The Web Developers Users' Group met for the third time on February 15, 2002, at 3:30 PM in Plaster Student Union 313.

Noel-Levitz marketing communications analysis

Sara discussed the results for the Noel-Levitz review of the Missouri State web site. The review focused on recruitment marketing efforts of freshmen and transfer students. Noel-Levitz offered the following recommendations for improvement:

• Add "pull" strategies to introduce customized communications
• Connect all recruitment communications
• Maximize positioning opportunities
• Speak directly to decision influencers
• Continue to strive for consistency

If you'd like a copy of the full recommendation, please contact saraclark@missouristate.edu

Dreamweaver presentation

Chris Brunner presented a overview of Dreamweaver. He demonstrated several of the more common functions of the program and gave a brief synopsis of the benefits and disadvantages of using the software for development on campus.

Of the more common tasks required for web developing in Dreamweaver, Chris displayed how to perform the following:

• He explained the setup of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and the most common ways of customizing it and overall navigation structure of the program.
• Using the built in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript dictionaries to lookup tags, commands, functions and other components of the languages.
• Inserting images and editing their properties
• Creating hyperlinks
• Inserting tables and adjusting their layout

When asked of the advantages the software had over FrontPage he stated most of it was a personal preference; however, the program did have certain aspects which he felt made it easier for a beginner to learn the software. He felt that the advantages Dreamweaver offered users included:

• Better integration with other Macromedia products such as Fireworks and Flash.
• Split design and HTML view
• Built in tag dictionary for HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and JavaScript
• Clean HTML
• Ability to remove much of the Microsoft Word round tripping code inserted into documents saved as web pages through a wizard
• Site reporting

FrontPage presentation

Tyler Vickers presented an overview of FrontPage. He demonstrated some of the common tasks in developing a site and some of the other aspects of the software which other members had questions about.

Tyler displayed the following:

• Using FrontPage's dynamic navigation tools to automatically create site navigation bars and displayed how to modify the site design through the navigation view
• The ability to drag and drop Microsoft Word documents into a FrontPage web page and remove all Microsoft round tripping code inserted in the document
• Inserting online forms, and customizing their actions to submit to various targets such as email or databases
• Using the site reporting functions such as slow pages, broken hyperlinks, or unused files

Tyler also discussed the integration between FrontPage and other Microsoft products such as Internet Explorer and the rest of the Office suite.

Group discussion

Sara Clark also brought up the advantages of the FrontPage server extensions. Some of the added benefits of the extensions are:

• Dynamic navigation changes
• When the new 2002 server extensions are installed it will automatically makes bullet images web accessible

The group also discussed the added features and bug fixes in FrontPage 2002. Some of the features that were discussed were:

• The ability to perform a find and replace for all of the web pages in the web without opening them separately
• Separate tabs for each open web page, rather than requiring using the Window menu to switch back and forth between multiple web pages

Some of the bug fixes mentioned were:

• Corrects the issue with adding a gap at the bottom of the page when using some of the Missouri State templates

Web templates

Sara mentioned that she has made the editor independent versions of the Missouri State templates available at http://template.missouristate.edu/

Request for other presentations

Sara asked if there were any other WDUG members who would like to provide demos for other applications. Photoshop and other graphical applications were the most requested.

Information on scripting was also requested as a topic for the next WDUG meeting.

Next meeting

The next WDUG meeting will be held in the Parliamentary Room, PSU 313 on March 15, 2002 at 3:30.