Tina's FrontPage News
~~Tina Clarke, AccessFP - Frontpage Resource Centre

FrontPage Backups 

There is no Recycle Bin in FrontPage so if you delete a file or even completely lose a web through dire circumstances you're going to be in a Restore situation. Backing up your web should be part of your maintenance schedule, especially if you tend to work only on the server. 

TO BACK UP YOUR WEB FROM YOUR HOST’S WEB SERVER

Make sure you have FrontPage extensions enabled on your host. 

• File | Open | on the pop up box. Click 'Web Folders' on the left hand menu.
• Insert the URL of the site you wish to open: e.g.: http://www.accessfp.net/.
• Click ok.
• A box will appear asking for your username and password. Insert this and press ok.
• In FrontPage, click on the navigation view so you know when the site will come in.
• The site will show once it is fully loaded.  You may publish to your hard drive.
• File | Publish | insert the location on your hard drive you wish to publish to or make an empty web beforehand in preparation.
• When the site has finished publishing close the live site.

TO BACK UP YOUR WEB ON YOUR HARD DRIVE 

Open up the site on your hard drive that you wish to back up.  Recalculate Hyperlinks under the Tools menu.

• File | Publish | insert the location on your hard drive you wish to publish to or make an empty web beforehand in preparation.

It’s that simple, and once you have done this you only need to tick Changed Pages Only in the Publishing Dialog Box to update your web. 

BACKING UP YOUR NAVIGATION DATA 

This situation is for dire emergencies and to be used as a last resort. 

• To see these files you may need to show hidden documents.
  Tools | Web settings | Advanced Tab | Make sure the 'Show documents in hidden directories' box is ticked. Press ok. You will be asked to refresh the web. 

So, if you need to restore your navigation data you can copy your back up structure.cnf file and recalculate hyperlinks to restore the data. 

• For more information on this subject see:
  http://www.at-frontpage.com/2002/iis_include.htm#nav

HOW TO MAKE BACKUPS OF INDIVIDUAL FILES IN A WEB SITE 

• Open FrontPage with the web you wish to use

• Double click on the file to be backed up to open it up.

• Go to File | Save As. In the ‘Save As’ Box, rename the file, change the directory if desired, and press the "Ok" button. (Note: do NOT use drag and drop!)

• Close the file.

A copy of the file is created with a new name and the old file stays exactly the same, complete with hyperlinks connections. Though in the new file you may see some differences if there are navigation bars or page banners in the file (they won’t appear). 

You can use this method to store a copy in the SAME web, but you can also use it to store individual files in other webs or a storage web set up for that purpose. Again navigation bars and page banners won’t show up, also internal links will be incorrect. 

Why not use drag and drop?  

Using File | Save As will leave you with a copy of the backup file intact. In FP2000 dragging and dropping a file from one location to another is a different type of action. File | Save As prevents FrontPage from trying to adjust hyperlinks and image references, whereas drag and drop causes FrontPage to automatically change references to images and hyperlinks. While restoring a file you do not want FrontPage to make any reference changes. 

HOW TO RESTORE A FILE FROM A BACKUP IN THE SAME WEB 

• Open FrontPage with web site you wish to use.

• Locate the file that is the backup and open it.

• Go to File | Save As. In the save as box, type in the name of the (damaged) original file.

NOTE: Do NOT use drag and drop! 

• Change the directory if needed. (A simple way to do this is to use the ‘Save As’ box to browse to the location and click once on the file to be overwritten.) 

• Press the OK button when finished.

• Go to Tools | Recalculate Hyperlinks say, "Yes" when asked to Refresh. 

• This action will over-write the damaged file. Hyperlinks that were accessing the file will be unchanged. Recalculating hyperlinks insures that navigation bars and page banners are updated.

BACKING UP TO A CD 

This add-on simplifies the process of publishing a web to blank CD media
(CDR or CDRW). It is a five-step wizard with built in verification features, which prevent the occurrence of known problems. 

Strictly CD-it 1.01 FREE FrontPage ADD-ON
http://listserv.shu.edu/~franciru/msfrontpage/frontpage.htm
Available for download from this site but there is no support. Note copyright remains with Strictly British. 

CD-it is also intelligent enough not to publish those folders which are used only by Microsoft FrontPage 2000 for configuration purposes. This can save valuable data space on your CD.  It also includes an autorun feature, so it automatically loads on a 32bit Windows PC. You can even add an icon to represent the drive in which your CD is inserted. 

SHAREPOINT USERS BACKUP FEATURES 

Customize the Document Library with Auto Backup Template in FrontPage 2002

The Document Library with Auto Backup template creates a document library that automatically makes a backup copy of a file once the file is approved.

FLASH!
While I was writing this article a new FrontPage Add-on came on the market:

ThemePak Site Backup

POINTS TO REMEMBER 

• Make sure you Recalculate Hyperlinks before every publish.

• Always use File | Publish, not the publish button.

Hopefully you won’t need to use your backups but if you do you will glad you read this article. (Smile)

Tina Clarke - Microsoft MVP - FrontPage, is the Webmaster of AccessFP - FrontPage Resource Centre http://accessfp.net/  and http://addonfp.com  She is also an editor of AnyFrontPageBytes Ezine. Subscribe to the ezine http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AnyFrontPageBytes  and get FREE FrontPage E-Books upon joining. And don't forget to subscribe to get Weekly FrontPage Tips. Tina is also an artist and the owner of http://clarke-abstract-art.com