FrontPage gives you the ability to use some special components, or "Web Bots", to include additional functionality to your site - such as guest counters and mail forms. Users who do not have this program should be aware of the ZISP toolset that is available to all PWP customers.
The latest version of the FrontPage Server Extensions, the 2002 version, is installed on the current platform (the previous platform had up to the 2000 version installed on it). It is backwards compatible - the components of all previous versions of FrontPage should work on the current PWP platform.
For the FrontPage Extensions to work for your PWP site, you need to configure the publishing wizard in FrontPage to publish via HTTP and not FTP (just follow the on-screen instructions), and set it to publish to:
www.yourwebsitealias.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
where "yourwebsitealias" should be replaced by whatever your site is called. You should login using the username (which will be the same as "yourwebsitealias" above) of your site, and the password you chose in Self Care. There is further information on FrontPage on our helpsite.
The FrontPage extensions are provisioned on every site for the reason that if they are not provisioned when an account is created, and you then attempt to use the special components at a later date, they will not work.
- What do the frontpage extensions look like?
- Do the frontpage extensions affect my quota?
- Deleting frontpage extensions
- Frontpage uploads failing
- What are share point teams services all about?
- How do I remove frontpage server extensions?
What do the frontpage extensions look like?
If you login to your web space using an FTP program, you will see some files that begin with an underscore. Examples of these are _vti_pvt and _private. These contain configuration information about your FrontPage uploaded site.
The _zisp_ directory is not part of the FrontPage extensions. The ZISP tools mentioned above create it.
Do the frontpage extensions affect my quota?
Yes. The extensions are a group of files that intercept a request in a browser for a web page and perform any actions that you have included in your page, such as adding one "hit" and displaying a counter.
If you do not use FrontPage, and never wish to, you can remove these extensions in Self Care. See below.
Deleting frontpage extensions
You can do this in Selfcare.
Frontpage uploads failing
The FrontPage extensions use the system .htaccess file for some of their configuration, and you should be careful not to delete the .htaccess file in your home directory if you wish to continue using FrontPage.
If you wish to change your .htaccess file, you should download this text file from our servers via FTP and then add whatever you wish after the lines currently in your file. This should only impact users who know what .htaccess files are, and what they wish to do with them.
You need to ensure when uploading via FrontPage that you are using www.yourwebsitealias.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk to upload to, and the correct username and password [see above]. You also need to ensure that you choose to upload via the HTTP option if you want to use the functionality provided by the "Web Bots" in your site.
If you are still experiencing issues with uploading via FrontPage, you should raise these with our technical support team, and include all error messages. These can then be raised with our systems administration team.
What are share point teams services all about?
If a FrontPage upload fails for whatever reason, an error message is generated to your machine that suggests to it that the FrontPage Extensions or "Share Point Team Services" need to be installed on the server. This isn't as user-friendly as it could be! FrontPage extensions are installed on our servers.
Share Point Team Services are part of Microsoft's .NET initiative. At the moment we cannot offer the additional services provided by this tool due to the underlying architecture of the PWP platform. They are designed for use on large corporate portals, so we believe that the actual benefit to our users would be negligible if they were functional. We'll continue to investigate this, and all options, as the .NET project develops.
How do I remove frontpage server extensions
You can remove or reset (re-install) the FrontPage Server Extensions that are provisioned on your site. These tasks do not remove the content from your site, but if you do decide to re-install the extensions it would be a good idea to publish your site afterwards.
