Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Expression Web 2 in 24 Hours - Softcover

Randhendriksen, Morten

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0672330296 ISBN 13: 9780672330292

Publisher: Sams Publishing, 2008

Synopsis

In just 24 sessions of one hour or less, you’ll learn how to build flexible, easy-to-maintain, standards-based websites with Microsoft Expression Web 2. Using this book’s straightforward, step-by-step approach, you’ll master the entire process—from concept and design through delivery! Each lesson builds on what you’ve already learned, giving you a strong real-world foundation for success, no matter what kind of site you’re building!

 

Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common Expression Web 2 tasks.

 

Quizzes and Exercises at the end of each chapter help you test your knowledge.

 

By the Way notes present interesting information related to the discussion.

 

Did You Know? tips offer advice or show you easier ways to perform tasks.

 

Watch Out! cautions alert you to possible problems and give you advice on how to avoid them

 

Learn how to...

 

·        Build your first Expression website in just five minutes!

·        Import text from Microsoft Word and other software

·        Make the most of Expression Web 2’s advanced image-editing features

·        Create hyperlinks that simplify navigation, perform actions, and send commands

·        Write error-free code quickly and easily with Code View and IntelliSense

·        Use CSS to control your site’s appearance, create standards-based, cross-browser content, and simplify redesigns

·        Design site layouts that communicate more effectively

·        Use Dynamic Web Templates to consistently format (or reformat) hundreds of pages

·        Implement state-of-the-art interactivity with Behaviors

·        Add Silverlight, Flash, and other multimedia content

·        Build a web-based email form with FrontPage Server Extensions and PHP

·        Integrate web application code written in ASP.NET or PHP

 

Morten Rand-Hendriksen is a web designer, developer, programmer, and digital media expert based in Burnaby, B.C., Canada. He has operated Pink and Yellow Media since 2002, creating web and design solutions for small businesses and individuals. For his work with Expression Web, he was invited as a Canadian VIP to the MIX08 conference in Las Vegas and asked to present on Building Compelling Websites on the Microsoft Platform at Microsoft’s Innovation Briefing. He blogs on Expression Web at http://blog.pinkandyellow.com/.

 

Category: Web Development

Covers: Microsoft Expression Web 2

User Level: Beginning–Intermediate

About this title

About the Author:

Morten Rand-Hendriksen is the owner and creative director of Pink & Yellow Media, a design company that provides digital media creations for small businesses and television. Through the years he has had many different titles: photographer, studio musician, composer, politician, writer, jeweler, philosopher, artist, and university senate member. But it is in the role of a designer he feels truly at home (at least for the moment).

 

Morten started designing websites back in 1997, but it wasn’t until he moved to Canada in 2002 that he really started to focus on web design as a possible career (surprisingly there were few job listings for Norwegian philosophy majors in Vancouver at the time). Over the years he has worked with many different technologies, but after being introduced to Expression Web 2 he has shifted the focus of the web part of his business almost exclusively to the art of CSS and blog design. Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Expression Web 2 in 24 Hours is his first published book. You can also find his tutorials and other design-related musings on his blog at http://blog.pinkandyellow.com and in many different forums and newsgroups throughout the Web. If you have any questions relating to the book, you can contact Morten by writing to book@pinkandyellow.com.

 

 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Introduction

Introduction

About This Book

Because you have opened this book and started reading the introduction, I am assuming that you are interested in learning how to create websites using Microsoft's new and exciting web development application, Expression Web 2. If so, I congratulate you: By choosing this application as your platform, you are already well on your way to creating functional and well-designed sites based on web standards. In other words, unlike me, you are putting the proverbial horse before the cart and starting at the beginning rather than learning things the hard way.

Expression Web 2 is the second version (duh!) of a web design and development platform that sees Microsoft take a whole new approach to the concept of web standards. As a result, you now have an application that produces standards based websites right out of the box without requiring any tweaking or custom coding on your end. In fact, using Expression Web 2, you can create advanced standards-based websites with lots of fancy interactive features without ever writing a line of code. And with that the threshold for learning, understanding, and creating websites that look and behave the same across all browsers and platforms is lowered to a level anyone can manage.

When I started writing this book, I spent a lot of time thinking about you, the reader; more specifically how to ensure that after reading this book, you would walk away with not only an understanding of the application but also how to use it to get from an idea to a finalized product. The result of my ponderings was a website called MyKipple.com that showcases many of the basic and more advanced functions available in Expression Web 2. By following the tutorials in this book, you will build the MyKipple.com website from scratch and in the process learn how all the different elements come together and how to get the most out of the application. When you have finished the last hour and the site is complete, you will have both the tools and know-how to build your own websites using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and the many other functions that Expression Web 2 offers. You will also have a basic understanding of how the application deals with more advanced coding languages such as ASP.NET and PHP, and you'll even learn how to publish a simple Silverlight application.

Accompanying this book is a small web site that contains information about the book itself along with the lesson files for each hour and in time a Wiki or a forum for you the reader to get further information and showcase your work. The web site is located at http://expression.pinkandyellow.com.

Who Is This Book For?

I always ask people why they do what they do because it says volumes about the end result. Therefore it is only fair that I ask myself the same question and provide you with the answer. So, Morten, why did you write this book?

When I started building websites in the 1990s, I really had no clue what I was doing other than a vision of what I wanted to create. And when I looked around for help in the form of books or tutorials, I couldn't find anything that spoke to me. What was available was either too technical or too pointless. No matter where I looked, I could only find basic algorithms on how to perform simple tasks, never detailed explanations of how to get from point A to point B. As a result, I ended up teaching myself how to do things. Needless to say I learned the true meaning of the term "taking the long way around."

So, when I signed up to write this book, I had one main goal in mind: To write the book I was looking for and really needed when I started out—a book that took me all the way from a basic sketch on a napkin to a fully working website and taught me how to use the application at the same time.

As a result, this book is written with the novice designer in mind. No, let me rephrase that: As a result, this book is written in a way that a novice designer will understand and learn from. I make this distinction because even if you are a seasoned designer or developer, I am certain you will find lots of useful information inside these covers.

Being introduced to Expression Web 2 has had an enormous impact on my business because it reduced what used to take hours or days to only minutes. In particular I am talking about the application's excellent CSS features. More than just a design and development application, Expression Web 2 is a tool that helps you learn, understand, dissect, and modify style sheets with unprecedented speed and accuracy. Getting a firm grasp on these tools and understanding how to use them in real-world scenarios will almost certainly make your work with CSS more efficient and productive, regardless of whether this is the first time you've encountered the term style sheets or you are a seasoned professional with years of experience.

So, without further ado, I wish you a pleasant journey and hope you come out on the other side with the skills, understanding, and confidence to take on the wild and exciting world of web design.

Lykke til!

Morten Rand-Hendriksen, July 14, 2008

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sams Publishing
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0672330296
• ISBN 13: 9780672330292
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480