Bye-bye, FrontPage in New Office, Says Microsoft

Good thing - FrontPage is awful.

Well, I guess it's good they're making something new. But i'll stick with Open Office. You can't beat the price of "free", especially when even just Word....a WORD PROCESSOR costs what, $70?!

I'm actually a bit more interested to see an updated Open Office to replace the new office apps introduced in Office 2007.

I much prefer Dreamweaver to FontPage.

Yes very true where Dreamweaver outplays and outperforms in terms of flexibility, customizations and performance ot FrontPage. My total web development tool for years 2 come and looks better in the new version.

Front Page gone! :(
Good Bye and Good Ridden. No love lose here.

Ding Dong the Frontpage is dead!!! Everyone REJOICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Removing FrontPage is not a problem.

I use Visual Web Developer Express 2005.

I'm saving up my money for Office 2k7 Professional.

Farewell Microsoft Frontpage.
Welcome Apple iWeb.

The one thing that I liked about frontpage over dreamweaver is that frontpage uses so few system resources compared to dreamweaver. Besides that, i am all for dreamweaver.

"Removing FrontPage is not a problem.

I use Visual Web Developer Express 2005.

I'm saving up my money for Office 2k7 Professional."

riiiight @_@

Thank Zod.

Anonymouse:

Frontpage doesn't use much in the way of resources because it doesn't bother with troublesome little things like generating valid / syntactically correct code that is cross-browser friendly. Go figure.

Personally, I perfer Notepad to code my websites.

Well you're pretty dumb then.

Frontpage isn't all bad. I use FP2003 in my professional development. However, admittedly, I wouldn't think of using it to create the html from the wysiwyg interface. Instead I hand code and use the really handy code snippets feature. That feature alone is why I still use it over dreamweaver. Yes, dreamweaver has snippets, but you have to use the mouse or assign a keyboard shortcut to each snippet, with FP2003, I hit Ctrl+Enter and type the name of the snippet I want. -- So far, I haven't found this feature in any other web development program. If dreamweaver had, I would probably switch in a heartbeat.

Arrr, me pirates have squandered me booty!

Notepad all the way, baby... Yeah!!!

I think it might have something to do with the new software MS is coming out with - Microsoft Expressions - they have a Graphic Designer, Interactive Designer and Web Designer.

Real programmers use copy con :)

Yeah, we all know that frontpage is EVERYBODY'S favorite...

whoever say he/she going to stick with OpenOffice... LOL

seriously, LOL at you

Meh, vi works quite nicely, though i'll miss the convenience of FrontPage...

I like FP2003...other than the meta garbage it inserts at the beginning of every HTML document it touches, it's a good app. I don't care for Dreamweaver, even though I know it is better...too cluttered.

I'm really surprised that the article doesn't mention WHY they're doing this. Nor did any of the previous posters.

Hip, Hip Hooray the Witch is DEAD. Should have happened years ago. Too much repetitive code. Tags inserted when you didn't want them.

According to Paul Thurrott's page:
" Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
New to Office 2007, this application replaces Microsoft FrontPage but is virtually identical. "

So, maybe it's just a name change.

Why complain?

FrontPage separates the Wheat from the Chaff, in my opinion.

Anyone who uses it and attempts to call themselves professional... well, let them use it. Makes it a lot easier to identify talent / skill level in a cursory view of skills, as well.

Comments reminiscent of H.S. graffiti.
Insightful mental dialog hopefully not representative of Dreampuke users.

Anyone who defines talent by the tool someone uses demonstrates their lack of intelligence.

Can't miss what you don't use.

Russ' IQ said "Anyone who defines talent by the tool someone uses demonstrates their lack of intelligence."

Since forever, a craftsman has been known by his tools. If you use crappy tools, FP eg., you'll turn out crappy code.

The use of Frontpage and, to a lesser extent, Dreamweaver are the direct cause of much of the lousy new documents being published by lousy soi-disant web developers.

Why the hell do people need Frontpage or Dreamweaver?
A third-grader can learn HTML. Really. It's painfully easy.

"painfully easy"? Is that an oxymoron?

Soi-disant?

Ooh...you spoke French!

dreamweaver's 100% cpu usage when ftping iriks me

Mmmmmmm... 64 slices of who f_cking cares.

Excellent. The frontpage server extensions are a total pile of unreliable crap and we will be glad to get rid of them on all our servers. We're not putting any sharepoint mess on either. All Apache+PHP from now on.

