Platinum Edition Using HTML 4, XML, and Java 1.2
(Publisher: Macmillan Computer Publishing)
Author(s): Eric Ladd
ISBN: 078971759x
Publication Date: 11/01/98

After you complete the definition of your hot regions, you should most likely switch to the HTML tab to examine the code FrontPage placed there to represent your imagemap. You probably expect to see the <MAP> tag and some <AREA> tags forming the imagemap code, but what you see instead is something like the following:

<!--webbot bot=“ImageMap”
polygon=“ (201,163) (237,139) (303,148) (329,180) (310,208) (259,204)
(213,202) (202,169) feedback.htm” rectangle=“ (228,309) (278, 397)
services.htm” circle=“ (281,83) 60  techsupport.htm” src=“main.gif”
alt=“main.gif (9219 bytes)” align=“right” width=“532” height=“400” -->

As this code shows, FrontPage’s default approach to processing imagemaps is to use a bot on the server, not to embed a client-side imagemap code into the HTML file.

Although the Imagemap bot works fine, you may prefer to have FrontPage write out <MAP> and <AREA> tags so that you can have a truly client-side imagemap (using a bot means that the server is still involved). To set up FrontPage to use client-side imagemaps, go to the FrontPage Explorer, choose Tools, Web Settings, and then click the Advanced tab. This opens the dialog FrontPage Web Settings box you see in Figure 10.20. Near the top of the dialog box, you will see options for creating imagemaps. Make sure the Generate Client-Side Imagemaps box is checked, select the Netscape option from the Style drop-down list, and then click OK. You should then find that additional imagemaps you create don’t make use of the Imagemap bot.

FIGURE 10.20  You can alter FrontPage’s approach to imagemap processing from the Advanced Web Settings dialog box.

Other Automated FrontPage Features

FrontPage comes with a number of other automated features and functions beyond the FrontPage Components. To close the chapter, this last section takes you on a brief tour of some of FrontPage’s other high-end features. In each case, FrontPage is taking a task that was previously labor intensive and reducing its setup to a few simple actions.

•  Search, Discussion, Save Results, and Registration Bots—If you’ve used previous versions of FrontPage, you might be wondering where some of the old FrontPage bots are among the FrontPage Components. Among the more popular of these are the Search, Discussion, Save Results, and Registration bots.
The answer is that they are available in the current release of FrontPage, but they are not listed with the FrontPage Components. Rather, you have to look elsewhere to create instructions that use these bots. To use the Search bot, which sets up a mini search engine in your FrontPage Web, choose Insert, Active Elements, Search Form to launch the dialog box that will enable you to configure your search.
You can use the Discussion bot to create a fully searchable threaded discussion group by choosing File, New FrontPage Web in the FrontPage Explorer. When you see the list of possible Webs, choose the Discussion Web Wizard to walk through the steps of creating the threaded discussion.
The Save Results bot is called the Save Results form handler in current release of FrontPage. To use the form handler, right-click your form and select Form Properties from the pop-up menu you see. Then click the Options button to configure the saving location and format.
Finally, the Registration bot is now tucked away in a User Registration page template in the FrontPage Editor. To load the template, in the Editor choose File, New and choose the User Registration document from the list you see. A registration page enables Web users to self-register, rather than burdening you with all the data entry.

•  Hover Buttons—Buttons that change their properties when a user’s mouse pointer is over the button or when the user clicks the button. You can set up the button to be text- or image-based, and FrontPage can even bevel the image for you so that it looks more like a button.
To create a hover button, choose Insert, Active Elements, Hover Button to reveal the Hover Button dialog box. If you want a text-based button, you can set it up here, including how the button should be colored and what onscreen effect it should possess (glow, beveling, and so on). If you want to use an image, click the Custom button to open the Custom dialog box. In the lower half of the dialog box, you’ll find fields for specifying the default button image and the image to display when a user’s mouse is hovering over the image.
After your button is configured, click OK to place it on your page. If you peek at the HTML tag, you’ll see that FrontPage renders the button by using a Java applet.

•  Page Transitions—One of the neat features found in Microsoft’s PowerPoint presentation creation software is a set of transitions you can use between slides in the presentation. Now Microsoft brings those transitions to the Web through the FrontPage Editor. To add a transition to a page, choose Format, Page Transition to open the Page Transitions dialog box. Here you can choose from more than twenty transition effects. You can also set the duration of the transition and specify the event that triggers the transition (entering the page, leaving the site, and so on).
After the transition is in place, you can look at the HTML code to see that FrontPage accomplished the transition by using a <META> tag in the document head. The tag contains an HTTP-EQUIV value that corresponds to the triggering event that you selected. When the server detects the event, it uses Dynamic HTML to produce the transition effect.

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NOTE:  Because they use Microsoft’s notion of Dynamic HTML, FrontPage page transitions are best viewed with Internet Explorer 4.0.

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•  Text Animations—Text doesn’t have to sit still with FrontPage. It can come flying onto the page from anywhere off the screen, or it can spiral into place gracefully. To animate text, highlight it with your mouse, choose Format, Animation, and then select one of the 14 animations available. When you preview the page in a Microsoft Dynamic HTML-capable browser, you’ll see the text move onto the screen according to the animation technique you chose.

•  Banner Ad Manager—Sites that sell advertising can make use of the FrontPage Banner Ad Manager, which takes a list of ad graphics files and displays them in sequence. You can control how long each graphic appears, what the graphics link to, and the transition effect between graphics. To activate the Banner Ad Manager, choose Insert, Active Elements, Banner Ad Manager. The Banner Ad Manager enables you to specify the size of the banner, which images to display in the banner space, how banner transitions should occur, and how long each image should appear.