Up and Running with Frontier Web Site Management
by Matt Neuburg
Author of the book Frontier: The Definitive Guide
The purpose of this tutorial is to get you managing your Web site with Frontier quickly and painlessly.We're only going to scratch the surface of Frontier's powers for writing programs, storing data, driving other applications, customizing its own behavior, and even managing Web sites. And that's as it should be; the bulk of such matters belongs in a general Frontier reference, or a tutorial on Frontier as a whole.
When you've completed this tutorial, though, you'll be a solid beginning user of Frontier, ready to expand your abilities and knowledge whenever you want, yet perfectly able to run a Web site with Frontier effectively and confidently based on what you already know.
Welcome!
- About This Tutorial
The idea is to get you up and running with Frontier fast.- About Web Site Management
What a Site Management tool can do for you.- Why Frontier?
It has programmable power, so it can do stuff other site management tools can't -- like put you in the driver's seat.- Starting Up
Learning what Frontier feels like.- Getting Comfortable With Outlines
And you thought you'd left them behind when you graduated from sixth grade.- Getting Comfortable With Tables
How to find your way around the database.- Exploring the Examples
Frontier comes ready to demonstrate its power: you barely have to lift a finger.- Your First Web Site
Enough with the introduction, let's build a Web site yet already!- Frontier HTML Basics, and the Directive Hierarchy
Some rudimentary HTML that Frontier does for you, and how directives apply to individual pages or groups of pages.- Other Automatic HTML
Some cute little HTML tricks Frontier does with email addresses and URLs, and how to turn them on and off.- Templates
It's easy to tie your pages together with common header and footer material.- Outline Formatting
In which outlines magically become bulleted lists, tables, and (best of all) nothing.- Includes and Macros
Who needs server-side includes, when Frontier can include any Web page in any other? It's done with a macro, so we learn about macros too.- Handling Images
How to store pictures in Frontier's database, and generate references to them automatically.- Glossaries
Let Frontier save your typing fingers -- and make it easy to change stock phrases everywhere they occur.- Filters
Your chance to add that personal touch to the rendering process.- Defines and Custom Directives
A further glossary-like mechanism that lets you do some interesting tricks.- Publishing
How to render your whole site in one fell swoop.- Site Outline and NextPrev
Tables of contents, and links that lead to the next or previous page -- all done automatically.- Relative References
The glossPatch mechanism means your relative references won't break if you rearrange your site.- Leveraging Your Work
Frontier makes it easy to convert your already existing Web pages.- Narrative of a Rendering
From Frontier to browser, step by step.
All text is by Matt Neuburg, phd, matt@tidbits.com.
For information about the book Frontier: The Definitive Guide, see my home page:
http://www.tidbits.com/matt
All text copyright Matt Neuburg, 1997 and 1998. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
No one else has any right to copy or reproduce in
any form, including electronic. You may download this material but you may not post it for others to
see or distribute it to others without explicit permission from the author.
Downloadable versions at http://www.ojai.net/matt/downloads/webTutorial.hqx and http://www.ojai.net/matt/downloads/webTutorial.zip.
Please do not confuse this tutorial with a certain other Frontier 5 tutorial based upon my earlier work.
This page created with
Frontier, 2/11/2000; 6:59:59 PM.