Some Background. Now that you have developed a personal web with some of the fundamental features and design considerations using FrontPage we will embark on developing something much more involved.  Think of a company called Acme Corporation.  You have probably heard of it due to the RoadRunner and Wiley Coyote cartoons among others.  Wiley Coyote, certified genius, constantly makes use of their products while pursuing the RoadRunner.

In this course we are going to focus on developing what is often called an information web.  This is quite different from an on-line store or other types of web development.   Since it is probably the next simplest sort of web to develop it pretty much has to be our focus in this first course.

Below is the over all mission statement of the corporation. 

Mission Statement

 ACME Products have been developed for the serious genius or mastermind in pursuit of that special someone.  With our products, the buyer can never go wrong!  While our customers expect to part with some serious cash our quality and performance have never been questioned.

So I got bad grades writing mission statements in school!  Anyway, this is our overall mission.

The following table contains a list of nine products with estimated prices and an image of each product with our most widely known product user.

1. Pretty reasonable download times.
2. An opening home page that has some clarity of purpose.  Some nice graphics with a little bit of energy that create a good first impression.
3. Some sort of overall site plan and accessible index to help the user move around and not get lost.
4. Good product/services presentation with good images and details when important.
5. Some on-line assistance for frequently asked questions - FAQs.
6. Readily accessible approaches or information for giving feedback and/or contacting the company for further information.
7. Hopefully, some sort of search feature to help the user find things more quickly.
8. Something that presents what is very new and current with the company.

While these are quite general, they should give some sense of the overall goals of the information web.

The Corporate Web Template.  While I am definitely not a big fan of the FrontPage templates, they are definitely helpful for learning and developing those first webs.  At this point you want to

1. Click on the File menu.

2. Select the New item on the menu

3. Then select the Web item on submenu that appears.

You want to make sure you have a directory in which to place it.  This example will be in the directory TrialWeb along the path 

C:\My Documents\FrontPageWebDevelopment\TrialWeb

Then you should get an image like the following.  Make sure you select the path for the location of the web.

4. Now you should select the Corporate Presence Wizard and then click on OK.

This should give you another dialog form which should look like the following.

5. select all of the items and then click on the Next command button.

Now you should get a dialogue asking you about what you want to appear on the homepage.  My opinion is that things like the Mission Statement and Company Profile will bore the typical web browser so you should put these someplace just off the homepage.

6. So you should probably select the Introduction and Contact Information check boxes and then click on the Next button.

This should give you a dialog for what you want on your What's New page, like the following.

7. Select the Press Releases check box and click on Next.

This should give you a form where you can select the number of your basic products and services.

8. You can try to select 9 products, but this is more than is allowed.  So select the maximum of 5 products with 2 services and click on Next.

We will have to add more products pages later.  You should get the following form which allows you to select some of the standard features you want on your products and services pages.

9. Select the Product image and Pricing information for the Products.
10. Select the Capabilities list and the Reference accounts for the Services.
11. Click on Next.

12. You should select all of the check boxes and then click on Next.
13. You do want the feedback information to be compatible with databases so select the Yes, use tab-delimited format radio button on the next form and click on Next.

You should get the following form related to the appearance of your Table of Contents.

14. Select the check boxes to automatically keep the list up-to-date and to use bullets for the top level pages.

While in many respects, you don't need a table of contents in the old sense of the word, you will have plenty of users who are used to seeing such a linear display even though you are working in a hypertext environment.

Now you need to assess what you want on the top and bottom of each page.  We will go with side indexes for over all navigation because they require less up front space.  Putting too much repetitive information at the top of each page causes you to lose a lot of your initial contact impact.  The wizard dialog form follows.

15. Obviously, you could select a lot of different things, but for the sake of including almost anything we could want you should select all of the check boxes except Links to your web pages at the top of each page.
16. Click on Next.
17. Now you get an option about using an Under Construction icon on pages that aren't finished.  This is a Yes or No option that I will leave up to you.

Now you should get a dialog form about your corporation name and location.

18. You want the name to be ACME Corporation.
19. You want the one word version to be ACMECorp.
20. Make up your own address.
21. Click on Next.
22. Now you will get a dialog form about contact information.  You should fill in the required phone numbers and e-mail addresses.
23. Click on Next.

Now you should get a dialogue prompting you to select a theme.  We will create our own "theme" so

24. Click on Next again without selecting a theme.
25. Click on Finish without going into the tasks view.  

If you like using the task list feel free to use it.  I use Microsoft task lists for major things, but I don't want to make using such things important to the course.

Now you should have the basics of your new web.  The FrontPage environment should look quite similar to the following, where I've opened the Index page.

The Navigation View will give you more of a sense of the hyperlink structure.  I have modified it so that everything is under the Home.