This page could more appropriately be titled 'What I Didn't Know I Needed
to Know About FrontPage'.
FrontPage is an excellent web design program,
once you learn how to use it. One of the biggest drawbacks of using
FrontPage is that it is designed by Microsoft. This is not a Microsoft
bashing session, but Microsoft must be Microsoft, and like any spoiled child,
must do things their own way.
The most common reason for bypassing the FrontPage Extensions is for
secure server access. FrontPage Extensions will not work on secure servers,
but FrontPage will allow you to easily use any application that will. In the
following example we will assume that you have already created a form which
is used to collect personal information from a visitor to your site. Most of
Microsoft's products that can be used for designing web pages use the
FrontPage Extensions. It is beyond the scope of this tutorial to cover
every product, but relating these instructions to the product you are using
should not be difficult.
For this example we are using Microsoft FrontPage, other products that rely
heavily on the extensions are FrontPage Express and Publisher.
The obvious first step is to load into the editor the page which contains
the form we are using. Once the page is loaded, move the mouse anywhere over
the form and click the right mouse button. In the pop-up window select 'Form
Properties'. The Form Properties window will be displayed as shown below>
Select the 'Send to other' radio button. Press the 'Options' button and the
'Options for Custom Form Handler' window will appear, as below.
Now this is where things get tricky because we can't give exact names here.
The Action field must be set to the script you intend to use. In our example,
we are using the formmail.pl script. The formmail.pl script is a Perl
program that is used to mail the contents of a form to a recipient.
When accessing the secure server you should always use the full URL. In the
example above, note the differences from a normal link.
1. https is used (not http) the 's' denotes the secure server.
2. The full path, including machine name, of the secure server. If you are
unsure about the name of the secure server contact the support department.
3. Your domain name without any extensions (.com, .net, etc.)
Due to lack of space, the above figure shows only /domain-name/form. Our
actual link will be /domain-name/formmail.pl. Depending on the name of your
script, as well as where your script is located, the actual link you use
will be different.
In the Method field select POST if it is not already selected. We are done
filling in these fields so press 'OK'. You are returned to the Form
Properties window.The next step is to pass important variables to the
formmail script. This is accomplished by pressing the 'Advanced' button.
Initially the Advanced Form Properties box will be blank. Press the 'Add"
button. In the Name/Value Pair window two fields must be entered. With the
Formmail script only one variable is required to configure the script. The
required field is the 'recipient' field. In the Name field enter the word
'recipient'. In the value field enter your email address.
Press 'OK' until you are back at your form. Your form is now configured to
bypass the FrontPage extensions. There are many more variables which can be
passed to the formmail.pl script.