Special Edition Using Microsoft Expression Web - Softcover

Cheshire, Jim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0789736055 ISBN 13: 9780789736055

Publisher: Que Pub, 2007

Synopsis

Special Edition Using Microsoft Expression Web

 

We crafted this book to grow with you, providing the reference material you need as you move toward Expression Web proficiency and use of more advanced features. If you buy only one book on Expression Web, Special Edition Using Microsoft Expression Web is the only book you need.

 

• Create standards-compliant websites with Expression Web that will work consistently in all browsers.
• Become proficient in the use of CSS by learning how to use the powerful CSS tools in Expression Web.
• Learn how to take advantage of ASP.NET without the need to write any code.
• Learn how to use Expression Web with the free Visual Web Developer Express Edition to develop robust ASP.NET applications.
• Add dynamic, interactive content with Behaviors and Layers.
• Design your website for accessibility using both Section 508 and WCAG compliance.

 

 

Category Web Development

Covers    Microsoft Expression Web

User Level    Intermediate—Advanced

 

“There’s definitely more to this book than just how to use Expression Web. The chapter on tag properties not only clearly explains Expression Web’s Tag Properties task pane, but it also alleviates some of the mystery behind the use of tags in HTML. This is a great book for all users of Expression Web!”

—Detra Newhouse, Readiness Lead,

Microsoft Corporation

 

Jim Cheshire is the owner of Jimco Software, the most well-known source of freeware add-ins for Microsoft FrontPage, and is the author of Special Edition Using Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003. Jim has been featured in numerous publications including MSDN Magazine and PC Magazine.

Jim previously worked on the FrontPage team at Microsoft and is currently an Escalation Engineer on the ASP.NET and IIS teams.

 

     On the CD-ROM

• Sample files from the author
• FREE! full version of Logo Creator (retail value of $39.95)
• FREE! full version of DHTML Menu Builder Lite (retail value of $25)
• Electronic version of this book in Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF)

 

 

Introduction xxix

Part I An Overview

Chapter 1 A Tour of Expression Web 3

Part II Web Sites in Expression Web

Chapter 2 Creating a Web Site                  25

Chapter 3 Importing a Web Site           41

Chapter 4 Web Site Management and Reporting    67

Chapter 5 Publishing a Web Site            83

Chapter 6 Using Personal Web Packages              93

Part III Creating and Editing Web Content

Chapter 7 Creating Pages and Content               103

Chapter 8 Using Web Page Views      127

Chapter 9 Using Tables and Layout Tables             149

Chapter 10 Using Frames     179

Chapter 11 Using Forms Controls           195

Chapter 12 Editing Tag Properties          215

Chapter 13 Using the Quick Tag Tools                        227

Chapter 14 Using Graphics and Multimedia             241

Chapter 15 Configuring Page Editor Options          257

16 Using Find and Replace                            271

Part IV Using CSS in Expression Web

Chapter 17 Creating Style Sheets       289

Chapter 18 Managing CSS Styles           311

Part V Optimizing Your Web Site         

Chapter 19 Accessibility Features in Expression Web          339

Chapter 20 Designing for Compatibility                       349

Part VI Scripting, DHTML, and Other Dynamic Content

Chapter 21 Using Dynamic Web Templates        363

Chapter 22 Using Interactive Buttons 381

Chapter 23 Using Behaviors               393

Chapter 24 Using Client Scripting        415

Chapter 25 Using Layers    439

Chapter 26 Creating VBA Macros       455

Part VII ASP.NET Development in Expression Web

Chapter 27 Using the ASP.NET Development Server         485

Chapter 28 Using Standard ASP.NET Controls   495

Chapter 29 Using ASP.NET Navigation Controls 527

Chapter 30 Using ASP.NET Master Pages          549

Chapter 31 Developing a Login System Using ASP.NET     569

Chapter 32 Implementing Form Validation Using ASP.NET  595

Chapter 33 Using ASP.NET Web Parts                607

Part VIII Accessing Data in Expression Web

Chapter 34 Primer on Data Access Technologies           629

Chapter 35 Accessing Data with ASP.NET 2.0          635

Part IX Appendices

A Using Expression Web with Visual Web Developer Express Edition  655

B Taking Advantage of E-Commerce      677

C The Future of Web Development        685

D Resources on Expression Web, Web Design, and ASP.NET                    695

Index       699

About this title

About the Author

Jim Cheshire is best known as the owner of Jimco, the most popular producer of freeware add-ins for Microsoft FrontPage. Jim is also the author of Special Edition Using Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003, the highest-rated book on FrontPage 2003.

