Hide main page while under development.

[talkpbx at gmail.com]

I used to use FP2000 but haven't played with web pages in awhile. I
now have FP2003 and FP2003 Inside Out book and will be setting up a new
web site for some work I am doing on the side. I already set up an
account with 1and1.com (MS Business plan). I plan on developing the
web site while connected to the server, not on my computer (XP Pro).

Quick question, is there a way to "hide" my main page so if anyone goes
to my home page, they won't see what I'm working on, just a default
page?

Thanks,
Doug

 

[E. T. Culling]

It really is much better to develop the site on your computer rather than
live. What would you do if the server crashed? All your work would be gone.

 

[Andrew Murray]

You could password protect the root folder so any visitor would just get a
password prompt. Check with your host to see if their control panel has any
way to protect folders and files.

Or, you could put up an "Under Construction" page, name it whatever your
default page needs to be named according to the host (e.g. index.html), and
work on the real index page (give it another name e.g index2.html while
working on it, then rename it to the real page later when your site does go
live).

However the easiest and best way is not to edit the site "live" at all, and
only publish the site when you've finished building it.

There won't be anything for any visitor to see if you don't work on it on
the live server. If you're going to edit "live" to use as a sort-of test
platform, I advise it would be better to utilise IIS in XP Professional and
publish to http://localhost which acts as a web server. Youc can view your
site in a browser, and view such things as ASP pages and also FPSE features
like site search etc. Some things won't work of course, since they require
a broader range of features that only a full web server might have.

I don't believe anyone is simply going to stumble across the site (unless
they already know the URL); nor will search engines visit without content,
and this search engine indexing process in itself might take weeks or months
before your site gets listed. So either way, I would be sure at this point
that you won't get unwanted visitors.

Hope this has given you some (helpful) suggestions.

 

[talkpbx at gmail.com]

Thanks Eleanor and Andrew. Well, 2 out of 2 suggest I work from my
computer first, I so I guess that is what I will do. I already have
IIS installed, I just need to install the FP extensions. According to
my book, I can get them from MS web site.

I still have another web site up that has been up for years and still
gets a couple of hits per day. I was planning on putting links on the
old web site to the new web site. I am under the impression this (one
site linking to another) will help get my new site listed in the search
engine databases???

 

[Tom Willett]

FP server extensions are no longer available for download from the MS web
site.
WinXP Pro comes with the FP2000 extensions, which can be installed from the
IIS installation add/remove programs.
--
===
Tom Willett
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
---
FrontPage Support:
http://www.frontpagemvps.com/
===
| Thanks Eleanor and Andrew. Well, 2 out of 2 suggest I work from my
| computer first, I so I guess that is what I will do. I already have
| IIS installed, I just need to install the FP extensions. According to
| my book, I can get them from MS web site.
|
| I still have another web site up that has been up for years and still
| gets a couple of hits per day. I was planning on putting links on the
| old web site to the new web site. I am under the impression this (one
| site linking to another) will help get my new site listed in the search
| engine databases???
|