Microsoft sucks!!! Open Office rules

i liked front page 2003, used to generate a quick template/basic layout and then notepad++ for the fine tuning.

also saved me a ton of time having to keep my school's website updated.

open office's html sucked. it cleans up word generated code just fine but it screws up php code.

dreamweaver is klunky to use. nah frontpage strikes a good balance between ease of use and power.

Sharepoint was already found in 2001, but it was only for servers. Sharepoint now has a lot of features which is not found in FrontPage. Sharepoint is more of a Content Management system, and has features like dragging objects.

Front page is like a eddie bauer notepad.

okay, all I have to say is that I'm learning web design on frontpage and dreamweaver and you people are way too judgemental of program users, from what I understand about frontpage, you can edit the code that frontpage creates, man this makes me want to drop this class.

They are giving it a new name - something like 'Sharepoint Editor' - it's the same thing.

Dont let em fool you

Future Designer - there are alot of wanne be's out there, and their current form of attack is to act like an elist snob.

So, continue your learning, don't let these guys distract you with their great intellect...

l0l, lets settle this, THEY ALL SUCK, and deep down you know it, your just ashamed to admit it... all you need is a good opensource piece of software...

Death to all WYSIWYG... Most of them (iWeb appart, from what I've seen) create code as far from web standard as you possibility can. Think of GoLive and it's proprietary tags. These code being msie oriented most of the time, it's easy to consider WYSIWYG editor the antigonist of web standards. Real coders use NotePad (or BBedit ;o)

Argument over the merits of one piece of software over another never ends...ever. What matters is that you use something that suits you and the way you work. I, for one, love Dreamweaver. I can code to tomorrow and back in notepad or VIM, but I'd rather not. I also choose not to churn my own butter or make my own paper. :)

I don't use the WYSIWYG functionality of DW, but that doesn't make it bad. In fact, it turns out more valid code than much of the hard coded work I run into. It all comes down to the fact that a good tool will make you more productive by saving you time and streamlining how you work. If that's a command line for you, great. It's just not practical for many people.

Oh yeah...the reason I'm here. I'm happy to hear that MS is putting Frontpage out of its misery. Not once have I looked at its output and said, "nice." It should have happened long ago.

Choice is choice. We understand that we have to code standards but most of the browsers may not be up to standards but (not trying to go off-topic) Internet Explorer 7 is improving. As with browsers, you use what's easier for you. You can use Visual Studio, DreamWeaver, FontPage, etc. or any other webdev programs you want to use. I, for me, use Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition with ASP.net 2.0 and it is great; plus, it has support for WSDL web services. Because I love Microsoft so much, I've used the tools.

You don't have to like Microsoft if you don't like the company. You don't have to use PHP/Apache if you don't like it and if you feel like you are using Linux even though you are using Windows and you don't like Linux.

And I will say it again:

Choice is Choice!
You Get What You Pay For!

End of story.

I prefer a big plate of hot pancakes....mmmm pancakes "drool"

Oh yes! Yes yes yes yes! Finally! No more frontpage! No more !! Oh yes yes yes!

ya me too .. 100% cpu usage when ftping.. any other items you have running will slow down to a crawl .. it has been there since generation 3 (i dunno about earlier ones)

I have been using Bluefish for a long time and like it very much.
And yes, I have looked at the FP code and thought "yikes".
I played a bit with NVU, too - it is nice for the basics. When I am on a Windows box, I use Notepad2 from TheOpenCD - syntax highlighting is the prime need.

what is frontpage?

A lot of harsh judgement out there. A product is what it is... if you think it sux then don't use it and move on.

Hey all you code-weanies out there: There is, alas, a portion of the population who does not have the gift of being able to visualize a coded page in its "What You Get" format. Wysiwyg is vital for people like that - I am one of them.

What matters most is visitor-friendliness and navigability - something a lot of code-weanies lose sight of.

What is the extreme form of code-weanie?

Answer: A Flash-weanie.

How many of us have fled from a site rather than put up with an unwanted Flash intro?

Luddites forever!

There is always WidgetWeb, which is the easiest tool I have ever used!

front page isn't all that bad. you use it to edit existing pages and touch up, or start the ball rolling.

what you forget is that poeple use more than one tool in conjunction.

I don't really understand why folks are happy that FP has been discontinued. Were these people forced to use it against their will? If I don't like a product or find better functionality in a different one, I'd choose to use the the better one. I wouldn't even notice that the others were discontinued, nor would I care. Very odd!