 

In his real job, Jim works as an Escalation Engineer at Microsoft on the ASP.NET team. He has worked on the FrontPage, Visual Basic, ASP, IIS, and ASP.NET teams at Microsoft over the last 8 years.

 

You can reach Jim by visiting one of his Web sites, www.jimcobooks.com or www.jimcosoftware.com. You can also e-mail him at jcheshire@jimcobooks.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Who Should Read This Book?

Expression Web is an exciting new Web development product and there are going to be plenty of authors writing about it. That puts readers in a tight spot when trying to figure out which book to purchase to learn how to use Expression Web to its fullest. Let me tell you who should be reading this book. If you find that you fall into the category, then this is the book for you.

I'm a tech addict. As such, I have read plenty of technical books, and I find many of them to be frustratingly light on any meaningful content. In fact, most of them are just complex rewrites of the documentation that ships with the product. I get the documentation with the product, and I'd rather not pay for it again from a third party. Instead, I want a book that tells me what the documentation doesn't tell me.

That's exactly what this book will do. It will show you how to use the features in Expression Web for real-world Web design. I'll give you pointers on how to effectively use several features together to achieve a common goal. I'll give you a strong foundation in the technologies involved (for example, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Extensible Hyper-Text Markup Language (XHTML), ASP.NET, and more) so you aren't working in a vacuum.

The goal of this book is to equip you to be a better Web designer using Expression Web as one of the tools in your arsenal. If that sounds like something you're interested in, keep reading!

Rest in Peace, FrontPage

Let me start by saying that Expression Web should not be considered the next version of FrontPage, but neither is it a new application built from the ground up. Instead, it's a mixture of some of the best elements from FrontPage and entirely new features that address just about every complaint FrontPage users have voiced over the years.

Many Web designers have remained loyal to FrontPage over the years despite its shortcomings. There are forums and Web sites dedicated to teaching Web designers how to work around the issues encountered by FrontPage users.

Note - I'm well aware of the problems FrontPage users encountered. I started Jimco Software in 1998 so I could distribute add-ins to work around some of the shortcomings in FrontPage.

When Microsoft designed Expression Web, one of the primary goals was to deliver a Web design tool that allows Web developers to create standards-compliant Web sites. If you followed the marketing hype that Microsoft issued prior to Expression Web's release, you no doubt heard plenty of talk about this. I'm happy to say that Expression Web lives up to the hype and makes FrontPage completely obsolete.

As you'll see throughout this book, Expression Web marks a significant improvement in Web design tools. It stands poised to draw in users from all the other professional-level tools while still maintaining the ease of use for which FrontPage is so well-known.

The Need for Expression Web

As soon as Microsoft opened a public forum for the discussion of Expression Web, people started asking why Microsoft needed a new Web development tool. After all, FrontPage (the legacy Web design tool from Microsoft) had spent the better part of a decade building up a committed user base. Why did we need a new product?

Ask any professional developer who's ever used FrontPage, and he or she will tell you exactly why. Microsoft desperately needed a Web design tool that would adhere to current Web standards, and they needed a Web design tool that would make creating and maintaining a standards-driven Web site easy. Not only that, but they needed a Web design tool created from the ground up to support ASP.NET 2.0 from a designer's perspective. Expression Web meets all of those needs.

You'll not only be able to create dynamic, standards-compliant Web sites with Expression Web, but you'll be able to do so in a way that allows you to take advantage of your creativity. The tool won't drag you down with complex dialogs and frustrating code changes. After using Expression Web for a while, you'll never consider going back to your previous Web design tool.

