Jim Cheshire]

If you really did know something about ASP.NET in large corporations,
I'd have met you long before now in the more serious Mircosoft
newsgroups, not in "Frontpage Client", LOL!

If you only knew how funny that comment really was. Do a search on my name
and ASP.NET. Note that since I've written anything officially on the topic,
I have changed positions and now work on a small group of guys who are at
the highest technical level in my company. I think my qualifications are
sufficient.

--
Jim Cheshire
JIMCO Software
http://www.jimcosoftware.com
http://www.jimcoaddins.com

The premiere add-in and software source
for Microsoft FrontPage.

 

[Guest]

Master pages on ASP.NET 2.0 sound like the exact solution that Gerry Hickman
needs.

Master pages are applied to content pages just like DWTs, but at runtime and
design time. "Master pages can greatly simplify the task of creating a
consistent look for your site."
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/wtxbf3hh.aspx

ASP.NET 2.0 also have theme and skin functionality. "In addition, you can
define ASP.NET themes that include cascading style sheet settings, and then
apply themes to pages or to your site."
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/wcyt4fxb(en-us,vs.80).aspx

And of course there's always CSS. "ASP.NET Web pages function as HTML pages
at run time. You can therefore use cascading style sheets (CSS) to set the
appearance of any elements on the page other than Web server controls."
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/bs02d7es(en-us,vs.80).aspx

Gerry, Visual Web Developer Express makes using these features as easy as
using FrontPage. You can download the Beta2 trial version from
http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/getvwd/. I realize this sounds a lot like
a sale, but I've been working with ASP.NET 2.0 and VWD Express for a year and
I love it. I haven't tried mixing master pages, themes and skins, and
pre-existing FrontPage DWTs though. Anyone else have experience with that?

 

[Cheryl D Wise]

Since ASP.NET 2.0 is still in beta (2) and very few web hosts offer the 'go
live' license option you probably will not find anyone who has used that
combination in a production environment.

I agree that ASP.NET 2.0 is a major improvement over the current version but
until it goes "gold" I would hesitate to recommend it in on a production
site.

FWIW, most content management systems use templates in a manner very similar
to master pages. Since I never use FrontPage themes I have no idea how such
a combination would work. Master pages and CSS would accomplish everything a
theme does but with better standards compliance and should not be as bloated
but until 2.0 is gold I wouldn't want to say that it would be less bloated.


--
Cheryl D. Wise
MS FrontPage MVP
http://mvp.wiserways.com
http://starttoweb.com
Online instructor led web design training in FrontPage,
Dreamweaver and more!