At 05:16 PM 2/27/98 -0500, Al Gilman wrote:
Someone said of the latest FrontPage that it "does its own
publishing."
Yes. Front Page consists of a wysiwyg html editor, an "Explorer" for
managing a related group of files on a remote or local WWW server, and some
auxiliary tools. I've used FrontPae 97 briefly and retired it because of
configuration problems.
What I assumed when I heard that was that Microsoft was
developing a pattern of service where a server would accept
uploads by some means (possibly a form submission with INPUT
type=file) and the author tools would know the ropes. The people
pusing NT as the server option clearly are not ignorant that
there is a market for controlled update of small-customer
websites hosted on the server. I don't know what they are
thinking, butI would be curious to know.
That's a reasonable description. The NT server is their preferred
configuration but they support other servers too.
They'd like FrontPage package users to arrange for MS's freebie "Front Page
Server Extensions" to be installed at the WWW servers, NT or Unix-like.
Those extensions include an upload capability. My ISP (running Suns) is
wary of them because of potential security risks.
Front Page supports FTP to manage files on servers where their FP
extensions can't be installed.
Both FP server and FTP approaches are embedded in Microsoft's Win32 Web
Publishing Wizard. That doesn't need the FrontPage client package to be
useful.
---
They're already on to their next generation. The FTP universe is just
another part of the file system from the perspective of the MS Office 97 apps.
-- SP
