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~~Tina Clarke, AccessFP - FrontPage Resource Centre

Adding Functionality To Your Website with FrontPage 2002, Part IV

As I stated in Part III -
“NOTE: All the included Content options open the same dialog box, except for page Banners, which open the Page Banner Properties dialog box and we will be discussing Page Banners along with other Cool Components in Part IV.”

So now we are going to cover:

• Working with Page Banners
• Adding Comments
• Inserting Timestamps

Working with Page Banners

Page banners are blocks of text. For example, headlines, column and section headers and the website name. Page banners maintain the styles and graphics (They look like big link bars if they are graphical) and provide the location to give a page a title.

NOTE: A Good way to add banners to more than one page is to position the banner inside a shared border or frame.

If you are not using themes you enter the text and then format the banner yourself by selecting font, style and size. A page banner contains a single line of text and can have a graphical background. The picture used as the background is defined by the web’s theme.

NOTE: Webs without a theme cannot have a graphical banner.

A page banner is a quick way to add titles to your web pages. Page banners use the styles and graphics of a theme, if one is used on the current page; otherwise the page banner just displays text, which you can format. Using a page banner inside a shared border is a way to quickly add titles to multiple pages in a web.  Before you can use page banners, you must set up your web's navigation structure in Navigation view. (A page banner will not be visible on a page unless the page is included in the navigation structure.) Page banners use the page titles from Navigation view; if you change this title for a page, its page banner label will also change.  After you add a page banner to a page, you can change the text that is displayed on it, and you can specify whether to display a graphic or just text. The page banner picture that will be displayed is the banner that is associated with the theme for that particular page.

~ Adding a page banner to a web page

NOTE: By default, a page banner displays the page title as displayed in Navigation view. Therefore, before you can use page banners, you must set up your web site's navigation structure in Navigation view. (A page banner will not be visible on a page unless the page is included in the navigation structure.)

• In Page view, position the insertion point where you want to add a page banner.
• On the Insert menu, click Page Banner.
• Do one of the following:
  • Display the page banner as text:
    • Select Text in the Page Banner Properties dialog box.
    • In the Page banner text box, type the text you want to display in the page banner, and click OK.
    • To format the text, right-click the page banners, select Font on the shortcut menu, and modify the font.
  • Display the page banner as a picture:
    • In order to use a picture, your page must use a theme.
    • Select Picture in the Page Banner Properties dialog box.
    • In the Page banner text box, type the text you want to display in the page banner, and click OK.

NOTE: The page banner picture that will be displayed is the banner that is associated with the theme for this page.

~ Editing and formatting a web page banner

• In Page view, double-click the page banner.
• Set the properties for the page banner.
• Select the font settings you want.
• Click the Character spacing Tab.
• To change character spacing, click the spacing drop-down arrow and select a spacing option (either Normal, Expanded, or Condensed), and enter the amount of spacing you want in the By box.
• To change character position, click the Position drop-down arrow and then select a positioning option (either Baseline, Sub, Super, Top, Text-Top, Middle, Bottom, or Text-Bottom)
• When the links look ok, click Apply and then click OK the banner is now revised.

NOTE: When you change the text displayed on a page banner, the title of the page in Navigation view is also changed.

Adding Comments

Designing and developing a web site involves many tasks and little reminders help smooth the way. This becomes more important when there is more than one person working on a site.

~ Adding the comment to a web page

• In Page view, position the insertion point where you want to add a comment.
• On the Insert menu, click Comment.
• Type the comment in the comment box that pops up.
• Click OK.

NOTE: A comment has the same attributes as the current paragraph style, but is displayed in a different colour. Although comments can be viewed while editing a page, they are not visible in the Web browser of a site visitor who has browsed to the page. However, they are visible if the site visitor wants to view the source of your page, so use caution and practice discretion when writing comments.

~ Editing the comment on a web page

• In Page view, double-click the comment and edit it, then click the OK button.

NOTE: You can change the colour of the comments by modifying the colour-coding of HTML. The settings you choose will apply to all subsequent new pages you create.

~ Modifying colour-coding of HTML

• In Page view, open the page you want to modify.
• On the Tools menu, click Page Options, and then click the Colour Coding tab.
• Click the arrow in the colour box next to the comment selection to select the colour you want to use.
• To select or create a custom colour by using the Eyedropper tool, click More Colours. When finished click OK.

~ Resetting colour coding of HTML

• To reset colour coding to its original default settings, click Reset Colours.

NOTE: You will also see comments made by FrontPage for example:

“Comment: This border appears in all pages in your Web. Replace this comment with your own content.”

This is a comment found in a shared border and there are many more like this viewable in page view or html view or in the browser Source view but nowhere else.

~ Adding a file summary comment

• In any view except Tasks view, right-click the file you want to add comments to, click Properties on the shortcut menu, and then click the Summary tab.
• In the Comments box, type the comments you want to add.

NOTE: File summary comments are not like web page editing comments. You can use file summary comments to provide a description or note about the file. You can view the comments in several reports in Reports view.

Inserting Timestamps

~ Add a time stamp to a web page

A time stamp will display either the time or the date, or both, that the page was created or last changed. For example, a time stamp lets site visitors know whether the information on your site has changed since their last visit.

• In Page view, position the insertion point where you want to place a time stamp.
• On the Insert menu, click Date and Time.
• Specify the type of time stamp to display.
• Specify a format for the date and for the time.

In Part V we will discuss Creating a Banner Ad and more.

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