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FrontPage Server Extensions for Unix?
beetle496 asks: "Okay, so I didn't research my choice of ISP adequately. Despite running Apache 2.0 on Red Hat, the only option for dynamic content they support is FrontPage Server Extensions. I am quite comfortable with X/HTML and CSS, and am okay with JavaScript. I am annoyed enough that I would buy FrontPage, were it available for my preferred platform. I've performed the customary MSDN and Google searches. The best I came up with was a page on FrontPage UNIX Server Extensions, which sounds exactly on target, but didn't help me. Can anyone point me toward a resource on writing HTML code to make use of FPSE (aka, webbot) -- without using FrontPage?"
use the power of choice: change ISP's
geocities still has an impressive page builder. It might be worth looking into.
...that PHP (albeit an older version) is installed. Create a file called phpinfo.php in your web root, and put in the following:
<?php phpinfo(); ?>
Then, visit the page in your browser. If you see the code, or it wants you to download the file, you're SOL. Otherwise, rock on!
You want to use the frontpage extensions, OUTSIDE OF FRONTPAGE? Tell you what, go get a .22, and shoot yourself in the foot. It'll be more productive.
I have the unfortunate "pleasure" of supporting the Frontpage extensions on about 40 production web hosting servers. They are *horrible*. I mean *HORRIBLE*. When they work, they work fine, but then they quit working, it sometimes takes wiping out a clients site, reinstalling the extensions, and then having them re-publish from *scratch*. Oh yeah, great stuff there.
Do yourself a favor and use a few PHP or Perl scripts do do what you need to do. There's nothing in Frontpage that can't be done in PHP or Perl. Its NOT that great. Heck I've done prettier, more functional sites using shtml and php.
Just reading this post makes me feel like I'm watching a bad horror movie and the main character is about to enter the room where the axe murderer is waiting, and everybody in the audience KNOWS there's an axe murderer. "DONT GO IN THERE!" somebody shouts.
Remember, Friends don't let friends use Frontpage.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
This seems pretty straight forward to me.
Perhaps you should find a new ISP since your current one is using obsolete software.
As other people have mentioned, FPSE is obsolete. Today, you are supposed to use client-side dynamic (webbot, DTC, add-in) or more modern server-side dynamic (ASP) techniques. A lot of things including navigation can be handled design-time, reply or email if you're interested in that topic. I do everything design-time; it's my preferred method, and FP2003 is my preferred tool.
However you can still use a webbot for server-side dynamic behavior. Visit MSDN and download the Frontpage 2002 SDK. Don't worry, it's not outdated. The extensibility models haven't changed between versions.
With a perl script, it's the same as a standard CGI script as described on MSDN. Look for the example \FPSDK\Files\WebBot\wbtest4 in the SDK. If you prefer to use a DLL or shared library, use the BeginWebBotExpand macro which lets you access the bot attributes. In either case, you're going to build a BTL file and call the webbot from HTML like:
The SDK describes the four ways a webbot can activate. Try to test things client-side first, it's a lot easier. If your webbot fails it will just insert a generic [FrontPage Component name] on the page. Doublecheck the logs in _vti_pvt for the logs, to get hint why things are failing.
It's oldschool, it works, and it's a simple variant on CGI scripting. Again, for simple things like navigation bars it's a heck of a lot easier to use a design-time dynamic control (client-side webbot, DTC, or add-in). I strongly recommend you consider those instead.