Using view source in IE to discover how certain layouts and effects were done and trying to replicate it on Notepad... and then downloading Dreamweaver because you were a n00b and needed that WYSIWYG goodness.
That's ironically still the easiest way to go for HTML emails as the output is almost guaranteed to display well across various email clients that don't implement CSS properly (Outlook).
IIRC Outlook[1] just uses the Word engine internally, so it's going to share the same quirks.
(I also seem to remember that Internet Explorer's Trident engine started as a fork from Word, although that's presumably a bit less direct in the later versions).
[1] At least proper desktop Win32 Outlook, not the dozens of other things Microsoft have called Outlook.
FrontPage Express was what I used to build my first website. (personal project with friends) I learned so much about HTML simply because of the limitations in FrontPage Express.
I was a kid the last time I touched front page. Why did my simple site need front page extensions on the server? It was basically a static site. Finding a free web host with those extensions was near impossible.
> Why did my simple site need front page extensions on the server?
Frontpage could do FTP under ideal conditions.
> Finding a free web host with those extensions was near impossible.
Once upon a time I made a cgi version of the fpse protocol because Windows was so expensive to run, so it's a shame you didn't find it. The internet was smaller back then, but maybe not as small as I remember.
I implemented a few "webbot"s as cgi scripts instead of activex controls (like counter and search and even the 'Visual InterDev Navigation Bar' if you remember that). Dreamweaver never had anything like that - and cold fusion really was a bit further than most of my customers could handle on their own.
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
content="text/html; charset=iso-18859-1
<title FrontPage Configuration Information </title>
</head>
<body>
<!-- _vti_inf.html version 0.100>
<!--
This file contains important information used by the FrontPage client
(the FrontPage Explorer and FrontPage Editor) to communicate with the
FrontPage server extensions installed on this web server.
The values below are automatically set by FrontPage at installation.
Normally, you do not need to modify these values, but in case
you do, the parameters are as follows:
'FPShtmlScriptUrl', 'FPAuthorScriptUrl', and 'FPAdminScriptUrl' specify
the relative urls for the scripts that FrontPage uses for remote
authoring. These values should not be changed.
'FPVersion' identifies the version of the FrontPage Server Extentions
installed, and should not be changed.
--><!-- FrontPage Configuration Information
FPVersion="4.0.2.2717"
FPShtmlScriptUrl="_vti_bin/shtml.exe/_vti_rpc"
FPAuthorScriptUrl="_vti_bin/_vti_aut/author.exe"
FPAdminScriptUrl="_vti_bin/_vti_adm/admin.exe"
-->
<p><!--webbot bot="PurpleText"
preview="This page is placed into the root directory of your FrontPage web when FrontPage is installed. It contains information used by the FrontPage client to communicate with the FrontPage server extentions installed on this web server. You should not delete this file."
--></p>
<h1>FrontPage Configuration Information</h1>
<p>In the HTML comments, this page contains configuration information
that the FrontPage Explorer and FrontPage Editor need to communicate with
the FrontPage server extentions installed on this web server. In short,
do not delete this page.</p>
</body>
</html>