Front Page Extensions (Office 2000)

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The following is somewhat over-simplified…
a. FrontPage extensions are ‘programs’ that run on the host. They provide ‘services’, such as counting page visits.
b. I dunno. I have experienced bugs in the fp2002 extensions.
c. Find a different host. Angelfire.com & Tripod.com come to mind.
d. yes.
e. yes, but if your host wont support fp, dont look for much help with anything else.
f. cf c.

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(Edited by WebGenii on 18-Feb-03 13:38. to add link)

The chairman of my local walking club is trying to set up a club website. A number of web pages have been produced for him (not using Front Page), and sent to him for uploading and maintenance (i.e. the chairman needs to keep the info up to date). The chairman has Front Page on his PC, so he imported the pages and then tried uploading them to the website. This failed, and ISP technical support told him (at 50p per minute!) that

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In case you didn’t find them before I recommend post 61823, which discusses the role of the webserver and FP server extensions. post 204029 discusses some of the features that require FP server extensions. Another feature that requires FP server extensions (and you’ve already discovered this) is the FP publish feature. If your web host doesn’t use FP server extensions then you’ll need to use an FTP program (it isn’t hard if you have IE – it will act as an FTP client). The tougher part is you’ll have to keep track of the files you want to publish etc.
Why don’t ISP’s like FP server extensions? Well, many ISP’s use Linux and Unix webservers and their administrators feel;
1)that FP server extensions open up security holes in their servers;
2)It is just too much trouble to keep their server’s patches for MS products up to date;
3)that MS products are evil and bad and regardless of what their customers use, they are going to punish people for using MS products or Lead people away to “better” alternatives.
If you sit and talk to the technical staff, typically you get one or more of these responses. Anyhow, you can tell I don’t tend to have much patience with this. That being said you certainly can continue to use FP and remain with your current service provider. It just means that there will be some things you can’t do and a little more work for you in doing some things (like publishing “manually”).

Cheers

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(Edited by WebGenii on 20-Feb-03 08:56. to add hyperlink)

Many thanks to WebGenii and Peter for your replies.

The situation is now somewhat clearer, but I now have a supplementary question. By following links in the KnowledgeBase article to which WebGenii referred, I arrived at what used to be Q194051. Repeating my statement that all of this web stuff seems more like black magic to me than computing, there seems to be an implication in Q194051 that an end user trying to access a web page which used one or more FP extensions hosted on a server which does not support FP extensions would result in the end user getting an HTTP error 404.

Am I correct in interpreting this as, if the pages are forced to the server via FTP (i.e. FP Publish does not work), there is a distinct possibility that users will get 404 errors because the pages might contain features which require FP Server extensions?

If so, I begin to see why WebGenii says she has little patience with ISPs that won’t run extentsions. Not only will the site owner have to keep a rigid (manual) check on what pages have been altered and then (manually) upload them to the server instead of using FP Publish, but he will have to do a test access to each page on the server in case he has inadvertently used an FP feature which requires extensions and so will result in a 404 error. Right?

What a mess!

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I would tend to doubt that, unless it was due to a redirection or link that depended on the SE being there to be interpreted properly.
(This is also based on the fact that if I preview my web locally – and I do not have FPSE installed locally – and I do NOT get 404’s.)

Items, such as the Hit Counter are displayed with the familiar red X, plus on preview (FP preview, not preview with a browser), you should get a warning that certain elements won’t work – see below.

With respect to your earlier question regarding UK ISP’s:
I would be very surprised if you found a reliable, free service that included FPSE’s. Why should you/he wish to retain the other ISP? – you can transfer your domain as simply as your mobile ‘phone number – it would be as transparent as that to visitors.
I’m afraid my maxim is, and always has been, you get what you pay for. My understanding and experience is that, whilst not perfect, FP can lead to a much easier life. Uploading through it’s native ‘publisher’ handles outdated and duplicate files etc.

