HOW TO: Programmatically Add Meta Information to All Pages in Your FrontPage Web (316011)

SUMMARY

Use this step-by-step guide to programmatically standardize the META tags throughout your Web site. After you manually add parameters to your Web site, the sample Visual Basic for Applications macro examines your Web settings for the parameters and adds META tags to each page in your Web site.

META tags help describe your Web site so that search engines, such as http://search.msn.com/, pull your pages when a search is performed. Description and keyword meta tags increase the chance that the search engine will index your Web site. For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: (back to top)

Step 1 - Add Custom META Properties to Your Web Settings

The sample Visual Basic for Applications macro in Step 2 later in this article, looks for custom parameters that start with the meta- prefix in your Web settings, and uses these parameters to add META tags to each page in your Web site.

To start this exercise, add the following custom parameters:

• meta-description
• meta-keywords

You can use the following procedure to add additional custom parameters, such as meta-author, meta-copyright, and meta-robots.

To add the custom parameters, follow these steps:

1. Start FrontPage and then open a Web.
2. On the Tools menu, click Web Settings to open the Web Settings dialog box.
3. In the Web Settings dialog box, click the Parameters tab.
4. Click Add, and then follow these steps:
   1. In the Name box, type meta-description.
   2. In the Value box, type This is my Web site.
   3. Click OK.
5. Click Add, and then follow these steps:
   1. In the Name box, type meta-keywords.
   2. In the Value box, type Web, site, Internet.
   3. Click OK.
6. Click OK to close the Web Settings dialog box.

Step 2 - Add the Sample Macro to FrontPage

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements. The following sample macro looks for the meta- prefix in the custom parameters you added in Step 1. Then, based on the parameters it finds, it adds META tags to each page in your Web site.

To add this macro to FrontPage, follow these steps:

1. Start the Visual Basic Editor. To do this, point to Macro on the Tools menu, and then click Visual Basic Editor.
2. Create a new module. To do this, right-click Microsoft_FrontPage, click Insert, and then click Module.
3. Type or paste the following Visual Basic code into the new module:

   Option Explicit
   
   Sub SetAllMetaTags()
     On Error Resume Next
     
     ' Declare all variables.
     Dim X As Integer
     Dim Y As Integer
     Dim objWebFolder As WebFolder
     Dim objWebFile As WebFile
     Dim varFolderTree As Variant
     Dim varMetaProperties As Variant
     Dim strExt As String
     Dim strMetaTag As String
       
     With Application
       
       ' Check the caption of the application to see if a Web is open.
       If .ActiveWebWindow.Caption = "Microsoft FrontPage" Then
         ' If no Web is open, display an informational message.
         MsgBox "Please open a Web before running this function.", vbCritical
         ' End the macro.
         Exit Sub
       ' Make sure that no pages are open.
       ElseIf .ActiveWeb.ActiveWebWindow.PageWindows.Count <> 0 Then
         ' If any pages are open, display an informational message.
         MsgBox "Please close all files before running this macro.", vbCritical
         ' End the macro.
         Exit Sub
       End If
       
       ' Change the Web view to Folder view.
       .ActiveWeb.ActiveWebWindow.ViewMode = fpWebViewFolders
       
       ' Get a list of folders in the Web.
       varFolderTree = BuildFolderUrlTree
       ' Get a list of custom META properties for the Web.
       varMetaProperties = GetCustomMetaProperties
       
       ' Is the array populated?
       If UBound(varMetaProperties) > 0 Then
         ' If so, loop through the folders.
         For X = 1 To UBound(varFolderTree)
           ' Create a folder object.
           Set objWebFolder = .ActiveWeb.LocateFolder(varFolderTree(X))
           ' Loop through the files in the folder.
           For Each objWebFile In objWebFolder.Files
             ' Get the current file name extension.
             strExt = LCase(objWebFile.Extension)
             ' Is it a Web page?
             If strExt = "htm" Or strExt = "html" Or strExt = "asp" Then
               ' If so, edit the page.
               objWebFile.Edit: DoEvents
               ' Loop through the custom properties.
               For Y = 1 To UBound(varMetaProperties)
                 ' Set each property.
                 SetMetaTag varMetaProperties(Y, 1), varMetaProperties(Y, 2)
               Next
               ' Save and close the page.
               .ActivePageWindow.Save
               .ActivePageWindow.Close: DoEvents
             End If
           Next
         Next
       End If
     End With
     
     ' Return a message that the META tags are updated.
     MsgBox "Finished updating META tags!", vbInformation
   
   End Sub
   
   Private Function GetCustomMetaProperties() As Variant
     On Error Resume Next
     
     ' Declare all variables.
     Dim objProperty As Variant
     Dim intMetaTags As Integer
     Dim strMetaNames() As String
     Dim strMetaContents() As String
     Dim strMetaTags() As Variant
     Dim X As Integer
     
