Customer Reviews

Foundations of Microsoft Expression Web: The Basics and Beyond

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I strongly recommend this book for these reasons:

- it is practical, it covers what you need to know to implement an effective personal or business web site

- it emphasizes standards like CSS and cross browser support while letting you know about gotchas with some browser implementations

- it covers important topics like accessibility and legal issues

- there are real world examples and exercises

- lots of screenshots

- the writing is clear and concise

- it covers how to design an engaging web site, not just how to use the tools that EW offers

- there is an accompanying course by the author to complement the book at starttoweb.com

- the author has extensive real world experience implementing web sites

- the author is a Microsoft MVP for Expression (see microsoft.com/mvp) and has helped for many years in the FrontPage and Expression communities; this means that she knows the common issues that people face designing web sites and many of the more obscure ones too

It is not a comprehensive reference book. It is a practical book for those who want to get started with EW quickly but not end up with a poorly designed web site that is not cross browser friendly nor standards compliant.

Here is an overview of the chapters:

1 Before You Begin: Objectives / Attracting visitors / Choosing domain names and hosting / Installing EW

2 Taking Your First Steps: Create a local web site / EW menus

3 Starting Off Right: Configuring EW, Using the Tools General / Reports/ Optimze HTML / Management / Preferences /Site Menu / Remote Web site reports / Recalculate Hyperlinks/ Site Settings

4 Using Semantic, Structured HTML to Create Web Pages / Required Elements Structuring Your Web Page / Lists / Tables / Other HTML Elements from the Drop-Down List / Hyperlinks / The Importance of Hidden Elements

5 Essential CSS: What You Need to Know / What Is CSS? / Why Use Stylesheets? / Details of of essential CSS are covered

6 Using Expression Web to Create Basic CSS / Creating New Styles / Using the Block Category / Setting the Background / Creating a Border / Creating a Box / Creating Tables

7 CSS Positioning Using Expression Web Style Tools / Creating the Initial Page / Working with the Positioning Category / Working with the Layout Category / Lists / Building a Page Layout

8 Branding Your Website: Choosing a Color Scheme / Complementary Color Schemes / Analogous Color Schemes / Monochromatic Color Schemes / Choosing Images for Your Site Graphics / Photos / Stock Photos / Image Formats / Adding Images to Your Web Pages / Establishing Your Look and Feel / Maintaining Your Branding Throughout Your Site

9 Dynamic Web Templates: DWT Overview / What Does a DWT Do? / Creating the DWT / Adding Editable Regions / Attaching DWTs to Your Web Pages / Attaching a DWT to an Existing Page / Preparing an Existing Page for a DWT / Applying a DWT to a Page with Content / Moving Content Between Editable Regions After the Template Has Been Applied / Editing a DWT / Detaching a Page from a DWT / Changing the Attached DWT

10 Forms: Required Elements for a Form / Processing Forms / Setting Form Properties / ASP Send with CDO / PHP Send Mail / ASP.NET 2.0 Form Controls

11 Legal and Usability Issues: Legal Issues / Accessibility / Copyright / Privacy / Licensing / Usability / Usability Testing / Where Can You Find Testers? / Using Expression Reports / Hyperlink Reports / Site Reports

12 Master Pages: Creating a Master Page / Nesting Master Pages

13 Beyond the Basics in CSS and Scripting: Alternative Stylesheet Types / Applying Different Media Types / Print Stylesheets / Validating your Forms / ASP.NET Form Validation Controls / ASP.NET Validation Controls Tag Properties / HTML Forms Validation / Password Protecting a Folder / Creating a web.config File

APPENDIX: Extending Expression Web with Add-Ons / Adding PayPal Buttons / Adding Form Tools / Keyboard Shortcuts

This book does a good job teaching newbies how to use Expression Web. If you go through the book slowly, following all examples, and doing all the training exercises, you'll learn how to work with Expression Web to build web pages. But what I also encountered with the book was so many typo's and errors, that it was sometimes difficult to know (for example) where there should be a space in a line of code and where there shouldn't or whether I should be using "box" or "border" which made the learning curve longer than it should have been. Since this book teaches a code language (html/xhtml) that must be written JUST SO, I find it difficult to accept that the authors would let so many errors slip by. Shame on their proof readers.

Frankly, this is a disappointing product. It does have numerous typos, as other reviewers have noted (confusing a backslash with a "normal" slash on page 126, telling us to double-click an entry on page 117 when a single-click is required, are two typical examples). However, the biggest shortfalls are its lack of explaining the foundations clearly, and its important omissions. The book tends to "explain" by just showing us the underlying code, which only minimally helps us to understand. We are not told how to import an existing Web site, or how to handle frames, just two important topics not dealt with here. Jim Cheshire's "Using Microsoft Expression Web" is far better, both in its clarity of explanations, and in its completeness.

