Microsoft to overhaul FrontPage with XML

By Alun Williams

Posted on 13 Jun 2003 at 11:10

Microsoft has announced the Beta 2 release of Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003, which is part of its Office system.

Microsoft emphasises the role of XML, in what it says is an overhaul of the product. In particular, it emphasises the Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) editor and its role to create interactive systems based on live data.

'We have made a big investment in supporting XML throughout the products in the Microsoft Office System to unlock customer data,' states Jean Paoli, an XML architect at Microsoft, who also worked on the XML 1.0 standard with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

'An important component to the Microsoft Office System, the FrontPage 2003 WYSIWYG editor lets you define how XML following customer-defined schema should be formatted on a Web page,' says Paoli. 'This is done by authoring XSLT, a standard defined by the W3C. The XML data-driven functionality makes it easier to transition content from internal systems onto the Web. Data-driven solutions in the past took days or even months of hand-coding, but these can now be accomplished in just hours.'

The Beta 2 is available, as part of Microsoft Office, if you sign up at www.microsoft.com/office/preview/frontpage/

The full release is expected before the end of this summer.