What exactly are "front page extensions"

[Buddha Bart]

I've heard the term a lot, but I can't seem to find a clear explanation of what they are. Is it just WebDAV features?

bart

 

[SALvation]

Stay very far away from FP extensions. They are basically pre-packaged pieces of code that do things that could easily be done in ASP, PHP, or any other language. Things like email functionality, forms, basic forums, web counters. You have to find a server with these installed for them to run and you cannot edit the code. Much easier to just code them yourself.

 

[Buddha Bart]

I sorta dont' have a choice

So they're server-side, thats somethign i wasn't sure of.

Can anyone point me to some examples/tutorials on them?

bart

 

[Buddha Bart]

bump

 

[kgraeme]

A simple search of Microsoft's site you have given you the answer. Basically, FrontPage Extensions are a set of Microsoft server-side web CGI programs.

An example FrontPage extension is, when you create an image with various clickable areas (an imagemap), FrontPage will often set it up as a server-side imagemap using the FrontPage extensions to do the server processing. The catch is that the supposed "ease of use" of FrontPage Extensions really is just a way of trapping you into a Microsoft-only solution instead of a more open equivalent. So those imagemaps that FrontPage uses a proprietary extension for can be better handled as a simple W3C standard client-side image map that any browser can handle.

They are intended as ways for people who are too lazy or stupid to learn Perl, Active Server Pages, ColdFusion or PHP a way to add "cool" features to their site. Of course, if you use them and they don't work right or MS changes something in a release that breaks your site then you are SOL. Better to learn how to do it yourself. If you care, ColdFusion is the easiest to learn, ASP is the most prevalent, and PHP is the OpenSource option.