I never imagined that a serious argument would EVER come about upon the news of the demise of FrontPage. To think that anyone really took that app seriously around here is thoroughly depressing. I agree with the poster who said that html is painfully easy to learn - any text editor will do, really. I taught myself first using Notepad - then, when I switched to a *nix OS distro, I learned to harness emacs (way powerful editor, btw). But whatever.

Well, it's not a bad thing that frontpage is now dropped by microsoft. But how about opening the source of frontpage? This will be the occasion of a good laugh and also of some interesting things I guess.
I started with frontpage few years ago, but now I'm through with webdesign, I'm in the webdevelopment with PHP designer. Not bad at all.

HTML-Kit is a free markup program, with lots of great add-ins. Takes some getting used to, especially when one is weaning oneself of Front Page, but what a slick program. I love it now!!!

Carl wrote: I don't really understand why folks are happy that FP has been discontinued. Were these people forced to use it against their will? If I don't like a product or find better functionality in a different one, I'd choose to use the the better one. I wouldn't even notice that the others were discontinued, nor would I care. Very odd!

However we have all been subjected to the abominations that have been created using this application.

I don't think FrontPage was ever meant to be used as a pro-level program. For beginner users, I think it's a great step up. True, much of any WYSIWYG's coding is superfluous, but they also can help to spark ideas that may not have readily occurred to someone using a text editor. I agree with some of you, though-- use a tool for what it's worth and move on. While I definitely won't mourn the passing of FP, I don't think it's really gone... just renamed. Either way, I disagree that an artist's prowess can be judged by their tools. I think Monet could have taken a child's watercolor set and created something amazing. As I like to say, no matter what the instrument, the tone comes from the fingers.

I know I'll get slaughtered for this, but...I'm sorry to see FP go. It's ability to interface with my companies' pro-written, non-FP website has saved us tens of thousands of dollars in update costs annually, and our turn around time for changes to the site is now minutes instead of days because I can do it myself with FP. As far as sharepoint goes, I used it to have the company owners successfully collaborate on documents from all across the country. These guys can barely turn on a computer, but they could click a link, login and use the Sharepoint site easily. It was great. No, I don't work for MS, but I do appreciate a good product and for Me and my company, Frontpage and Sharepoint are just that.

For what it was FP was a great tool. It allowed people like me the chance get into web development with it's un-cluttered interface. Sure it has it's faults, but the programmer types are probally more sore that this tool almost single-handly de-mistified what they did and shifted the emphisis away from html code to useability and design.

Oops I do not regret about this case. There is NVU Hooray

Alex

Frontpage was never intended for high end professional web designers. It ws meant for the "middle 80%" making intranets and people that just needed to post stuff on the web. That is why FrontPage was such a tremendously successful product even though the web designers constantly panned it. Microsoft paid Vermeer $130M for the product and recouped that money in under two years! Everyone needs to post something on the web at some stage and frontpage made it so you don't need a $50/hr web designer to do it. Dreamweaver is still too expensive and complicated for many middle-of-the-road users. All of you crazy snotty web designers, get a life, there is a difference between mass market hondas and ferraris. You don't race your honda at the Indy 500 and soccer moms (usually) don't drive ferraris. They are built for different reasons! There's a lot more money to be made by designing software for the "middle 80%" market.

Many people are too intimidated to start out by hand-coding pages, so FP and its ilk gives some of us an option to that. I imagine that like myself, most who stay with webdesign move on to a purer form of coding. NotePad++ for me.

Well I am sad that FP is dead, there is no other program cheap enough for all the normal people to use as a web editor for their personal sites. Since i work at a university FP worked VERY VERY well for all the faculty members to maintain personal site, with forms, surveys, DBs etc. Now my only solutions are CMS (lock-in) or Dreamweaver ($$$)?.

Who needs WYSIWYG editors??? Notepad... thats all it takes to make web pages... simple as pie...

so its all you mob making shite un-cross browser un-cross platform compatible websites that should have their source code burned just for the sake of it, wysiwyg lmao, notepad, bbedit, hell nano and pico do a better job

I use Notepad ++ to code everything from scratch :D.

After all I only need syntax highlighting - everything else can burn in hell.

>:D

I am curious what you guys/gals think about the addition of the Groove collaboration software. Have any of you used it? I have to decide whther to buy an on-line solution or wait for Groove (or get Groove now if I have to). Any thoughts?

I was just about to go buy FrontPage 2003, because I know Dreamweaver would be way too difficult for me.

Would some of you please have a look at this http://nvu.com and tell me what you think, please.

I am using windows xp pro. What about FTP? Can you tell I am very new?

