Frontpage|interdev|visual Figure 6:the Project Deployment Explorer
Visual InterDev also contains the Document Outline page and the Project deployment Explorer. Can control a site from this Explorer, and change deployment mode in a click (Figure 6).
Version Control and Team Work
Any serious developer (and many not-so-serious ones) knows-you cannot effectively work-without version control. Visual InterDev 6.0, like the other tools in Visual Studio, are well-integrated with sourcesafe®and work can be Transparen tly versioned. This is much safer the makes team programming. Unfortunately, FrontPage does not ship with this important component. At press time, I am unaware of the any Third-party solution can easily is connected to a team using FrontPage 2000.
Page deployment
You often does not really need to is connected to the WEB server while editing pages. It's enough to work on the "local copies", modify them, and then deploy in a them to the server. Your Editor should support optional deployment.
Visual InterDev offers two editing modes:local and master. While working into local mode you save pages to a local folder, which are automatically created when you add a new project (l IKE Visual C + + does when you start a new project. You don ' t need to have continuous access to a WEB server. You can connect to the WEB server once, load copies the necessary files, and disconnect. You can even cancel changes made to pages using the Discard Changes command (in the Figure 7). Now you ' re ready to work with the local copies. Once you ' ve updated the site, your can use the deployment Explorer to select the server ' s location and deploy the changed F Iles.
Figure 7:discarding Changes in Visual InterDev 6.0
In master mode, save your files directly to the server. This can is useful and save overhead if you have small changes to one or two files. can also work in offline mode. This works just like "local mode", except that your the project tree are automatically updated when you go to master mode.
Figure 8:publishing a Web Site in FrontPage 2000
FrontPage lets you publish a Web site similarly to Visual InterDev, but it doesn ' t offer the same concept of local/ma Ster mode (Figure 8).
Importing External Sites
FrontPage can import external sites using its import Web Wizard. If you are have an old site or a site this is created without Microsoft tools (and FrontPage extensions), you can import it I Nto FrontPage and save it as a native project. can choose to import only text pages and images or all files (Figure 9).
Figure 9:import Web Wizard in FrontPage 2000
Visual InterDev can import sites too, but they must be created using FrontPage extensions. With FrontPage extensions, some utility files with descriptions to the site structure are available in a site subdirectory ; The Import Wizard reads the site structure and imports all of the files that are mentioned.
Integrated debugging
As a longtime developer, I Love advanced debuggers. I grew up using Codeview®and integrated debuggers in Visual C + +. Visual InterDev is enjoyable to use because it debugger is similar to the one in Visual C + +, with standard features like breakpoints, locals view, stack view, and so on. Can even perform debugging of server-side pages if you are sitting at the server computer. Visual InterDev can handle JScript and VBScript code and can is launched on a just-in-time basis when errors occur in page s loaded into Microsoft Internet Explorer (Figure 10).
Figure 10:the Debugger in Visual InterDev 6.0
FrontPage has no integrated debugger. While I use the Internet Explorer Script Debugger (which are included on the FrontPage CD), the IT functionality is Limited in comparison to what your get with Visual InterDev.
Standard Pages
With FrontPage, it's easy to add standard pages, such as a search page, table of contents, or a navigation bar. The functionality works a lot like themes
