Lisa Wollin : Articles

Creating a JavaScript Drop-Down Menu in FrontPage

lisawoll — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 02:16:00 GMT

We posted a new article on MSDN about creating JavaScript drop-down menus. If you read my earlier post about creating a drop-down menu, you may be interested in this article. The article uses a somewhat different method to show and hide menus than the code I showed earlier and also provides an example for cascading menus as well as menus that use image mouseovers. Plus, at the end of the article, you will find several links where you can find additional methods for creating drop-down menus.

New Article: Working with HTML Using the FrontPage 2003 Object Model

lisawoll — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 23:20:00 GMT

Yesterday we posted on MSDN a new article called, Working with HTML Using the FrontPage 2003 Object Model. Here's the summary:

Learn how to use the Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Visual Basic for Applications object model to programmatically add or modify the HTML in a Web page.

XML Data Islands in Web Pages

lisawoll — Fri, 13 Aug 2004 01:06:00 GMT

I get an e-zine called asp.netNOW from aspnetPRO.com. Today, there was an article about using XML data islands in Web pages that I wanted to pass onto you. You may not know that Internet Explorer provides an XML element that you can use to embed XML directly into an HTML page. I've always been fascinated by this element because on the surface it seems useless. Just putting XML data inside the XML element doesn't cause the data to show up in a Web page. Instead, you have to use it as a data source. That's where the real action starts.

In his article, Exploring Data Islands, Don Kiely explains how to use the XML element in the simplest terms I've ever seen. He shows how to use the XML element to embed the XML data directly into an HTML page and how to use the XML element to reference an external XML page where the data is stored. Then he shows how to make that data show up on the page. Whichever way you prefer, this article is a great starter for understanding this little-used and little-understood element.

At the end of the article Kiely makes a comment about ASP.NET, but don't be fooled. You don't need to use ASP.NET to use Internet Explorer XML data islands. The XML element has been part of Internet Explorer since IE 4.0 and is in no way dependent on ASP.NET. However, I will acknowledge that ASP.NET (and, in fact, the entire .NET Framework) does make working with XML data easier, so if XML is your thing, take a look at Kiely's article AND ASP.NET.

New Article: Creating Managed Add-ins for FrontPage 2003

lisawoll — Thu, 05 Aug 2004 20:45:00 GMT

Hi, everyone,

We published a new article called, "Creating Managed FrontPage 2003 Add-ins in C#."

Learn how to create a managed add-in for FrontPage 2003 using Visual Studio .NET and Visual C# .NET. The download that accompanies this article contains the form and code files for the Insert Images add-in project discussed in this article.

You can find the article at http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/odc_fp2003_ta/html/odc_fpManagedFrontPageAddIns.asp.

Introduction to Web Technologies

lisawoll — Tue, 29 Jun 2004 21:18:00 GMT

We just posted a new article for beginning Web developers called Introduction to Web Technologies for FrontPage Users. This article is designed specifically for FrontPage users who are looking to make a leap from WYSIWYG designing of Web pages to programming and developing Web applications.

New Article: Sending Custom EMail

lisawoll — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 00:07:00 GMT

Hey, ho... We just published a new article, Sending Custom Email. It's actually a reprint of an article on the companion CD of Jim Buyens' book, "FrontPage 2003 Inside Out" published by MS Press.

This article, the four reprint from Jim's book, shows how to use classic ASP to send custom email from a FrontPage form. From the introduction:

The Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 Save Results component does an adequate job of sending the contents of a form as an e-mail message, but it's not flexible enough to handle all situations. You can't, for example, format the message exactly to your liking, and you can't send e-mail messages to different recipients depending on the circumstances. If you have these kinds of requirements, you'll need to locate other tools and do some custom coding.

Stuff ...

lisawoll — Wed, 02 Jun 2004 23:10:00 GMT

Moving, et al

My date with the moving van went well ... sort of. Long story, short: I bought my first house and moved from an almost 1500 square foot condo to a less than 1000 square foot house. I comfort myself with the knowledge that a house is a better investment than a condo, and I have a garage, which at the moment is still filled with boxes. It will take time to find room for everything, either that or donate it to charity.

While I was out, Dail took good care of you posting Eray's comments about Tech Ed. Eray got busy during the final days at Tech Ed but has promised to send a final wrap up later today. I'll post it as soon as I get it.

New Article Published

We publised a new article on MSDN called, Automating Repetitive Tasks in FrontPage 2003. This is an article for advanced end-users who want to automate tasks that they consistently perform. To follow Dail's lead, here's a quote from the introduction:

Do you ever find yourself performing the same steps over and over again? Perhaps you publish the same Web site to several locations and find yourself repeatedly typing the Web addresses into the Publish dialog box every time you need to publish the site. Or perhaps you want to add a reference to an external style sheet to every page in your Web site and don't want to open every page to paste the necessary HTML. Macros can help.

Call for Ideas

For some time I've wanted to ask everyone for suggestions for article ideas. Some of you have submitted article ideas in the form of comments, and I have tried to respond to each of you in one form or another. Thank you for your ideas. We want more....

The FrontPage portal on MSDN is designed for Web developers of all skill levels and developers who want to extend the FrontPage application. Unfortunately, we don't have a great way of determining, other than through feedback and ratings, what type of content to produce. Therefore, I'd like to ask you to post any ideas you may have for articles related to FrontPage development that you would like to see.

One of the hottest topics currently is working with ASP.NET and ASP.NET controls. We have published several articles and have more in the works. I am personally finishing up an article on creating managed add-ins and one that is an introduction to Web technologies for new and low-end developers. I will next be working on an article on customizing IntelliSense (which I am hesitant to publish but which was requested). We also have two or three articles planned that relate to working with SharePoint sites in FrontPage.

If you have any additional article ideas, please let me know. I'll get them added to our list of ideas.

Customizing Code Snippets in FrontPage 2003

lisawoll — Mon, 24 May 2004 20:03:00 GMT

Dail Magee Jr. here, filling in for Lisa: While we're awaiting word from Tech·Ed, I wanted to let you know that we've published a new article, Customizing Code Snippets in FrontPage 2003.

From the introduction: “Have you ever found yourself typing the same code over and over again? If you're like me, you keep a text file close by that contains snippets of code that you frequently use, such as DOCTYPE declarations and scripts, that you can easily copy and paste into your Web pages. Well, the code snippet feature in Microsoft® Office FrontPage® 2003 was designed especially for you.”

Working with HTML DOCTYPE Declarations

lisawoll — Wed, 12 May 2004 19:43:00 GMT

We've published a new article, Working with HTML DOCTYPE Declarations in FrontPage.

Validating Form Fields Using JavaScript

lisawoll — Tue, 11 May 2004 18:21:00 GMT

We've published the following article on MSDN:

"Validating Form Fields Using JavaScript in FrontPage" at http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/odc_fp2003_ta/html/odc_fpValidatingFormControlsUsingJavaScript.asp.

Using ASP.NET with FrontPage 2003

lisawoll — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:05:00 GMT

We've published a new FrontPage article on working with ASP.NET pages, called Using ASP.NET with FrontPage 2003. The author, Dave Berry, a FrontPage MVP, has worked extensively with Web development and FrontPage.