Thanks for any help!

If your using FrontPage 2003 you won't have much trouble moving to Expression Web Designer, if you use sharepoint stick with Sharepoint Designer 2007. E-WD and it's companions in the suite interactive and graphic won't be bundled with Office. A CTP of E-WD will be available to the public on March 20th u can get E-GD and E-ID now for free for a year. E-GD reminds me of IC and is easy to learn. If you have used FP03 you really will like E-WD, you need xp however. Very funny lulu btw, slick spam.(or neat advertising) I've directed more of it (spam) to my never used addy - nice to have them visible for the bots btw mr webmaster. - http://willmaster.com/possibilities/demo/RetrieveEmails.cgi

I have always been using Dreamweaver, and (contrary to popular belief) it really isn't that complicated.

You mean FrontPage was still around? Once I switched to Dreamweaver and OpenOffice about 5 years back, I just figured everyone had abandoned FrontPage and its "extensions" as just more crap on our servers. Now I'm down to just a Notepad replacement and Firefox. Oh the times, they are a-changin'!

Well,. I get the impression that most of the comments about Frontpage not being a capable professional tool is founded on not beeing able to utilize the tool itself. I've been using Frontpage for several years in my professional work. The thing is that I've saved tons of hours in projects ny working with Fp for my customers. I get professional quality results at a much lower cost. This is a key issue for customers many times.
There is, of course, a lot of quirks in the software but none that affects in a major scale.
Dreamweaver(From Macromedia) is still not efficient enough nor does it support all techs in a satisfying manner to be an able option for professional work. I have worked with Dreamweaver also through these years but it never delivers on time:)
As for techs in general I never liked the sharepoint extensions. They are a non-standard-non-universal way of implementing a companys own techs upon a general-universal audience. It would have been better to support the use of LAMP in various ways in MS-products.
Say a Frontpage with support for Apache-extensions/My-sql connections/PostGresql.. And Support for PHP syntax.
Well,. The good thing about Frontpage is that I could incorporate those extensions myself if I had the time.
Whatever happens, I've been more that satisfied with Frontpage as professional tool so far.

I'll miss it since it was my first...like I still miss WordPerfect (Windows, not DOS 5.1, which I cut my word processing teeth on).

Besides, FP STILL uses MUCH less code than *ack* Word for html.

I think I have read every comment herein. Not one person mentioned where Frontpage is king. I have used frontpage since FP 98. use Dreamweaver and love it. Each has it's advantages and disadvantages. Dreamweaver will "step on" frames index created by Frontpage. Once I learned how to deal with that rudeness, I choose either Dreamweaver or Frontpage respective of task at hand.

I manage a LOT of personal and business web sites. That means lots' of time spent managing changes and updates. That is where Frontpage is king. Publishing! Managing publishing. Is it perfect? No, as I know some small things I would like to see fixed, but it is a LOT better than Dreamweaver at publishing and managing changes.

Dreamweaver is wonderful when dealing with Style Sheets. It is wonderful dealing with tables. Overall, I like building the initial web with Dreamweaver. I love the tools of Dreamweaver for stripping out MS Word html and other related messes.

I gotta have both. Each gets curses from me occasionally. Like any set of tools, they work better if you know when and how to use each one to gain the strengths of all.

Front page is the greatest program written to date. It will be missed greatly by alot of web development professionals, and industry leaders. I guarantee that most of us will quit programming all together because of this decision, and in 10 years you will see the rate of newly developed websites drop 45 to 70%. Good one Microsoft.

I've been using FP since..gosh, can't really remember...95? 97? I create and maintain a good number of websites for myself and friends, but I'm not a tech nor a professional and would never, ever pretend to be. I'm a novice and FP fits me. If FP disappears on me, what program(s) would fill that space for me?

Front Page 98 was the only program that actually worked well. I hated FP 95 and anything after that without the Explorer (FP 2003 for example) was just too cluttered in my opinion. I loved the FP-Explorer working in conjunction with the FP-Editor

And all you web design snobs above me need to realize that we're not all coders like you...some of us have more of a design background and that's where Front Page came in handy.

I'm looking forward to check out this MS-Groove thang

I have learned to use Frontpage 2003 in spite of its limitations with success for my medical business. I do not know HTML and have no desire in learning it - as a MD I do not have the time. Any suggestions what I can use instead. How difficult is Dreamweaver? Do I have to learn HTML? Any other good programs easy to learn out there? please email me!

