It wasn't has difficult as you may think. It was for a large project
involving people spread around the world. In an era (started late
1990's) when the IT department's policy was to discourage web
servers/browsers because they didn't think they would work and the
technology "wasn't ready and insecure".
Accordingly, they were reluctant to give permission for us to add a web
server to the corporate network and install FrontPage on a few machines.
We were granted that permission with the proviso that we were not
allowed to connect to databases or use dynamic content. We also could
not use a web server for pre-production development because the
bureaucratic over-head cost was too high ... so we used a FILE server,
not web server.
That was a blessing in disguise since had we had the opportunity we
would have then put too much focus on developing/picking web technology,
content management systems, document management systems, developing
"flashy" web pages, etc. at the expense of our web-site content which
would have affected the project (which had nothing to do with web
technology).
The key was we had a solid publishing work process (mostly manual with
Outlook and Lotus Notes) which was fast and easy. Truly, it was pretty
easy to keep the site maintained simply because the maintainers were
integral with the project, knew how to keep it simple, and just did it.
Content was reports, documents, standards, etc. ... things the people
around the world on the project needed to refer to. Because the users
also understood how the site was organized as long as they understood
the project they understood the web site. That also was a blessing in
disguise. Helped the project.
Interestingly ... the project is over and the web site lives. I'm told
that the IT dept took it over and was shocked at how it's not using
their declared *standard* web technology (remember, they denied that
technology from the project in the late 1990's). I understand they are
now spending significant amount of money and time (more than we spent)
to move it into complex content management systems even though the
content is static and doesn't anymore need to be managed. Progress, I
guess.
Bottom line for FrontPage was: it never got in the way and did the job well.
Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.
rms
