Expression Web Help

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Frontpage Seach Bot and Include Page

The Good News

The good news about your FP Bots in Expression Web is that they will still work just fine after you upgrade.  

More good news here.  There's a free Macro that makes everything below unnecessary.  Learn more >>

The Bad News

The bad news is that Expression Web does not have any menus that allow you to automatically insert new FP bots.

So What?

In my mind, this is only a major issue with regard to 2 FP components that I happen to really like -- The FP Include Page and the FP Search Bot. These are mighty handy tools. I will continue to use them for many years. Here's how you can too.

The Workaround

First, if this is a new web that you have created in Expression Web then you will need to add the hidden FP files that allow these bots to work.  If the web was originally created in FP then these files are already there.  To place make your Expression site FP-bot-friendly, do Site > Site Settings > Check "Manage the Web site using hidden metadata files" > Click OK.

Expression Web supports the webbot code that Frontpage writes when you do Tools > Insert > Web Component > Web Search > Current Web. It just doesn't give you any way to bring up the "Insert Web Component" dialog.

All you have to do to insert a FP search bot is to insert the code that FP would have written. Here's that code.
 
 <!--webbot bot="Search" S-Index="All" S-Fields="TimeStamp,DocumentK,Weight" S-Text="Search for:" I-Size="20" S-Submit="Start Search" S-Clear="Reset" S-TimestampFormat="%m/%d/%Y" TAG="BODY" -->

Use The Code Automatically Whenever You Want

Expression Web gives you a way to save this code and use it automatically whenever you want.

First, insert that code in a page where you want the search box to show up. Use the split screen view. Type a few letters in the Design view. Then locate those letters in Code view and highlight them. Then paste the webbot code to replace those letters.

Next, highlight the code you just pasted, right click on it, and select "Create Code Snippet." In the "Keyword" box, type "Search." In the "Description" box, type "FP Search Bot." Click OK.

The next time you want to insert a FP search bot, just type some letters where you want the search bot to display. Then highlight those letters in Code view. The hit Ctrl+Enter to bring up your list of code snippets. Double click on "Search." You're done.

Same Goes for the FrontPage Include Page Component

You can do the same thing with the FP Include Page bot tag. Here's the bot code for that one.
 
 <!--webbot bot="Include" U-Include="page.htm" TAG="BODY" -->

Just insert this as a snippet. Then double click on the bot displayed in Design view. Click the "browse" button to locate and select the include page you want to use.