designing anew for Frontier

[Dan Mitchell]

On Jan 14, 2005, at 9:58 AM, Melinda Swenson wrote:

> A potential client for a website redesign uses
> Frontier.  I do not own the program and don't know how
> to design for it.  My questions are:
>
> How much design and layout flexibility do I have with
> Frontier?

You actually have tremendous flexibility. I think you can have the same 
flexibility you would have with other tools.

The difference is in the way you interact with Frontier (or, more 
accurately, Manila). In "traditional" web design you may well have 
regarded each page as a separate complete entity. In Frontier/Manila, 
if you choose to do sophisticated site design, will find that the 
interaction does not take place on "the page" - much of it takes place 
in the Prefs screens, in particular the Advanced prefs where you can 
design everything about your site.

> Is it possible to design the site in HTML and somehow
> implement the design in Frontier?

Yes.

There are a few approaches to this and I'm not directly familiar with 
all of them. You could create your designs in html using, say, a text 
editor. Then you could "transplant" parts of the design into a Manila 
template (or "theme" in Manila-speak).

I think there may also be some tools that let you design in, for 
example, Dreamweaver (or similar) and have this directly imported into 
Manila sites. Sorry - I've read about this by don't do it myself.

My approach is to go in and directly edit html and css in the Prefs 
screens, sometimes copying and pasting between Manila and a text 
editor.

> What is the learning curve for developing a site in
> Frontier?

Basic sites are really easy.

Understanding the underlying concept of Manila may take a bit longer 
but doesn't seem that hard to me.

Good luck

Dan

--

Dan Mitchell
Music Department | De Anza College
Faculty Academic Senate President
Apple Distinguished Educator
http://faculty.deanza.fhda.edu/mitchelldan/
IM: deanzadan (text, audio, iSight)
Manila support: http://faculty.deanza.fhda.edu/support/

This e-mail is not secure. FHDA does not have an acceptable privacy
policy.