I spent a long time trying to "perfect" my web design skills by learning HTML and XML syntax, CSS revisions, and using both Frontpage 2003 and Macromedia (various versions). Coding by hand gives a sense of accomplishment, but at what expense? I use earlier editions of Macromedia as I find version 8 is a heavyweight and as someone mentioned, far too cluttered with features most people will never need or use and a darn memory hog. I try to keep in mind the audience and the "20 second attention span (do I stay or not?)" issue....Content...in the form of the written word,neatly presented without the bells and whistles...still reigns as king. Frankly, I'm all for modifiable templates, in any event, there's an awful lot of code thievery going down.

Here's a senario for you. It's 1995, you are responsible for creating a very large municipality's web site. You are in a totally Microsoft environment. You will have over 50 people publishing subwebs to this site. Would you 1) teach them all to code with HTML (keep in mind, some of these folks tasked with the job can't turn a computer on) or 2) find a product with an enviroment they are familiar with? No brainer....FrontPage was a life saver for me!

I used FP since 2000 and liked it because of the speed. I can update a page in 2 to 5 minutes and I'm done. With Dreamweaver that same process could take 25 to 30 minutes. I downloaded Microsoft Web Developer Express 2005 for free off their site. It has all the features of FrontPage except server extensions. You have to ftp. Check it out. It ireminds me of a combination of FrontPage and Dreamweaver.

i have learned to use Frontpage 2003 in spite of its limitations with success for my medical business.

I don,t intend to say that frontpage 2003 was an excellent tool to use. But microsoft has committed the worst mistake in gettting frontpage out of the new office. I believe that when you step ahead of other product in the market is when you really success. Frontpage should got beter instead of being discard front office. Think Virtual that is the clue.

Frontpage is fine. What a bunch of techie swine, "i love notepad" good for you! I have published lots with FP, the pages look good, work in ie and firefox and load fast. What's the problem? Some extra tags that don't belong? We aren't using commodore 64's anymore, a few extra lines of code are freaking meaningless, just like all your bragging about what ubertechs you are. How many of you note padders have girlfriends anyway?

Ahhhh, another packaging and repackaging from compliments of Microsoft. Now that Microsoft is slowly learning the definition of "steal" from the gov't, what better way than now to break their piggy bank and buy others (eg Groove). Ask yourself, why do you purchashing their products and constantly making them rich while you're getting poorer?

I find that totally out of order! I have a website to run, and I've lost Dreamweaver. I just refuse to use anything else, and I am certainly not buying Dreamweaver again. That's just not fair. Other than that, the new Office 2007 seems good.

I have read all posts with great interest. I began with Front Page in 1996 building a large website. I had very little computer experience (not much now) and bought Front Page and a book and taught myself to use FP and actually built a website! I am devastated to lose FP since I am a senior adult and the thought of changing to something else terrifies me. I have downloaded Visual Web Developer Express 2005 and the free eBook. I just read one of the posts that said Share Point Designer was just like Front Page. Is this true? Should I try it? Also, they say FP will continue to be supported for a while. Actually I have used online support very little. Could you continue with FP 2003 indefinitely without support? HELP! I need advice!

well frontpage works great for me, iam using it on ebay to list my products, to you coders that use notepad, i could create a nice listing for ebay way quicker than you so go figure, why sit looking @ stupid code when frontpage will do automatic, not everybody has time to shift thru code if mistakes are made.

Ok I only read half these reviews but I need to put in my two cents: I absolutely HATE FrontPage. I am 16 and I've been designing my own websites (iframes, css, the works) since I was 11. And guess how I do it? From scratch. If an 11 year old can do it, why can't you? Frontpage, and just about every other website builder program, inserts lots of unnecessary kilobyte consuming space. If they're going to have all these fancy functions set to ="0" than why even list them in the friggin code? Good riddance! I can't believe schools are actually teaching with FrontPage! They should be teaching the easy html code that runs everything.... I get confused by buttons I'm never going to use! Goodbye FrontPage!

I started designing websites with FP in 1999. I also am able to code by hand using html in notepad and am always "fine tuning" the code in FP. But I am a graphic artist first, computer nerd second. And because the majority of the sites I build are usually for small business owners and non-profit charities, it has always made perfect sense to use FP as this program was bundled with the MS Office Suite and most of these clients already had the program on their computer. It made turning the maintenance of their websites over to them painless. I am very concerned that these wonderful customers are going to be left hanging in the breeze, because they are certainly not going to be learning html anytime soon. Does anyone know if existing websites built in the old FP will integrate directly into MS Expression?