     With Application
       ' Loop through the Web properties.
       For Each objProperty In .ActiveWeb.Properties
         ' Did you find a property?
         If Len(CStr(objProperty)) > 0 Then
           ' Is it one of the custom properties?
           If StrComp(Left(objProperty, 5), "meta-", vbTextCompare) = 0 Then
             ' Update counter.
             intMetaTags = intMetaTags + 1
             ' Redimension storage arrays.
             ReDim Preserve strMetaNames(intMetaTags)
             ReDim Preserve strMetaContents(intMetaTags)
             ' Store the META name.
             strMetaNames(intMetaTags) = Mid(objProperty, 6)
             ' Store the META content.
             strMetaContents(intMetaTags) = .ActiveWeb.Properties(objProperty)
           End If
         End If
       Next
     End With
     
     ' See if there are any properties.
     If intMetaTags = 0 Then
       ' If there are no properties, return an empty array.
       ReDim strMetaTags(0)
     Else
       ' Otherwise, create an array to hold the properties.
       ReDim strMetaTags(intMetaTags, 2)
       ' Loop through the properties and values and store them.
       For X = 1 To intMetaTags
         strMetaTags(X, 1) = strMetaNames(X)
         strMetaTags(X, 2) = strMetaContents(X)
       Next
     End If
     
     ' Return the array.
     GetCustomMetaProperties = strMetaTags
   
   End Function
   
   Private Sub SetMetaTag(strMetaName, strMetaContent)
     On Error Resume Next
     
     ' Declare all variables.
     Dim objMetaTag As FPHTMLMetaElement
     Dim objHtmlTag As IHTMLElement
     
     With Application
       ' Create an object for the META tag.
       Set objMetaTag = .ActiveDocument.all.tags("meta").Item(strMetaName)
       ' Set the tag's value.
       objMetaTag.content = strMetaContent
       ' If there is an error.
       If Err.Number > 0 Then
         ' Get an object for the document HEAD section.
         Set objHtmlTag = .ActiveDocument.all.tags("HEAD").Item(0)
         ' Add the META tag.
         Call objHtmlTag.insertAdjacentHTML("BeforeEnd", "<meta name=""" & _
           strMetaName & """ content=""" & strMetaContent & """>" & vbCrLf)
       End If
     End With
     
   End Sub
   
   Private Function BuildFolderUrlTree() As Variant
     On Error Resume Next
     
     ' Declare all variables.
     Dim objWebFolder As WebFolder
     Dim objFolder As WebFolder
     Dim objSubFolder As WebFolder
     Dim strBaseFolder As String
     Dim lngFolderCount As Long
     Dim lngBaseCount As Long
        
     With Application
     
       ' Check the caption of the application to see if a Web is open.
       If .ActiveWebWindow.Caption = "Microsoft FrontPage" Then
         ' If no Web is open, display an informational message.
         MsgBox "Please open a Web before running this function.", vbCritical
         ' End the macro.
         Exit Function
       End If
     
       ' Change the Web view to Folder view.
       .ActiveWeb.ActiveWebWindow.ViewMode = fpWebViewFolders
       ' Refresh the Web view and recalculate the Web.
       .ActiveWeb.Refresh
       
       ' Define the initial values for the folder counters.
       lngFolderCount = 1
       lngBaseCount = 0
     
       ' Dimension an array to hold the folder names.
       ReDim strFolders(1) As Variant
     
       ' Get the URL of the root folder for the Web.
       strBaseFolder = .ActiveWeb.RootFolder.Url
       ' Store the URL in the array.
       strFolders(1) = strBaseFolder
       
       ' Loop while there are folders to process.
       While lngFolderCount <> lngBaseCount
         ' Set up a WebFolder object to a base folder.
         Set objFolder = .ActiveWeb.LocateFolder(strBaseFolder)
         ' Loop through the collection of subfolders for the base folder.
         For Each objSubFolder In objFolder.Folders
           ' Make sure that the subfolder is not a Web.
           If objSubFolder.IsWeb = False Then
             ' Increment the folder count.
             lngFolderCount = lngFolderCount + 1
             ' Increase the array size.
             ReDim Preserve strFolders(lngFolderCount)
             ' Store the folder name in the array.
             strFolders(lngFolderCount) = objSubFolder.Url
           End If
         Next
         ' Increment the base folder counter.
         lngBaseCount = lngBaseCount + 1
         ' Get the name of the next folder to process.
         strBaseFolder = strFolders(lngBaseCount + 1)
       Wend
     End With
   
     ' Return the array of folder names.
     BuildFolderUrlTree = strFolders
   
   End Function
   					

4. On the File menu, click Save.
5. On the File menu, click Close and Return to Microsoft FrontPage.

Step 3 - Run the Sample Macro in FrontPage

Before you run the following Visual Basic macro, open a Web. To run the sample macro, follow these steps:

1. In FrontPage, open your Web.
2. On the Tools menu, point to Macro, and then click Macros.
3. In the Macro name list, click SetAllMetaTags, and then click Run.
4. When the macro is finished, a message telling you that the macro is finished appears.