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| Microsoft® FrontPage® Version 2002 Step by Step |
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Chapter 7: Enhancing the Capabilities of Your Web Site continued
Adding Ready-Made Components to a Web Page
In the old days, if you wanted to add fancy effects such as scrolling banners or functional elements such as hit counters to your Web site, you needed to be a programmer. These days, many of these types of elements are available as ready-made Web components. FrontPage provides the following Web components that you can simply drop into your Web pages to give your site a professional look and feel:
| Component Type | Effect |
| Dynamic Effects | Hover Button Marquee Banner Ad Manager |
| Web Search | Current Web |
| Spreadsheets and Charts | Office Spreadsheet Office Chart Office PivotTable |
| Hit Counter | Various styles |
| Photo Gallery | Horizontal Layout Montage Layout Slideshow Layout Vertical Layout |
| Included Content | Substitution Page Page Based On Schedule Picture Based On Schedule Page Banner |
| Link Bars | Bar with custom links Bar with back and next links Bar based on navigation structure |
| Table of Contents | For This Web Site Based on Page Category |
| Top 10 List | Visited Pages Referring Domains Referring URLs Search Strings Visiting Users Operating Systems Browser |
| List View | (only available for SharePoint team Web sites) |
| Document Library View | (only available for SharePoint team Web sites) |
| BCentral Web Components | bCentral Banner Ad bCentral Commerce Manager Add-In FastCounter Revenue Avenue affiliate link |
| Expedia Components | Link to a map Static map |
| MSN Components | Search the Web with MSN Stock quote |
| MSNBC Components | Business Headlines Living and Travel Headlines News Headlines Sports Headlines Technology Headlines Weather Forecast |
| Additional Components | Visual InterDev Navigation Bar |
| Advanced Controls | HTML Java Applet Plug-In Confirmation Field ActiveX Control Design-Time Control |
IMPORTANT:
Most of the Web components available with FrontPage are simple to insert and use. However, some work only in SharePoint team Web sites, and others require that special controls be installed on your system before they can be used. The bCentral components require that you have an account with bCentral in order to use them.
Several of the Web components are new to FrontPage 2002:
- Top 10 lists generate an automatically refreshed list of the top 10 pages on your site in order of page hits, unique users, referral source, search strings, or many other factors. Top 10 lists can be used on Internet or intranet sites.
- The Microsoft Expedia, MSN, and MSNBC Web components are automatically updated over the Web and require an Internet connection in order to function. You can use the Expedia Web components to add links to static and dynamic maps and driving directions. The MSN Web components provide search capabilities and up-to-the- minute stock market information. The MSNBC Web components enable you to add news, business, technology, and sports headlines to your Web pages; you can also display a current weather forecast for a specific area.
In this exercise, you will insert two of the more common components: a weather forecast and a hit counter. You will also add components that enable people to search both your site and the Web.
The working folder for this exercise is SBS\FrontPage\Capabilities\Components.
Follow these steps:
- Open the GardenCo Web site located in the working folder.
- Open the index.htm file in the Page view editing window.
- Place the insertion point at the end of the body of the page, and press Enter to create a new line.
- Type How’s the weather in our garden this week? and then press Enter.
- On the Standard toolbar, click the Web Component button to display this dialog box:
- Click MSNBC Components in the Component type list, click Weather forecast from MSNBC in the Choose a MSNBC component box, and then click Finish.
- In the Weather forecast from MSNBC Properties dialog box, type Seattle in the Search for a city by name or U.S. ZIP code box, and then click Next.
- Click Finish to close the dialog box and insert the weather component.
- On the Standard toolbar, click the Preview in Browser button to test the weather component.
- Click the extended forecast link to connect to the MSNBC weather page on the Web.
- Close the browser to return to FrontPage.
- Now add a hit counter to the site. Select Insert hit counter here in the bottom shared border, and type Thanks for visiting The Garden Company! You are visitor #, followed by a space.
- On the Insert menu, click Web Component to display the Insert Web Component dialog box.
- In the Component type box, click Hit Counter. Then click the last selection in the Choose a counter style box, and click Finish.
- Select the Reset counter to check box, and enter 100 in the adjacent box.
- Select the Fixed number of digits check box, and enter 4 in the adjacent box.
- Click OK to close the dialog box and insert the hit counter.
- On the Standard toolbar, click the Preview in Browser button to test the hit counter.
- Close the browser to return to FrontPage.
- Next, you’ll add a search component. Open the search.htm file in the Page view editing window.
- Select the words Insert search component here, and click the Web Component button on the Standard toolbar to display the Insert Web Component dialog box.
- In the Component type box, click Web Search, and then click Finish to accept Current Web as the option in the Choose a type of search box.
- View both pages of the dialog box, and then click OK to accept the default options.
- Press Enter to insert the Web Search component on the page.
- Type If you can’t find it on our site, search the Web!, and press Enter.
- Highlight the new text, and then press Ctrl+Spacebar to remove the italic formatting.
- Click the line below the text, and click the Web Component button to display the Insert Web Component dialog box.
- Click MSN Components in the Component type box, click Search the Web with MSN in the Choose a MSN component box, and then click Finish.
- On the Standard toolbar, click the Preview in Browser button to test the search components.
- When FrontPage displays a message that the page contains elements that need to be saved or published to display correctly, click OK.
- In the Search for box, type carnivorous, and click Start Search to start the search.
- Click the browser’s Back button to return to the Search page.
- Type carnivorous in the MSN Search box, and click Search to start the search.
- Close the browser to return to FrontPage.
- Close the Web site.
Click to view graphic
TIP:
Take a few minutes to explore all the Web components that are available in this dialog box, making a note of any that you might want to try out on your own later.
Seattle, WA appears below the box as the selected option.
A placeholder appears on your page like this:
Click to view graphic
If your Internet connection is active, the weather component connects to the MSNBC Web site, retrieves current weather conditions and tomorrow’s forecast, and displays the information on your page, like this:
Click to view graphic
TIP:
Hit counters are generally inserted only on the home page of a site, not on every page. In the site used in this exercise, the bottom shared border is shown only on the index.htm page. If this border is shared across all pages, you will want to move the hit counter to the body of the page.
The Hit Counter Properties dialog box opens, as shown on the next page.
Click to view graphic
For a site that has been up and running for a while, you will want to guess the number of visitors who might already have visited your site and enter that number here.
When the hit counter nears 1000, you can reset the number of digits to 5. In the meantime, four digits will give the illusion of a larger number (because the number of visitors is preceded by fewer zeros).
IMPORTANT:
Hit counters work only on server-based Web sites stored on servers that have FrontPage Server Extensions or SharePoint Team Services installed. Disk-based Web sites don’t display the hit counter graphic properly or count the visits, but you can check the placement on a disk-based Web site.
Because this site has not yet been published to the server, your page looks like this:
Click to view graphic
This Search Form Properties dialog box opens:
Click to view graphic
The Search Form Properties dialog box specifies the settings for the presentation of the search form and the search results.
FrontPage inserts the MSN Search component, and the page now looks like this:
Click to view graphic
In the browser, your page is displayed like this:
Click to view graphic
Because this site has not yet been published to the server, you get this result:
Click to view graphic
If your Internet connection is active, you are redirected to the Web Search page of MSN, with the results of your search shown.
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Last Updated: Saturday, July 7, 2001