Hi Jim,

I have been a registered Homesite user for three years and find it to be a very good HTML editor/environment. It is not a great WYSIWYG tool however. In fact I beliver FP is far better suited to casual WYSIWYG HTML development. FP has excellent WYSIWYG features, but only so much can be done with pure HTML. If what you REALLY want is absolute positioning, then you must use CSS and at the same time deal with cross browser issues, There are many different versions of Nyetscape which behave slightly different from one another and IE which behaves totally different from Nyetscape. There are issues regarding IE versions as well but so unless you have a closed audience, you must code for the lowest common browser or do browser sniffing and write alternate code depending on which browser the client is using. WEB page layout depends a lot on client browser/screen size/font selection/color selection/screen resolution and we as HTML developers must allow for all variations, that is unless we have a disclaimer on our main page which states something like:

This site can only be viewed with SuperBrow 2.5 and above

Not very likely!

Welcome to the wonerful world of HTML page layout.

Glenn


>Thanks for all the detail, Bob.
>
>A few others mentioned tables too. I took that to be an 'easy way out', but you've clarified that it is basically the only sane way to get the job done.
>
>I'm also going to buy HomeSite and use that instead of FrontPage. I've seen HomeSite mentioned countless times, all over the place, as being top notch. I'm also not into self-flagellation (now a 'mistress', on the other hand...), and once I reach a certain level of frustration I find myself into criticizing even minute distractions, which is definitely unhealthy.
>
>I do appreciate the advice and will use it. And CSS is something that I thought I would bypass, but now definitely will not.
>
>JimN
>
>><snip>
>>>My biggest concern was positioning things. I found an "absolute positioning" feature and used it for all visible parts on the page. Checking Preview, things were closer but still significantly off.
>>>After much detailed moving of things and too much back/forth between "Normal" and "Preview" I got them looking like I wanted But what I had in "Normal" view mode was severely overlapped bits that were very hard to work with.
>>>
>>>What are the secrets to working successfully with this product???? (There has to be some or no one could rate this as being even adequate).
>><snip>
>>
>>When working with html,at first, it seemed to me like I was drawing a picasso on an echascetch. Then as time went on, I realized, it felt more like I was raft attemping to balance a ball on my head... no matter how hard I tried to get things in places, when I viewed them the web browser would move them where ever it wanted to. It appeared that I was not in control of my design for my page.... Until. I found a few hints. So dont feel alone. Anyone starting out in html all has the same trouble.
>>Hint 1 Use tables.I call them hidden tables. tables are you friend in HTML
>>they should be made without border width propertity set to 0 That way, you can 'Grid' out your page, and put text in a table, without exposing to your users that the table is actually there. I feel so strong about this, I cant thing of any web page I would ever make that did not have at least three invisible tables in it. Put tables in tables. Split cells, when you want a two cell table, etc etc. they work,
>>Thats lesson one.
>>
>>When working with FP, its a little hard to know what FP means by Absolute Positioning. etc.. becuase as any product designed to be a gui enviroment, creating text, you ./.. as a programmer have to understand what the gui generates... in order to know how to fix it....
>>
>>Hint two. get to know CSS. In the long run you will thank me. Sort of... like using classes for VFP but for web pages. FP has somewhat of a hook into CSS's but its not the best produt to really understand what is going on under the hood, and how you can really get the most out of html.
>>
>>Bob Lee