I find FrontPage to be very user friendly and easy to navigate. In the past, there have been instances of browser incompatibility in my designs that I have been able to rectify through the use of what little I knew of html coding; which is why this class has been so great. Overall, however, I find the application effective. The flaw is that there are still many servers that do not automatically offer FrontPage server extensions (for which you must request that they be activated) and some sites that do not offer them at all (mostly used by certain types of businesses). This can affect some DHTML and form features that use webbots. In order to circumvent this, it has been necessary to find java scripts and/or cgi scripts elsewhere that I could incorporate into my sites, or forego these features for sites that do not offer FP server extensions.

Having recently upgraded from FP2000 to FP2003, I would like to point out some of what I consider to be major improvements in the product.

• There is now a replace feature built into FP2003 which allows you to replace text on individual pages or throughout your entire site. This feature came in handy for use on my big project when I needed to change a link that is shown on all of my pages, but is not tied to a shared border. Using the old method, I would have had to change each individual page. Instead, I simply typed in the text I wanted changed and FP2003 made the changes for me!
• When I make changes to sites, I generally leave files and images on the server that I might need to refer to in future. When I publish updated pages, there is a pop-up box that comes up asking if I want to delete items that are on the server but not in my computer files. While this box previously included a 'Yes to All' button, there was not a corresponding 'No to All' button and, therefore, you had to answer no for each file you did not want to delete...one at a time. Microsoft has finally added a button that says 'No to All'. (By the way, for those of you still using previous versions, I recently found out that if you hold down the control key while pressing the letter 'n', you don't have to work your way through each individual file.)
• FP2003 now offers the ability to create layers. I haven't used this feature but, after seeing the great results that Amy had using them on her site, I intend to try it on my next web site!
• When publishing, FP2003 now gives you a split view of the computer site and the server site live(as in ftp mode), noting the pages that have changed on your computer.
• FP2003 shows html tags, as in Netscape Composer, and lets you read them without having to go into your code section.
• FP2003 now offers a split feature so that you can view your code page AND your design page at the same time to see if what you write in code translates to what you were trying to achieve in design without having to constantly switch back and forth between windows.
• There is a new feature that allows you to insert a variety of interactive navigation buttons.
• There is a new feature which allows you to verify browser compatibility.

The only thing that I have found about FP2003 that I don't like (and it's probably some error that I've made in setting up that I just haven't yet figured out) is that when I try to do live updates, I loose my shared borders. This has happened several times to one of the sites that I maintain, so I simply don't use that feature right now. I'm sure that if I check online there is a way to correct this problem.