[This message has been edited by SueSmit (edited 06-08-2001).]

Header stuff usually needs to be in the head section. The stuff in the body section is the stuff that shows and the code to make it do so.

By the way...you've got way too many meta tags. Look at the source code of this page to get an idea of how many you should have. Right click > View Source

Tip: I believe your page would load faster if you used JavaScript for your navigation rather than Java applets.

Sandy

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Stu Reilly Design
Allegheny Web
Dreamweaver Sites

my immediate problem is that frontpage is adding the head of the page "Oudtshoorn, Klein Karoo, Western Cape Province
South Africa. The entrance and exit to the
Garden Route and Route 62 The Ostrich Capital of the World and Host to the National Arts Festival"

To the bottom (body) of the page, and I don't know why?
I also don't know how to make it go away, if I delete it and save and exit, and go in again, it has once again loaded it....

I'm afraid it's terminal.

The code is so messed up, I would recommend scrapping it and starting again.

It looks like you have tried to make corrections and changes and not all the old stuff has been removed...or something like that. There is a lot of code repeated and extraneous code from copying and pasting from Word or some other MS program.

Frankly, I am amazed that it is even showing in Netscape at all. I'm not trying to be mean. Things like this commonly happen when you're learning.

Sandy

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Stu Reilly Design
Allegheny Web
Dreamweaver Sites

I'm afraid Goober's right it is a mess and were I in you shoes I'd start over.

This posting is quite long but I hppe you'll find it helpful.

I had a long look @ your code - I kind of thought I knew what was wrong. And a second long cold hard look after the page crashed my machine twice confirmed it.

( This is not your fault so don't worry about it. FYI I looked at it under opera and under internet explorer 5.5. The applet code that FP generates is sometimes so wildly away from the standard that it breaks like mad.)

The moral of that is not to use applets. (Anyway the FrontPage ones have been done to death.)

Lets deal with a few points that amy be of help to you first:

Copying and pasting from other office 2000 programs.

Office 2000 programs generate a wicked amount of utterly unecessary code. Essentially they apply span styles all over the place.

If you absolutely MUST use html generated by word 2000 go here;

http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2000/Msohtmf2.aspx

The tool involved is free and will drastically cut down the extraneous html. I've got files down from 130k to 26k. Now, ok granted I kinda know my html so my test pages used every html horror that word and excel could generate but even so ....

However a far far better thing to do is to save the document created as a raw text file. (Word will tell you that you'll lose all sorts of useful stuff - tell it that you want to go a head anyway )

Import that text file and format away to your hearts content.

An alternative is to use not the paste command but the paste special command. Do it like this:

1. Highlight one paragraph at a time in word.

2. Copy it to the clipboard - (WARNING DO NOT USE THE OFFICE CLIPBOARD)

3. Switch to FrontPage

3a. Put your insertion point ( the flashing bar) where you want the new text.

4. Click once with the RIGHT HAND mouse button.

5. Select paste special.

6. Select normal paragraph.

7. Format hack chop change to your hearts content.

Now on to metatags: EEEEEEK!!!

Metags MUST only be in the header. Never ever ever in the body. Front page won't let you put metatags into the body because it's doing its job.

The tags themselves:

No wonder you're having problems. The poor thing is trying to work out which of the oodles of metatags to use. And it reloads the metatags every time.

I did a long long posting on metatags elesewhere in this site.

Here's an extract -

/*Begin Extract*/

Key words etc:
I suggest that you go here:

http://www.htmlgoodies.com

Select some links at random and view the source you'll quickly see how good metatags can be done.....

Also on the htmlgoodies site there are pages on metatags and search engines here's the direct link:

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/register.html

On that page theres a link to a superb metatags tutorial also - do please check that one out.

/*End extract*/

I've whumped up some metags for you so that you can see what they should look like.

/*begin metag example*/

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="South Africa, Adventure & Tours, Attractions, South African attractions, Backpackers, Backpacking in South Africa, Bed and Breakfast, B&B, Ostiches, Ostrich farms, Wildlife Parks,">
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="This page provides a set of links to ..........">
<META NAME="rating" CONTENT="General">
<META NAME="revisit-after" CONTENT="30 days">
<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW">
<META NAME="objecttype" CONTENT="Homepage">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="resource-type" CONTENT="document">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="distribution" CONTENT="global">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="copyright" CONTENT="Sue Smit - 2001">

/*end metatag example*/

I'll check back here this weekend.

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Hope this helps :-)
Gorilla
aka Mark Saunders
http://www.computerdriving.com

marksaunders@techie.com

FP Hover buttons are bad news, as Mark said. A quick and sometimes really nice alternative is plain text navigation...just typing words and linking them.

A second alternative is creating a button in your graphics program, importing it into your FP web (Images Folder, please), and linking it.