Absolutely do not waste your money on this book. Now, this lady is supposed to teach you how to design websites with this book. Then when you try to down load the excercises on her website the links don't work, or some of the excercises aren't in the right file. Most of the links are dead and then the contact link doesn't work. And she is supposed to be a professional site designer. Please! This book sucks. This book does nothing but have you reading code which is fine if you want to write code. The purpose of expression web is to cut down on writing html. If you are going to think about buying this book do yourself a favor and just flush your money down the toilet it'll save you a headache. After having to skip chapter 3 and 5 because of non working excercise links and not wanting to waste time "writing" the exercises using the tedious code I gave up and will keep searching for a decent book on expression

Do you want to be organised? Do you want your web to work right from the get go?

Then put yourself safely in the hands of Cheryl Wise and let her guide you through the mire of making a website.

The author starts off her book by gently explaining how to get to grips with making a start, for anyone who has ever attempted for the first time to make a site they will appreciate the firm guidance the author gives throughout this book.

Weather you have a personal or a business site, this book holds your hand and teaches you step by step how to go about making the site, building it up and maintaining it, all with logical calm steps.

There is nothing worse in a book than not understanding how to proceed to the next step and this Expression Web book sweeps all the worry away. I usually ignore the first part of a book that explains how to get started (you have too, don't deny it :) as boring, but this book gives you an exciting hold on your dreams of creating exactly what you want, and the intro should not be missed. I can be unorganised as the next person and this book keeps one in step so that the site builds logically and helps one understand what one should be doing next, you can't build a house from the roof down, and the same applies to a site.

Cheryl gives you little insights and tips that only someone who knows her product inside out can give you, well worth the price for that alone.

Other reviews here have covered what chapters are available so I won't go over that again, but suffice to say, setting up expression web is the most important chapter and one not to be missed.

Anyone can write a book about USING Expression Web but because Cheryl understands how html and CSS work and how it works together, she gives insights into using EW in the best way possible, and you find yourself learning html and css by default as you work, which is the best possible start for any would be web creator.

This book actually covers questions that one has to go ask in a list or forum, Cheryl is used to answering questions and covers a lot of the type she normally is asked here within the book, how's that for saving time? How much time? Years... I would have given my eye teeth to have got my hands on a book like this when I first started out with my little homepage sites about nothing in particular, learning bit by bit is a slow and painful process, but by the end of this book you have had an education handed to you on a plate, the price of the book is nothing compared to the information in it which is priceless. Having gone through the slow process and having had the experiance of answering questions myself I see how this book works for the people new to web design and new to Expression, while holding the hand of a FrontPage to Expression Web refugee if all they have known are FrontPage Bots.

[...]

This book is not only helpful in improving my facility in using Expression Web, but it is a great refresher on the basics of how a web site SHOULD be designed. I'm finding nuggets of USEFUL information on every page. I recommend it highly.

This is a fantastic book for anyone looking at creating their own website using Microsoft's latest web design application called Expression Web. Expression Web is setting itself up to rival the biggest players in the web design business (like Dreamweaver) and having this book will bring you up to speed in a short period of time.

The reason I like this book is its not the typical 'this is how you use this application' type of book. This book teaches you the proper way to create a website using current and established technologies. What this means for a beginner is not only to you learn Expression Web but you are also getting a strong foundation on building websites. This is important as you grow and gives you knowledge that can be carried to other design applications.

This is the book that I will be recommending to my clients who want a better understanding of their website's workings and how they can get involved with their design (which I often get requests for as they want to avoid a CMS solution).

Cheryl does not waste any time in getting right to the point in this easy to read book that is well done in thought and layout. (Minus the spelling errors that tend float around)

Cheryl lays out what you need for your web design clearly, how to find what your looking for, clear examples of how to put them together including extra goodies such as using PayPal and then finally putting the entire Web Design together and publishing your Web site.

Cheryl uses a good number of screen shots to show clear examples of exactly what she is showing in her book. I found these to be very useful in going over her well thought out book. She also address legal and usability issues which are often overlooked by many new web designers and shows somes of Cheryls years of experience as a Microsoft MVP coming to excellent use.

Last Cheryl does a excellent job of diving into the world of CSS and beyound and helped me out greatly as much of that was a bit of a mystery world and she makes it seem rather simple with her clear and concise explanation.

I would say this is a "must have" for anyone just getting into Microsoft's Expression Web, good for first time user or someone that has done some web design and is in need of a little brushing up. Cheryl has some great idea's that are easy to follow

I have used Front Page to build numerous Web sites but found this book incomprehensible, poorly organized and difficult to use. Although it is touted as providing "the basics and beyond", it gets mired in details without providing the context needed to understand them. I hope the next version will start with an overview of what the program can do, how it works, and the ways in which is is like and unlike Front Page, its predecessor. If you're not a designer with a sophisticated understanding of Web design terminology and how sites are constructed, I'd strongly suggest starting elsewhere.

It's true that the tech editting was a bit below expectations (as mentioned in other reviews), but this is a bleeding edge book and I've come to exect that.

What you get here, however, is not watered-down or rushed content: this book has exhaustive coverage of Expression Web. Cheryl is extremely good at presenting complex material in an easy-to-understand manner.