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Exploring Frontier
What's on this Page :
Here you will find what I consider the essential documentation you need to start exploring Frontier. You will see that I'm recommending reading part of these tutorials and not all of them. I just want to give you a feel for Frontier first. There is no point in starting to build websites or write UserTalk scripts if you don't know how to navigate in the root, or don't understand the difference between the Save a Copy and Backup menus. But if you follow me in this journey, you will come across a lot of resources that later you will be able to explore further.
The ODB (Object Data Base), commonly called the "root," is an incredible labyrinth for a beginner. So the first task is to get acquainted with it, to understand what are all those tables and how to move among them and inside them. There are some excellent introductions to the ODB. You should read and download at least the first three appearing in this list.
http://www.scriptmeridian.org/tutorials/odb/index.html
This excellent tutorial by Philip Suh will drive you around the root. It's a very good introduction that covers only the essentials about the ODB. It describes the properties of the ODB (persistent, hierarchical) and the differences between Frontier and classic databases like Access or FileMaker. The tutorial also talks about the advantages of the ODB (speed, storage). And it explains the top seven tables in the root (examples, scratchpad , suites, system, user, websites, workspace) and how to navigate in them (jumping, double-clicking, browsing). It will help you to organize your root (where to put your scripts, your macros, etc.), and help you to find valid names to the objects you will create (addresses). The tutorial gives some advice for maintaining a healthy root, and finishes by answering common questions (for instance, how big the ODB can be) It's short and well written. An absolute must-read for a beginner.
http://www.jetlink.net/~mattn/scriptingtutorial/
This tutorial is from Matt Neuburg, maybe the finest Frontier teacher around. This is the latest version updated by the author (the version on scripting.com is updated by Brent Simmons of UserLand). Up and Running with Frontier Website Management is THE tutorial you have to read to introduce yourself to web site management with Frontier. But it's also an excellent introduction to the Frontier environment; for that, you have to read the first six chapters (but if you want to go on the fast lane right now with website management, don't bother and read the entire tutorial) :
The first four chapters discuss the tutorial itself, and give a broad and light presentation of Frontier as scripting environment and as a web management system. As important as these chapters are (and you should read them), you have to pay extra attention to the last two chapters ("Getting Comfortable With Outlines" and "Getting Comfortable With Tables"). There a lot of stuff in those two chapters. You might not fully assimilate everything the first time you read them, because Frontier offer a lot of methods to move that are not always intuitive. So keep them around, and come back later. You will see that there are more elegant and easier alternatives to the clumsy ways you may have been moving in an outline or between tables.
Matt is also the author of another very important tutorial that discusses UserTalk, and that we will see later (Serious First Steps in UserTalk Scripting). But for all his accomplishments, the greatest is his superb book on Frontier.
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Frontier: The Definitive Guide By Matt Neuburg 1st Edition February 1998 (US) O'Reilly & Associates Inc. 616 pages, 1-56592-383-9, $34.95 ($US) |
If you are serious about Frontier, you need this book! It's The Book that people are talking about on the Frontier lists. If you buy this book, and you have no programming/scripting background, I recommend that you read first some of the suggested tutorials in The Frontier Newbie Toolbox, and then read--reread--memorize by heart this fine book.
If you do have a programming/scripting background, take a look at the suggested tutorials on this page, just to be familiar with Frontier 5 (the book was written for Frontier 4.2.3, but is still accurate for 90% of Frontier 5), and then immerse yourself in Matt's book.
http://www.scripting.com/frontier5/menus/
This tutorial is from Thea Patridge. The tutorial is mostly organized around the Frontier menus (mostly one page per menu). It's a little bit like a dictionary; each menu item gets a short description. He also has a page on keyboard shortcuts. Good to have around when you quickly want to check what is the function of a specified menu.
http://www.scripting.com/frontier5/manual/default.html
This tutorial was written a long time ago by Dan Shafer when Frontier was at the 1.0 version.Time to time, it was updated, and you should read its introduction if you want to know the history of those updates. It has been recently updated for Frontier 5.
There is lot of good stuff in this tutorial, but there is not a clear separation between exploring Frontier and exploring UserTalk, the scripting language of Frontier. So, while you are learning how to navigate in the ODB, you might learn also how to create an object in the root. It's not to everyone's taste, and I find it a little dense for someone who doesn't have any programming or scripting background. Also, the overall distribution of chapters is totally inadequate. The ODB is described in chapter 6, and the Frontier menus in chapter 7 (the chapter before the last chapter)!!!
On the other hand, there a lot of pointers to other documentation on scripting.com. So if you are on-line, it might help you to discover more documentation. Those chapters below are the ones I recommend to read for now.
Next :
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Dernière mise à jour: Mardi, le 22 juin 1999. http://scriptdigital.com/fnt/exploringFrontier.html Produit sur Macintosh. Créé avec Frontier 5. |
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©Emmanuel M. Décarie Création, intégration et gestion de sites webs avec Frontier. 
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UserLand, Frontier, and UserLand Frontier are trademarks of UserLand
Software, Inc. Some of the images are © UserLand SoftWare, Inc.
The Workspace.Compendium and The Frontier Newbie Toolbox are independent
projects by Emmanuel M. Décarie and are not associated with
UserLand Software, Inc.
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