Microsoft Frontpage

ID #1130

How do I create a guestbook with FrontPage?

A Guest Book
Although there are instructions on how to use forms included in the FrontPage 2000 manual, it still seems to be an area of confusion for many people, so here's a tutorial and some tips on how to set up a simple guest book.
Before you attempt this tutorial, make sure you've read through the tutorial in the FrontPage 2000 manual, and you're familiar with the basic concepts of FrontPage.

For this tutorial, we're going to use the same form that we used in the e-mail form tutorial. If you didn't go through that tutorial, do it now. There's a remark which indicates where you should stop that tutorial, and return to this page to finish the guest book tutorial. If you've completed the e-mail tutorial, you can reuse that page; simply open the page in the FrontPage editor, then choose File > Save As, and give it a name like "guestbook.htm".

Tip: If you make a mistake during this tutorial, you can always hit Ctrl-Z to quickly undo your last action; hit Ctrl-Z multiple times to undo multiple actions.

The Guest Book
As mentioned above, we're going to use the same form we used for the e-mail form tutorial, but modify it for the guest book. Once you've completed the e-mail form tutorial up to the remark which instructs you to return to this page, you should have a page with a form that looks like this:

We're going to modify it so that it saves the results to your web.

First, click with the right mouse button anywhere inside the form's dotted-line boundary, then choose "Form Properties..." from the pop-up menu.
The field for "File name:" will either be blank (if you're reusing the form from the e-mail tutorial), or may have the default value which looks like this: "_private/form_results.txt". We're going to allow the guest book to be viewed by anyone that visits our website, so we'll need to change the location of the form results. In the "File name:" field, enter "guestbook_results.htm" (without the quotes, of course). Don't click OK yet! (Note: The _private folder in a FrontPage web is password protected; when you try to use your Web browser to view a file contained in the folder, you'll be asked for your username and password, which is the same as the username and password for the web.)
I like to have a copy of guest book entries e-mailed to me, so I know when someone has signed the guest book. To do this, simply enter your e-mail address in the "E-mail address:" field (it may be there already if you did the e-mail form tutorial; if so, just leave it there). If you don't want the guest book entries e-mailed to you, leave the "E-mail address:" field blank.
The default way that FrontPage saves the results of a form is not very attractive (or easy to read, for that matter), so we're going to choose a formatting option that's easier to read. To do this, first click on the Options button.
In the Options dialog box, select "HTML" (the first option) from the "File format:" drop-down menu. (Don't click OK yet.)
For some reason unknown to me, FrontPage considers the Submit button as part of the form input, and will include it in the form results by default (it does not include the Reset button however). To fix this, first click the "Saved Fields" tab at the top of the Options dialog box. Under "Form fields to save:" you'll see a list of the fields that FrontPage will include in the results file. The submit button is listed as "B1"; to remove it, select it with the mouse, then hit Backspace or Delete on your keyboard.
While we're in the "Saved Fields" section, let's include the date and time in the form results. Click the "Date Format:" drop-down menu and select a format that you like (I prefer the second choice). Do the same for the "Time Format:" menu.
Click OK to close the Options window, then click OK once more to close the Form Properties window.
Choose File > Save. Congratulations, your form is complete! To view your guest book, simply put a link to the guestbook_results.htm file on your home page (don't forget to put a link to the form on your home page too!).
If the Form Doesn't Work
If you created the tutorial form on your hard disk using the Personal Web Server and then open the page in your Web browser, you'll probably see the message [FrontPage Save Results Component] on top of your form. This is because the FrontPage server extensions don't exist on the Personal Web Server (this also indicates that the form won't work). To make the form work, you should publish your website to a Web server that has the FrontPage server extensions installed. If you publish the page to your Web server, then open the published page in your Web browser and still get the [FrontPage Save Results Component] line, then the server extensions don't exist on the Web server and the form won't work. You'll need to contact your Web hosting company, and ask them about installing the FrontPage server extensions.

If the form appears to be working, but you're not getting the results in your e-mail inbox, check to make sure that you entered your e-mail address correctly in the Form Properties dialog box. Load the page with the form in the FrontPage editor, right click on the form, then choose "Form Properties

Last update: 2007-01-28 02:21
Author: Sameh Ezzeldin
Revision: 1.5

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