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FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

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Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#81

Post by benibela »

Svip wrote: post #25
maaaats wrote: post #7

Born in 91, I was the perfect age to be obsessed with Harry Potter. When I was around ten, an older kid in the neighborhood helped me make a Harry Potter themed website using FrontPage (the Express version I think it was named). Small, random event that end up having a big effect on my life. My hobbies, what&where I chose to study, the friends I got there etc. I can trace back to this.

Oh man, I had a similar experience around 2000. I built a Danish website about Goldeneye 64 in FrontPage. The first website I ever made. It used frames, but I feel it was quite pleasing on the eyes, because I avoided a lot of the 'fancy effects' that was common for the time. I'll admit, being born in 87, most of the site was simply copied from other websites about the game, and translated to Danish. So it was a decen…

Born in 89, I made a webpage for my mother at that time. She still likes it :/

Check the generator tag on the frameset page http://www.roswithavanderzander.de/index_EN.htm

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#82

Post by barrystaes »

enriquto wrote: post #79
pjc50 wrote: post #17

Oh god, the horror. Not just the ugly webpages, those were the ubiquitous style at the time. No, FrontPage pioneered deep ugliness, because like all Microsoft products of the 90s it regarded interoperability as a threat. It produces ugly HTML that works best in IE, and it has an optional upload mechanism that requires IIS on the server side. https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/frontpage/th...

> because like all Microsoft products of the 90s it regarded interoperability as a threat. It produces ugly HTML that works best in IE Just like nowadays with chrome!

Can you give some examples?

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#83

Post by 1Hrse2Shrmp »

orionblastar wrote: post #4

I remember Frontpage 98 along with Outlook 98 they were offered as free upgrades from older versions. I had Frontpage 97 and Outlook 97. For programming, I used Visual Interdev which resembled Microsoft Visual Code more than Frontpage. Visual Interdev was part of the Visual Studio package.

Visual Interdev was also in the Office Suite (97 or 2000). VBScript debugging was revelatory. :)

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#84

Post by mercer »

OskarS wrote: post #36

You know, good design principles weren't invented in 2006. There was plenty of good design in the 90s in other industries (publishing, newspapers, magazines, advertising, academia, ...), but apparently fucking nothing of that filtered down to webdesign. I mean: yes, technology was limited. I get that you couldn't have free range with things like typography and that CSS wasn't a thing yet. But for the love of god: a t…

Consider the horrible MySpace pages, or the equivalent country-specific alternatives.

It's not that web designers were bad back them, it's that a lot of this stuff was not made by designers at all, and apparently lots of people have a really bad sense of design.

I don't mean that in an elitist way. I think it's great that back then my aunt or nephew could set up a website, however horrible the design was. I'm just saying there's a reason why designers get paid to design. It's not an innate ability, and people are much worse at it than those who are into design are inclined to think.

'Decent' design is kind of a default for many other things, mostly because we often defer to 'designers' when it comes to things like furniture, clothing, etc. But make a visit to your local print shop and look at the self-made wedding invites and the like to see how bad things can be. Or consider the many self-made powerpoint presentations! It'll make your eyes burn.

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#85

Post by jamesblonde »

barrystaes wrote: post #82
enriquto wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because like all Microsoft products of the 90s it regarded interoperability as a threat. It produces ugly HTML that works best in IE Just like nowadays with chrome!

Can you give some examples?

Google facets/dive

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#86

Post by enriquto »

barrystaes wrote: post #82
enriquto wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because like all Microsoft products of the 90s it regarded interoperability as a threat. It produces ugly HTML that works best in IE Just like nowadays with chrome!

Can you give some examples?

the whole fucking internet except hn and wikipedia XD

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#87

Post by scarface74 »

pjc50 wrote: post #17

Oh god, the horror. Not just the ugly webpages, those were the ubiquitous style at the time. No, FrontPage pioneered deep ugliness, because like all Microsoft products of the 90s it regarded interoperability as a threat. It produces ugly HTML that works best in IE, and it has an optional upload mechanism that requires IIS on the server side. https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/frontpage/th...

I love how they laid it on the line. “If you want to do web development, you need to actually learn web technology”

Now if someone would tell web developers that if you want to write desktop/mobile apps, you need to learn native frameworks.....

What are newer FrontPage alternatives?

The Internet and the web have changed drastically since the days when FrontPage was a very common website editor. Almost every modern website editor these days will require you to have some basic understanding of the concepts of HTML, and CSS coding, instead of the drag and drop design that FrontPage used.

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#88

Post by egeozcan »

barrystaes wrote: post #82
enriquto wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because like all Microsoft products of the 90s it regarded interoperability as a threat. It produces ugly HTML that works best in IE Just like nowadays with chrome!

Can you give some examples?

Chrome Google-login integration is one.

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#89

Post by mercer »

petercooper wrote: post #49

One related tool that's often forgotten, I find, is Microsoft Publisher . Publisher 97 had an option to build and export an entire site 100% visually. I had family members use it to build their complete personal sites. It was a pretty clever system, too. It built layouts automatically using complex tables, split out text where it could, used image maps where it had to, etc. It wasn't something you'd be proud of using…

Oh man, I remember 'upgrading' to Publisher from FrontPage. I do agree that it was surprisingly clever at what it did, but I'm also happy I eventually learned how to write my own html/css eventually!

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#90

Post by egeozcan »

benibela wrote: post #81
Svip wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, I had a similar experience around 2000. I built a Danish website about Goldeneye 64 in FrontPage. The first website I ever made. It used frames, but I feel it was quite pleasing on the eyes, because I avoided a lot of the 'fancy effects' that was common for the time. I'll admit, being born in 87, most of the site was simply copied from other websites about the game, and translated to Danish. So it was a decen…

Born in 89, I made a webpage for my mother at that time. She still likes it :/ Check the generator tag on the frameset page http://www.roswithavanderzander.de/index_EN.htm

It can use some minimal styling but much better than loading 100MB to see less content. I say great job :)
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