It is becoming common to use a splash page
as a way of introducing your customers to your web site. This page usually
comes up when the user types your domain name in without a specific page
reference, i.e., http://www.mydomain.com/.
This is know as a the "default" page of the web.
When using Microsoft servers, you can easily setup any page
on the web to be the default page. If that default page is not found on
the web, the next defined default page will be presented to the viewer.
This setup is outlined in the "Using a
Splash Page on your FrontPage Web Site" tip.
But with many Non-Microsoft servers, the
default page of the web must be "index.htm" which also must also must be
the home page for FrontPage Navigation. A splash page does not make a good home page for web
navigation. This article describes one work-around for this problem using
FrontPage subwebs.
We
strongly recommend that you backup your web before starting this
procedure.
Click
here for how to backup your FrontPage Web.
Step 1: Publish the Web to a Subweb
First create a new folder, lets call it "main". Then right click on the
folder and select the "Convert to Web" menu items from the popup menu.
The Folders List after creating the "main" subweb
Now select Files->Publish Web... menu item, the Publish
destination will appear. Press the "Browse..." button and and locate the
newly created "main" folder on your web. Then publish the web to this
location.
Publishing to the "main" subweb
Once the web has been published to the "main" subweb, then
double click on the "main" subweb and a new instance of FrontPage will
appear. Verify the web is operational by previewing the web in the
browser.
Step 2: Setup the Splash
Page
Now return to the original or root FrontPage web and add your splash
page to the web. You can use one of the many
FrontLook Page Effects Splash Pages or one of your own design.
Now rename your splash page to "index.htm".
Then bring up your splash page and place a hyperlink on there to the
"main/index.htm" page so that when a user wishes to view the web's home
page, they can press this link. You may also want to add a automatic Page
Redirect timer as described in "Page
Redirection timers for Splash Pages" tip. This index page is now the
default page of the web and will point your viewers to the "main/index.htm"
page. Once the user is in the main web, he will stay there using the
FrontPage navigation.
If you wish you
can delete the other pages in the root web because these pages are no
longer required.
That's It!
As stated above, you can now place any splash page you wish into the root
web and have it point to your FrontPage navigation structure in the "main"
subweb.
