Harness the Power of FrontPage 98

Working With Themes

FrontPage themes reduce the hassle of formatting each page by hand. Like the templates in Microsoft Word, they'll get you up and running quickly--providing you with graphics, text styles, and more--but they can affect each page in your site (if you choose). Since the program offers more than 50 themes, you have a few choices ahead. After you select one, you may want to customize your theme to create the look you want.

Apply Yourself

First things first--with your Web site open, switch to Themes View. From FrontPage Explorer, choose View, Themes (or click the Themes icon from Explorer's Views bar). From the left pane, click a theme name to preview its associated graphics, text, and colors in the Themes Preview pane on the right.

FrontPage offers just a few ways to alter a theme's look. Uncheck the box marked Vivid Colors to tone it down a bit, uncheck Active Graphics to use flatter-looking images without JavaScript animation, and uncheck Background Image to make the site less busy. For the most part, it's a good idea to leave all these boxes unchecked.

Click Apply to set the theme (you can change your mind about any of these choices later). This updates all the pages in your site.

Roll Your Own: The Theme Designer

You're surfing the Web one evening when the unexpected happens: You come upon a site that looks exactly like yours. How embarrassing! You can easily avoid this faux pas using the FrontPage Theme Designer--a program as simple to use as it is buggy (alas).

Since Theme Designer doesn't install automatically, you'll need your FrontPage 98 CD-ROM. Insert the disc and navigate to the SDK\Themes\Designer folder. Launch tdsetup.exe to install the program.

Change Your Tune

With Theme Designer, you can change text styles, colors, and graphics. Let's take a look at customizing the look of an existing theme's page banners.

First, launch Theme Designer from FrontPage Explorer by choosing Tools, Show Theme Designer. Now open the theme you want to customize by choosing File, Open Theme, selecting a theme, and clicking OK.

Let's make a simple change to the theme you've opened. From the Properties menu, choose Banner. Click the Font tab. Now choose a type style from the Font pop-up list. Click OK.

To save your creation, choose File, Save Theme As. You'll need to type a name for your theme in the Title box and a nickname under Short Name. Click OK.

Back in FrontPage Explorer, click the Themes icon in the Views bar. Your new theme appears, and you can apply it to your site.

As easily as you changed the banner font, you can customize the background, bullets, body type, and any other element of your themes. And if you want to start fresh, select File, New Theme, tweak every element you desire, and save your creation.