Summary: Product feedback about FrontPage
SeeAlso: ProductFeedback, OfficeFeedback, Microsoft_FrontPage@Wikipedia

Taken from the FrontPage thread on the forums -- JonathanHardwick

Basic Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Priorities

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 "Ensure that the tool automatically generates valid markup. Priority 1"

• Ensure that the markup produced by the tool, in any of its supported languages, is valid.
• Publish proprietary language specifications or DTD's on the Web, to allow documents to be validated.
• Use namespaces and schemas to make documents that can be automatically transformed to a known markup language.

ATAG 1.0 Ensure that the tool automatically generates valid markup#check-ensure-published-DTD

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 "If markup produced by the tool does not conform to W3C specifications, inform the author."
ATAG 1.0 If markup produced by the tool does not conform to web standards specifications, inform the author#check-declare-extended-DTD

Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 "Allow the author to transform presentation markup that is misused to convey structure into structural markup, and to transform presentation markup used for style into style sheets. Priority 3"
e.g.

1. HTML: table-based layout into CSS.
2. HTML: BR to the P element.
3. HTML: (deprecated) FONT into heuristically or author-determined structure.
4. Word processor styles to Web styles.
5. HTML: deprecated presentational markup into CSS.

ATAG 1.0 Allow the author to transform presentation markup that is misused to convey structure into structural markup, and to transform presentation markup used for style into style sheets#check-notify-on-schedule

"The whole reason nearly all Web pages on the Internet are malformed is because browsers let Web page authors get away with it. As long as browsers are permissive in their error handling and recovery, Web authors will continue to produce invalid Web pages, because they won't even have any idea the pages they are authoring are invalid!" coming from http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/hyatt/archives/2004_01.html#004702

--DU/GT

Style Sheet Support

Could we have better style sheet support/creation? Many clients want CSS based sites - which I can do - but using css throws you into code land - as the sites get more and more complex, you end up with content layers - wherein the entire site is now almost all css - all needing editing by hand. I would love to see a css based design mode. Current FP opens css great - but theres no easyediting really

( in css mode perhaps the app would work exactly the same - but if i make something verdana - it doesnt write <font=verdana> it writes it to the style sheet - not sure - this would be great though) -- jamie

Collect for output.

Like Quark Xpress. Any file graphic avi mp3 gif htm asp all - to a folder. No publishing necessary. -- jamie

More Behaviours and Layers

WAY more stuff in Behaviours and Layers taskpane. That stuff is great - put more options / free code -- jamie

Search

Option to search every single file - especially .js etc that current new and improved search ignores when replacing within source code -- jamie

Better Photo Album

5. a photo album equivilant to the one use guys use on msn.. the one in there is a joke :p -- jamie

Troubled Waters for Frontpage

I have to be honest as senior developer and say that we have abondoned Frontpage as a development tool for many years now, and use it only when a client requests or rather, insist, which is rare these days (we are a technology services and custom hosting solution provider). The chief reason is extensions....the difficulty in implementing, maintaining, migrating when moving sites, and security. But an even bigger reason is CSS/XHTML and IE and issues between that support between Frontpage, Visual Studio, Internet Explorer and the rest of the browsers out there in the world. The code its spits out is tailored to IE we feel not compatible with quickly changing standards-based xhtml/css models many shops are moving to. We are also seeing IE slipping now in market share and Mozilla based browsers are a solid 10% and approaching 20% (I predict) by the end of 2004. As "sexy" as the new Frontapge 2003 is and collaboration/integration with Web Parts and Sharepoint is, the complexity of that relationship, hours to maintain and technical savy to develop in, not to mention incestuous relationship on the front-end code with IE 6 browser and 2003 server and .NET, means one is pretty much pigeon-holed into carefully paying for and orchestrating a narrow range of software solutions that many clean, free, and easy to use open-source solutions can now offer. Bar none, Microsoft solves business problems with incredible accumen, but often at the expense of cost, hours to implement and manage, and limitations as to both supporting OS's (Unix, MAC?) and client agents (Ntecsape, Mozilla, Opera, etc.). I can live without the former but not the user agent support and compliant CSS. As we see the web move more and more to a more "inclusive" arena where non-Microsoft browsers are increasingly taking market share from both the desktop and the mobile market, Im not seeing the power of your integrated product strategies anymore. If you can get past these issues, you might win more designers in using your tools. This doesnt apply to Visual Studio and .NET which is a HUGE leap for us, but does as regards the front-end drag and drop front-end controls and code that are clearly tailored to Internet Explorer 5.5-6. I will never use frontpage or extensions unless Im stuck with a Sharepoint solution, never use Visual Studio except when Im building simple services or implementing my CMS web solutions Ive built, and never use any of your tools as long as they work only in IE. Can you disconnect Internet Explorer and all front-end code and build on a w3c standardized xhtml/xml code system thats more compliant with other user agents? Can you make Frontpage more of a text-based GUI with robust CSS support and xhtml support? Can you move all relationships with Sharepoint and IIs and .NET and extensions in 2003 to server-based modules, so users who say, want to use Frontpage to post to say a Unix server, or design in PHP, or even use ASP without extensions, or use CSS2, can easily code and integrate that custom code by choice?

Just a suggestion...

Create XHTML 1.0, CSS 2.1 compliant code.

All CSS styles should be saved in external files, not in style="" attribute or <style /> tag.

Built-in HTML validator and CSS validator in Frontpage

Front Page should provide all the necessary tools and some basic documentation on making a webpage using entirely valid and validated markup code and CSS code.

A lot of HTML editors have now markup validation features, capabilities, code/lint checkers, even link checkers.

Example of Bluefishcygwin3.jpg

Another example of Bluefish_bookmarks.png

Front Page should provide doctype declaration of strict definition of HTML/XHTML so that webpages created with such doctype declarations would trigger standards compliant rendering mode in MSIE 6, and therefore, would render better, faster and more consistently in all other web standards compliant browsers. In that regard, providing full support for HTML 4.01 strict is more important and more useful for users than providing XHTML support.
Front Page should provide a basic guide and a FAQ to Front Page users on (general guidelines on which an overwhelming majority of professional developers have over the years agreed on) web how to best make web pages and what (pitfalls) to avoid. E.g.:
* avoiding   to position elements
* avoiding spacer.gif
* avoiding design based on table-layout
* how to properly code the title and the alt attributes
* escaping '&' in urls
* always giving unit to css declarations
* importance of quality of semantic markup for interoperability+accessibility
* avoiding pseudo-protocol "javascript:" links
* avoiding empty anchors
* avoiding empty <p></p>
* avoiding empty href like href="#",
* avoiding deprecated elements, deprecated attributes and non-standards ones: bgcolor, <font>, <center> are very frequent ones
* etc, etc, etc, etc,...
which are all too/very frequent web page design errors and/or bad coding practices.
Front Page should serve the web authors in trying to serve their website visitors and the web in general. Front Page should serve as a *solution* on the web and for the web, not as a *problem* on the web and for the web.

"Microsoft doesn't use FrontPage to create pages on Microsoft.com -- even the pages discussing FrontPage. If Microsoft doesn't use it, why should you?" 14AFFrontPage; The Biggest Web Design Mistakes of 2004
If Microsoft does not use its own FrontPage product to create at least some pages at microsoft.com, then Microsoft is promoting a product for others that it denies, that it actively refuses for itself: a totally illogical, inconsequent, incoherent behavior. A sort of strange and embarassing double talk situation.
--DU/GT