Link Bar Styles

[Gregory Winters]

I know this subject has been beaten to death, but as much as I've searched
this board, I don't see anything that directly addresses the issue of hover
buttons and the Link Bar Styles.

OK, so if I wish to create a custom interactive hover button, there's all
the coding and unreliability issues - I've gathered all that. But what about
simply using a Link Bar Style selection and doing an upload? From what I
see, the problem is simply that (for some reason) my Frontpage 2003 isn't
uploading the mouseover images to my host (*.vbtn_a.gif). If these were
there, then I see no reason why the hover mechanism would not work.

Where are these files stored? I've done an exhaustive search on my hard
drive and I cannot locate them. If I could upload them myself, then I
believe everything would work fine. (Maybe this is a problem others are
having??)

Thanks for help!

Greg

 

[Anne Troy]

When this happened to me, I found that I'd been uploading (updating) only the
page, and not uploading the newly created image files. Are you publishing the
entire site? If so, I would think you should be fine. Otherwise, you could be
missing the graphic file upload by uploading only the "selected" file.

 

[Gregory Winters]

Hi Anne:

When you use this Link Bar feature in FrontPage, there aren't any 'newly
created image files' to be found. You seem to be forced to use this
Wizard-like Properties dialog and whatever you select there is taken care of
behind the scenes by FrontPage. The only thing I can see in the HTML are
some lines referring to this 'web bot' which is obviously handling all of
this.

Also, I don't use the FrontPage Publishing tool (I use Dreamweaver) because
of all of the proprietary-based errors I get about server incompatibility and
the like when I run the job. Once I perform a Save on the web page, I upload
the page via DW and I see a brand new folder placed there by something in
that page called 'derived.' In that folder, the primary button images are
there (*vbtn.gif), but the files that the mouseover is looking for
(*vbtn_a.gif) have not been uploaded.

Where are these .GIF's in the first place so I can perform a manual upload,
or even edit them (font, color, etc.)?

Greg

 

[Anne Troy]

Perhaps someone will answer definitively, but I believe I found them through
Windows Explorer and NOT through FrontPage.

 

[Gregory Winters]

Hi Anne:

After a great deal of time, I managed a workaround that, although clumsy,
serves the purpose. For those who don't wish to read the details, let me
just say this: MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE THE CONTENTS OF YOUR LINK BAR
COMPLETELY MAPPED AND CONFIGURED BEFORE YOU ASSIGN A STYLE!

The reason is that Frontpage doesn't adjust the contents of the GIF files
folder as you 'browse' the styles. It simply keeps adding files! Soon, you
have a huge mess and as you browse all of the thumbs in the folder, there is
no indication which one FP has actually *assigned* to the Bar.

Thus, when I uploaded an edit, I would get all combinations of fixed and
mouseover GIFs assigned to my buttons. It was almost comical it was so bad.
I don't know why FP was designed like this, but users of Office are
accustomed to assigning Styles to their work, then simply Saving the file and
relying on that Style coding to accompany the file wherever it goes. Not so
here. Once edits are made to the Link Bar, actually very little of the 'new'
data accompanies the saved page when FTP'd up to the host.

My (extremely tedious) workaround was to - one at a time - go through each
and every button on the Bar and delete every GIF associated with it, then
reload the Bar in FP, then Save, then upload the Page, then upload the
missing GIFs. Whew!

Thanks,

Greg

 

[Stefan B Rusynko]

Link bar styles require publishing using http w/ FP to a server running the FP 2002 Server Extensions

--

_____________________________________________
SBR @ ENJOY (-: [ Microsoft MVP - FrontPage ]
"Warning - Using the F1 Key will not break anything!" (-;
_____________________________________________


| Hi Anne:
|
| After a great deal of time, I managed a workaround that, although clumsy,
| serves the purpose. For those who don't wish to read the details, let me
| just say this: MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE THE CONTENTS OF YOUR LINK BAR
| COMPLETELY MAPPED AND CONFIGURED BEFORE YOU ASSIGN A STYLE!
|
| The reason is that Frontpage doesn't adjust the contents of the GIF files
| folder as you 'browse' the styles. It simply keeps adding files! Soon, you
| have a huge mess and as you browse all of the thumbs in the folder, there is
| no indication which one FP has actually *assigned* to the Bar.
|
| Thus, when I uploaded an edit, I would get all combinations of fixed and
| mouseover GIFs assigned to my buttons. It was almost comical it was so bad.
| I don't know why FP was designed like this, but users of Office are
| accustomed to assigning Styles to their work, then simply Saving the file and
| relying on that Style coding to accompany the file wherever it goes. Not so
| here. Once edits are made to the Link Bar, actually very little of the 'new'
| data accompanies the saved page when FTP'd up to the host.
|
| My (extremely tedious) workaround was to - one at a time - go through each
| and every button on the Bar and delete every GIF associated with it, then
| reload the Bar in FP, then Save, then upload the Page, then upload the
| missing GIFs. Whew!
|
| Thanks,
|
| Greg
|
|