63 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Starter Book on Web Expression, January 30, 2007
This review is from: Microsoft Expression Web (Paperback)
Microsoft Expression Web is the new Microsoft web development tool that replaces Microsoft FrontPage. It is part of the new Microsoft Expression tools (Expressions Blend, Expression Design, and Expression Media) that basically in my opinion are set to compete with the tools by Adobe/Macromedia.
Expression Web has a totally new interface and even though it is similar to FrontPage, it really does look totally different at first glance. This a great book for users who were already comfortable with using Microsoft FrontPage or new users who want to know the basics of using this new tool.
At the beginning of the book the author goes through the main interface explaining the basic environment and all the different panes (windows), toolbars, and buttons. Basic functionality such as creating a blank website, how to save your files (locally and online), replacing content in template-based sites, deleing and adding pages, importing a website, and how to create the various types of web pages (.html, .css, .js, .aspx, .xml) is covered in the first 3 chapters. The book has lots of screenshots to help you along using the tool and everything is shown and explained in great detail.
The middle of the book covers how to enter text, select and past text on a page, indenting paragraphs, creating and formatting lists (unordered, ordered, definition), how to use spell check, adding, aligning, positioning images on a page, cropping, resizing, and setting an images transparency as well as create hyperlinks with text and images (hot spots too!). After these chapters (4- 6), you should have the basics down have been able to create your basic pages and format your content.
Toward the end of the end of the book (7 and 8) cover how to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) in great detail for such a short book. Chapter 7 shows you from the beginning how to create a basic style with the CSS Tools Expression Web provides to you. I like that the book first explains in a couple pages what CSS is and how the "cascade" of CSS works so the newbie will understand it later on when they develop more complex pages. The author further goes into CSS by telling the reader how to format specific styles for use with hyperlinks, tables, lists and basic block elements (, <div>, <h1-6>). Also covered in the chapter are creating classes and div to identify block of text you want to format as a group which is very important in any web design.
Expression Web has behaviors (we know where Microsoft took that right?), which are small built-in JavaScript code snippets that you can apply to any element on your page. You can easily create mouse-over image effects, dynamic menus (jump menus), opening new windows, dynamic buttons, etc. This is a great addition to the new tool that FrontPage did not have internally.
The final two chapters (10 and 11), the author reviews how to create simple to complex nested tables using the table tools to visually create any type of table you want. This new table tool is a mix of how FrontPage allowed you to create tables and a little better visual representation of (drawing layers) the table layout of how Dreamweaver does it. The book goes through every step of adding a table, editing an existing table, modifying its attributes (border, cell padding and spacing, position, alignment, etc.). The final chapter on forms shows you how to add a form (s) to your web page and add any type of form input element (textbox, radio button, dropdown, text-area, etc.) as well as giving you ideas on using extensions (or add-ins) to create validation for form elements and server-side scripts to parse the form data (very brief on that).
Sorry, I forgot the actual last chapter (12), covers how to publish your site to various types of web hosts...can forget that part!
This is a great book for the money that I highly recommend to get you started using Microsoft Expression Web or gives the Microsoft FrontPage users a quick refresher on how to use this new improved tool.
Well done.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great introductory book., March 24, 2007
This review is from: Microsoft Expression Web (Paperback)
I'm the kind of person who usually just dives into the software and buys computer books for reference. Not the best way, but I do usually learn what I (think) I need to know. Problem is, I often miss the best ways to do things or even features that would help. I blame it on a time crunch caused by to too many intersts.
I decided to approach web design and EW differently. I'm an occasional web hobbyist. VERY occasional. The sites I've created are fairly crude, but do the job. Haven't changed my main site's look in 6 years. So much garbage has built up in my folders, it's time to start over.
This book is a great primer. Can be read cover-to-cover in a few hours and it's a great overview of EW, navigating the program and learning it's capabilities.
I now have a grasp of CSS, Styles and other topics that have been floating around the fringes of my brain.
Highly recommended for anyone new to web design. This book will get you up and running in short order.
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