This publication was meant to enhance a web site, www.fortsaskinfo.com, which I own. My vision for this website is to be the definitve information source for our city of 12,500 people located near our provincial capital of Edmonton.
What I didn't appreciate at the time, was how much of my effort would be required on a regular basis to maintain this [newspaper] site. It became apparent to me within weeks of starting that I had a major job on my hands. No matter how systemically I tried to work, I still had to put in 3-4 hours every Tuesday evening for publishing.
It was about that time, a couple of months later, that Jim Roepcke suggested that he'd like to try developing our online paper as a Frontier application. I knew how much work it was costing me and I didn't want to drag someone else into my predicament so I initially turned the offer down. Jim persisted, though, and he developed it. He also developed an interface with his own software, dynAuthor to allow me to interface with his MAC over the Web.
Right from the beginning, the Frontier application saved me 2 1/2 hours every publication day. That was good enough for me. At that point there were even some enhancements to the site like a Back Issues page with several of its own features. Jim, also included a headline table matrix to improve navigation. I manually published this version on one occassion and it took 5 hours.
Now, we publish our hometown paper on my own computer with Frontier for Windows every week in about 20 minutes. Most of that time is spent preparing the Weekely Calendar of Events and the photographs that accompany the articles. The lead story always has a photo.
Today, more than one year later, we haven't missed a publishing deadline yet.
Many Thanks Jim and Frontier
Signed
Brian MacKay
Webmaster
http://www.fortsaskinfo.com