A Comparison Grid

Here's a short comparison grid that shows how Expression Web (EW) compares to FrontPage (FP) 2003:

Feature	FP 2003	EW
Produces XHTML 1.0/1.1 compliant code	No	Yes
Produces HTML 4.01 compliant code	No	Yes
Has full ASP.NET 2.0 support	No	Yes
Has full CSS 1.0/2.0/2.1 support	No	Yes
Is a standards-based designer	No (IE-based)	Yes
Relies on FrontPage Server Extensions	Yes	No
Has powerful XML/XSL support	No	Yes
Has a built-in Web server	No	Yes
Generates Section 508 compliant code	No	Yes

How This Book Is Organized

This book is broken up into multiple sections so you can quickly find the information you need. Here is the rundown on all the sections:

• Part 1, "An Overview"—Part 1 comprises an overview of Expression Web and discusses how it compares to Microsoft's legacy Web design application, FrontPage. You'll receive a complete tour of the Expression Web feature set, along with some tips and tricks on using the interface.
• Part 2, "Web Sites in Expression Web"—The chapters in this section teach you how to work with Web sites in Expression Web. You'll learn about creating sites, publishing sites, managing sites, and working with other site-related features.
• Part 3, "Creating and Editing Web Content"—In this section, you'll learn how to create Web pages and add content to them. I'll not only talk about adding and formatting text, but also about how to add graphics and dynamic content. Finally, this section will cover the details of how to take advantage of some of the great productivity features in Expression Web.
• Part 4, "Using CSS in Expression Web"—Instead of including CSS as an afterthought, I've dedicated two complete chapters to using this important design concept. You'll learn not only the details of CSS in general, but you'll also learn how to use the powerful CSS tools in Expression Web.
• Part 5, "Optimizing Your Web Site"—A good Web designer doesn't just slap pages together. It's important to make your site work well in all the major browsers, and it's also important to pay attention to accessibility issues. You'll learn about both in this section.
• Part 6, "Scripting, DHTML, and Other Dynamic Content"—In this section, you'll learn tricks to differentiate your Web site from the status quo. You'll learn how to add dynamic components automatically in Expression Web. You'll also learn how to read and write client-side JavaScript so you can understand what goes on under the covers when Expression Web adds code to your page.
• Part 7, "ASP.NET Development in Expression Web"—Expression Web fully supports Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0. In this section, you'll find out what ASP.NET 2.0 gives you as a Web designer and you'll learn how to use Expression Web to create some pretty powerful site features, all without writing any code at all.
• Part 8, "Accessing Data in Expression Web"—Connecting a Web site to external data has become commonplace. In this section, you'll discover how to easily design a data-driven Web site with ASP.NET and Expression Web.

I've also included four appendices that cover the topics that Web designers are really begging for in the Web design community. These appendices will cover specific topics such as creating and debugging ASP.NET applications, combining Expression Web with Microsoft's free Visual Web Developer Express Edition, and using Expression Web to make money on the Web with e-commerce solutions.

• Appendix A, "Using Expression Web with Visual Web Developer Express Edition"
• Appendix B, "Taking Advantage of E-Commerce"
• Appendix C, "The Future of Web Development"
• Appendix D, "Resources on Expression Web, Web Design, and ASP.NET"

Special Elements

Throughout the book, you'll find some special elements that are designed to make it easy to locate important information or special tips to help you get the most out of Expression Web.

When an important term is used for the first time, it will be printed in italics and defined close by. When instructions require you to enter text or values into a dialog, the data you are to enter will appear bolded. Finally, for those of you who find it faster to work without a mouse, hotkey indicators will be given for all menu commands. Simply press Alt and the underlined character.

Cross-References

Nothing's worse than a technical book that assumes you will read it from beginning to end like a novel. Most folks use technical books like reference materials, so this book makes generous use of cross-references.

If a feature is mentioned that is covered elsewhere in the book, it will have a cross-reference, directing you to where you can find details on that topic.

Notes, Tips, Cautions, and Sidebars

You'll find numerous bits of information in these special elements.

Note - Notes will include additional tech...

Edition details

• Publisher: Que Pub
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0789736055
• ISBN 13: 9780789736055
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 720