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More thanks to Leif and WebGenii.
Leif – I think I misled people here. He’s not looking for a free ISP (I don’t think I’m allowed to name his current ISP because it falls foul of a Lounge rule (right?) but they are an offshoot of what used to be the monopolistic phone supplier to the UK; he pays as he goes at the moment) – but an ISP which provides free webspace once he’s signed up with them. He would then host the club website on the new ISP’s server ( which would have FP extensions support). That’s what he’s asking – anyone know a reliable ISP which runs FP extensions and provides free webspace (obviously not unlimited space)
Hope this has cleared up my badly phrased posting.

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Aha! I wouldn’t describe it as free as you’re paying for it elsewhere!
But I see what you mean now.

OK, the people we use are Nildram. I’ve seen them highly rated in surveys and I’ve seen them totally omitted from surveys, so I wouldn’t put much store in them. We’ve been signed up for the best part of ten years and the fact that it has never even occurred to me to move must mean something. I mean, how many support teams have you come across who offer to call you on your mobile (as you haven’t an normal extension near your server) and lead you embarrassingly through a reboot to fix the problem?

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Thanks Leif
The Nildram site looks interesting.
I’m going to leave this thread now as the chairman gets back from hols next Tuesday. I think there is more than enough info here to keep his thought processes going for a while.
Thanks to everyone for their help. Loungers excel again!
Silverback
PS : Leif ; One thing I couldn’t see on my quick visit. Do Nildram support FP Server Extensions?

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Re: PS – Oh yes!

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(Edited by Leif on 10-Mar-03 23:56. to make link live.)

If you don’t require the FP extensions, there is a fantastic free program that will strip out all (or most) of the proprietary MS bloat and will allow you to upload FP created sites to a server which does not support Front Page Extension. I have been using this for a few years now, and it works with FP 2000 and FP XP. Have a look at this site:
http://www.vorburger.ch/kissfp/%5B/url%5D

Hope this is of some use.

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Hello Rebel
Sorry for the delay in replying – have not been available.
Thanks very much for this info; it looks like a definite plus for maintaining stuff using Front Page and avoiding the hassles.
I have passed on to the chairman, so hope it goes OK
Thanks again for your help

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One thing I forgot to mention – with KissFP you do need an FTP program to upload to the server. Once it’s set up however (I’m using Cute FTP), the KissFP program does its work and then launches the FTP program right from the menu bar in Front Page. All the user has to do is select the proper directory on the server and then select whch files are to be uploaded.

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If you are using Internet Explorer – you have an FTP program, just put the ftp address in the address bar like so:
ftp://your address here
Look in the file menu and you’ll find a choice for Login As …. This is where you enter your username and password.
I’ve got mine bookmarked, makes bringing up the FTP site a breeze.
Just drag and drop from your explorer window to the IE window.

Cheers

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You may be interested in Internet Neighborhood. Your web sites become viewable in Explorer so you can simply drag and drop to upload files. Uploads can be scheduled, you can transfer files from site to site without downloading first, you can map to a remote FTP site as if it were on your network, etc.

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Just to chime in with what Leif has said. Not all failures will result in a 404 error. For some you’ll just get a broken link on the page. And FP does have the warning about the page needing to be published to show all features correctly.
You can try the following to – turn off features requiring FP Server Extensions:
From the menu choose Tools, Page Options, Compatibility. When in the Compatibility dialogue box, disable the Enabled with Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions checkbox.
I’d still test my web though. And keep the list of unsupported features handy.

Cheers

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Are you sure that the FP publisher is dependent on FP Extensions? I originally had difficulties with my free ISP not accepting FP Extensions. However I found a panel in Tools | Page Options | Compatability which gives the option of disabling features not supported by servers – including FPE. Since then I’ve found no problems with using FP Publisher.

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After the FP Extensions are turned off, I believe it acts as an FTP client.

Cheers

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