Why did Microsoft abandon Frontpage users?

[justinemt990662]

Here's the problems I am having, which quite simply, disallows me from
using SPD, EW, or FP ...

Windows Vista Business
Frontpage 2003 - Crashes when you try to insert pictures/hyperlinks
using the icon/right click method, which I rely on.
Expression Web/Sharepoint Designer - Both of these insert BOM code
into your pages, and there is no way to turn it off. You can add the
meta tag to change your default language which negates this, but the
problem is I do alot of PHP based stuff, and on some of the included
content, the first line of that page has to be <?PHP ... if it's not
it doesn't include correctly. This beging the case, I can't use EW/
SPD ... anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

Look into using ASP style tags for PHP.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage

http://www.Ecom-Data.com
==============================================

 

[justinemt990662]

Its a pre-fabricated PHP template system for ecommerce, that wouldn't
work. Especiallty since the server used for the site is Linux based
and has VERY low support for ASP pages and coding.

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

The PHP configuration file can be setup on the Unix/Linux server to use ASP style tag, this doesn't
require the server to support ASP. The setting just tell the PHP engine how to read the tags.

See:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.asp-tags
--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage

http://www.Ecom-Data.com
==============================================

 

[JFD]

Wow what a great topic!
Microsoft, after releasing almost nothing major in 4 years, has released
such a whirlwind of new products that many are unhappy. Strangely, FrontPage
is an interesting barometer of all these changes. FrontPage has been
replaced by 2 virtually identical products, sold by 2 different divisions,
under 2 different names: Expression Web and SharePoint Designer. It's
unfortunate that they abandoned FP instead of just updating it because EW is
a completely different environment. EW is part of the Visual Studio family.
Think of it as VS Extra Lite with CSS. EW is a programmer’s tool. If you
don't think so just try to create a simple "contact Us" form and sent the
submitted results via email without using FPSE. Suddenly you're playing with
scripts.

As to running your old copies of FP. Many hosting companies are planning on
supporting FPSE under Windows Server 2003 for a long time to come. (Look at
how many companies still offer Windows Server 2000 hosting!) These companies
know that there are hundreds of thousands of websites that depend on FPSE.
A while back the Office Group got responsibility for the FPSE and it was the
Office group that wanted to drop them.

Surprise, recently some of the Windows Server group (specifically the IIS 7
people) became concerned that people would be slow to move to Longhorn
(Windows Server 2007) because it didn't support FPSE so they TOOK
RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEM. Longhorn will soon support a NEW REWRITE OF FPSE
under IIS 7.

As to running your old copies of FP: Rule of thumb is to NEVER implement a
new OS on your production system until the first service pack ships. We were
told that the beta of Vista had over 1,000 KNOWN bugs. Think they got all of
those fixed before launch?

For those of you forced to upgrade, you can get a copy of Microsoft VPC and
run an older (compliant) OS in a Virtual Machine and load your old
applications into it.

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

Expression Web is marketed to complete with Dreamweaver.

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage

http://www.Ecom-Data.com
==============================================

 

[Kevin Spencer]

Expression Web and SharePoint may look like identical products, but there
are very specific and important reasons why they have replaced FrontPage. In
fact, Expression Studio is a whole suite of products, each designed for a
specific specialization, all having to do with user interface design in
different areas. In other words, FrontPage was a product that began its
evolution at a very different time, and for a completely different
technology set. It was originally for HTML development alone. As technology
evolved, FrontPage grew and expanded, incorporating more and more
technologies into a monolithic product which was becoming unwieldy.

In the meantime, each of these technologies, such as ASP, ASP.Net, and
SharePoint, was evolving separately. When Microsoft made the decision after
15 years to abandon the NT platform and start from scratch with Vista, due
to similar evolutionary changes in technology, a number of new technologies
sprang out of the mix, such as Windows Presentation Foundation, XAML
(Extensible Application Markup Language), and Windows Communications
Foundation. These technologies leverage the latest most extensible and
non-proprietary technologies, such as XML, improved graphics cards, and
distributed networking, to produce platforms that have great potential in
and of themselves.

At some point, it would be reasonable to split this monolithic "Swiss Army
Knife" which is FrontPage into smaller, more specialized units, each of
which can evolve according to the evolution of the underlying technology. In
fact, much of the Microsoft family of products underwent similar changes,
such as Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Visual Studio.

Yes, these changes make us uncomfortable. Change has a way of doing that.
But it is necessary from time to time in the evolution of any technology for
this sort of thing to happen, and computing technology is evolving at a
dizzying rate. You have to see the big picture to understand what might seem
arbitrary at first glance.

--
HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP

Help test our new betas,
DSI PrintManager, Miradyne Component Libraries:
http://www.miradyne.net

 

[Nethitters]

Seriously, just return the whole lot.
If you can't get a html file created in FP98 to open in FP2003 you probably
should just buy a type-writer.

 

[Tina Clarke]

I don't believe FP98 is supported on Vista.
It's a very old program.

Tom I have it installed on Vista home edition ( I will upgrade to ulimate
soon though)

I installed it to answer questions I use EW or FP 03 when I need to use a
particular addon.

I have 02 installed .. some how .. though I installed one right after the
other from fp98 up .. the fp2000 version I can't find on the hd ... 02 is
near enough to answer questions i guess.

But fp98 appears to work ok on vista.

Curt

As regards printers I just got rid of four to the bin men there is a guy
there that recycles them.. I tried the charity shops I tried friends who
don't have printers no one was interested even though they were free..
because the ink cost about half of a modern printer. ... The ink for my six
month old printer (if that) costs £5 or £6 per ink less if I buy four at
once it's a printer scanner and has something i can put my camera chip in
(not used that yet).

.... there is no logic in moving to higher learning curve editor that cost
far more than EW.
EW is just like fp03 ... (if you forget the bots) .... a few things are in
different places ... I tried using ew just like fp03 and it was a snap ...
however ew lets me learn more html and css and a faster pace just like fp03
did over fp02 and it took me far longer to get to grips with fp03 after fp02
... even moving to fp2k after fp98 was not as hard .. though you would think
it would be... fp2k felt.. finally things were where they should be .. if
you used topstyle lite with fp03 or earlier versions ... you would get the
css of ew right away... to me the main feature of ew is the fact that it
tells you when your html is incorrect.... when i go back to fp03 for
something I'm thinking why didn't it spot that error .. (I see errors a lot
faster now) ...

Give it another go .. ask questions ..
this might help
Setting up Expression Web Ebook ( f ree)
http://frontpage-ebooks.com/expression-web-ebooks.htm

hth Tina
NEW Expression Web DWT fr*ee Ebook
http://frontpage-ebooks.com/dwt-ebook.htm

 

[Tom Willett]

Excellent. However, I assume you did a custom install of FP 98 so non of
the PWSs installed, correct?

--
===
Tom Willett
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
---
FrontPage Support:
http://www.frontpagemvps.com/
===
|
| | >I don't believe FP98 is supported on Vista.
| > It's a very old program.
| > --
| > ===
| > Tom Willett
| > Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
|
| Tom I have it installed on Vista home edition ( I will upgrade to ulimate
| soon though)
|
|

 

[Tina Clarke]

Excellent. However, I assume you did a custom install of FP 98 so non of
the PWSs installed, correct?

no pws installed .. I dropped all that soon after I started using fp2000 ..
I only use disk based webs... I always custom install everything.. disk
based webs when using all the fp versions (for answering purposes) makes for
a problem free enviroment.. at least for me.

hth Tina