If you want buttons that have a rollover effect, the Mighty Mouseover Machine will write JavaScript for you. In your graphics program create an "off" version of the button and an "on" version. Import them into your FP web. Then go to this site: http://www.builder.com/Programming/Kahn/012898/ and fill out the required info.

Hint: when I was learning to use this, the thing that threw me was entering the file name of the button. Assuming you are importing your graphics (buttons) into the Images file of your web, the file name will look something like: images/about_off.gif and images/about_on.gif You must use the exact file name of your buttons.

When/if you decide to use this, let us know if you need further help.

Sandy

PS May I at least have a hug now?

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Stu Reilly Design
Allegheny Web
Dreamweaver Sites

With apologies I'm going to start by addressing Sandy:

awwwwwww (((((Sandy))))) - there y'are now you've just being hugged by a ½ Irish ½ Danish gorilla - and from the other side of the Atlantic too!

Verily verily I say unto you the internet is a strange and wonderful thing

Ok that was fun now down to business:

Hi Sue!

You're very welcome! I'm happy that you found what was said useful.

This posting will also be kind of long - sorry 'bout that but I hope it'll help.

Feel free to grab the following text and pop it into notepad or word - that way you won't incur humongous telephone bills if you want to read any of this.

General points first:

Yes you do have a lot to learn but stand back for a moment and think about how much you've done in the last 2 months starting from scratch. Then take a bow and pat yourself on the back - you deserve it.

A suggestion - take two weekends off

Sometimes you can get so close to a thing that all the attendant frustrations make you stop seeing the forest because there are so many trees.

Next weekend's reading

Here are two links to downloadable and free courses about FrontPage just follow the links to the courses and download them:

http://www.visibooks.com

A great place to start - oodles of illustrations and a nice crisp clear style of writing.

http://www.trainingtools.com/

Superb course - and one moreover which explains which tag is being used purpose of the tag etc. It's slightly more technical but only slightly and you have a massive headstart - you already know a fair bit about FrontPage and HTML - far more than you think you know

During the week - do some surfing - write down things that you like about some sites and thing you hate about others. Use the manuals I've suggested above to try to work out how it was done.

The feeling I get from your site is that you're (kind of) thinking of your site's design in terms of the printed page. Now I'm *not* criticising that - you've done exactly the write thing you started off with a simple design and are now in the happy position of knowing what works, what doesn't and what isn't worth the bother.

More over with a bit of work you can easily expand it's style a little - the beauty of the internet (and FrontPage) is that you can do all sorts of amazing things with it - relatively quickly and relatively easily.

Start here:

http://www.lad.co.za

Click on his link for Western Cape - it looks good and something similar would be *amazingly* easy to achieve in FrontPage.

While you're at it if you take up Sandy's suggestion about using button images as links - his button maker tool is *very* good.

You'll get the hang of it after about two hours. (Close the door for the two hours spent getting the hang of it that way no one will be shocked by the things you say while you're learning it ). It took me four hours but then I have the graphical sense of a hedgehog - I will decline any invitation to repeat in public some of the things I said but they mostly started with the earlier letters of the alphabet. - 2 out of my 3 native tongues (Danish and Gaelic) are wonderful languages for swearing. I never swear in English because it's so dull )

Specific Points:

The mso tags: Actually you and Sandy have cleared it up - the moment I saw the mso tag I just assumed it came from Word rather than Outlook.

The rollovers: Yes they're Java - in general unless there's a specific *need* for Java I tell people to steer well clear of it. It's a full programming language and strictly for professionals and talented amateurs. Why? because it's horribly easy to produce bad java. FrontPages automated production of java is terribly prone to producing broken code.

Java script is completely different - much easier. Re-read Sandy's reply about javascript button links.

Consider using just text links they can look great especially if you use some css.

The FAQ bit of this site has an excellent tip on how to do it. I elaborated a bit upon it in a posting on this site also. Here's the link.

http://www.frontpagewebmaster.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/005197.html

Good luck. I'll check back a few times over the nesxt day or so if you've got further questions.

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Hope this helps :-)
Gorilla
aka Mark Saunders
http://www.computerdriving.com

marksaunders@techie.com

mmmmmhhhh ! Thanks for all the hugs and kisses and all the help, I will be back !!

My compliments to your site and assistance, it has been my very best experience so far on the net.
Have a nice weekend you all!!

Some very important points:

As a web designer you have a balancing act to perform you have to get a site that will appeal to visitors that will make them *want* to go further into your site to read more and hopefully actually visit the geographic location!

*Don't* whatever you do assume that these people will be either computer literate or patient, or running a high spec machine to browse. Most people on the net are not computer literate. Thus you have to make it a total no brainer to get around the site.

As to your clients - well that's the other part of the balancing act - yuor design has to be appealing enough that they look at it and say. Oh yes that looks good.

Go for it ....

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Hope this helps :-)
Gorilla
aka Mark Saunders
http://www.computerdriving.com

marksaunders@techie.com