Course Description

Expression Web is a new standards-based web site editor from Microsoft for building and enhancing web sites with design elements such as cascading style sheets, personalized task panes and compatibility with non-Microsoft web browsers like Firefox. Expression Web features ASP.NET 2.0-based technology, extensive CSS formatting and management, rich data presentation, standards-based web sites, and sophisticated CSS-based layouts. It is intended as a replacement for FrontPage. The fully functioning free trial version will expire 60 days after installation. Users of FrontPage can upgrade to Expression Web for $99.00. This is a 6 week, self-paced, online course. If you need additional help understanding the material presented, you can communicate with the instructor and fellow classmates. The instructor will monitor and track your progress throughout the class. LVS Online offers many wonderful learning tools to help you get the most out of your online course, including an online portfolio service that manages all your course registrations, certificate of completion option, a class discussion board to interact with your instructor and fellow classmates, free hosting account, and a student upload area. LVS is a Corel Training Partner. LVS students may purchase Corel products at a significant savings. Follow this link for details. LVS students are eligible to receive software and hardware at a discount. Follow this link for details. Students are also eligible take advantage of special offers made available specifically for LVS by famous software developers such as Andromeda, AV Bros, Extensis, Harry Heim, namesuppressed, Nik Multimedia, and Ulead. Details are provided in the classinfo link found in the confirmation of registration. Show off your LVS Online spirit with an item from the LVS Store If you would like to receive more information regarding this course, click on the "Contact Us" link in the Information section and we'll try to answer any of your questions within the day.

Course Requirements

Microsoft Expression Web. The fully functioning free trial version will expire 60 days after installation. Users of FrontPage can upgrade to Expression Web for $99.00. Homework must be reviewed by the instructor in order to earn a certificate. Students have the option of using the Student Upload Area or free web hosting made available for LVS students. Details are provided in the classroom. If you prefer to use your own web space, you must know how to upload your files to a server. Free tutorials are available: Basic HTML page WS_FTP SmartFTP Students should have working knowledge of their operating system and must understand directories and paths: Free Windows Class Here Directory Structure Tutorial Here Zip files may be necessary to complete the exercises provided each week. WinZip, PKZip, Windows Compression or similar program is required to unzip these files. Winzip Tutorial Here Windows Compression All lessons are available in PDF format. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view/print the lessons. Plan to devote 3 - 4 hours per week on the lesson and assignment.

Course Prerequisites

This is an introductory course to the Expression Web software and assumes at least some basic HTML/XHTML knowledge. Knowledge of HTML is very helpful. Sometimes you may need to troubleshoot something doesn't work, or change it altogether, and being able to read and understand code will be crucial. If you don't have HTML knowledge, enroll in the Build Your Website Level I course first!

Course Syllabus

Lesson 1 The W3C Getting Started The Interface Local Web Site Location Create your web site Document Type Definitions (DTDs) Opening and Closing Web Sites File Names Web Page Structure Character formatting Lesson 2 The Task Panes Style Sheets Character formatting continued Paragraphs, Breaks, Horizontal Rules Lists Symbols and Escape Codes Lesson 3 Paths Hyperlinks Images Image maps Lesson 4 Tables Forms META tags Publishing your site Lesson 5 Expression Web's Templates Quick Tag Tools Expression Webs Predesigned CSS Layouts Lesson 6 Dynamic Web Templates Creating Interactive Buttons Web Site Management

Course Excerpt

LESSON 1 If you're familiar with FrontPage, you'll find many familiar things here in Expression Web, but you'll also find a lot has changed. With each version the program gets better and they seem to be working out the kinks. I'm still not a big Microsoft fan, but I've been using this program since FrontPage98 (which, BTW, was a dog to work with), so it's been nice to follow the evolution first hand. The code you'll be writing is now W3C compliant. The W3C The what???? Well, that is the World Wide Web Consortium (http://www.w3.org) - the governing body that creates web standards and the ones that browsers are (supposed) to follow. Its aim is to convince the web community that universality is important but without taking away your ability to create beautiful looking pages. This is not an easy task, but they are doing a better and better job at achieving that goal. Visit the site and snoop around. See what it's all about and learn something at the same time. Getting Started The first time you start Expression Web, you'll have to set the program up. The dialogs you see may vary depending on whether you're a new user to the Microsoft editors or whether you've upgraded from a previous version. There are several possible variations of dialogs you could encounter. Here are a few of them and what they mean: You could be prompted to enter your name and initials. Expression Web uses these details to identify the Web sites and pages you create and modify. This is more important if you're working on a team so the project manager knows which pages were created by the different members of the team. A message box will prompt you to make Expression Web the default Web page editor for HTML documents. If this is what you want, click the Yes button. I would suggest you do this. It will make life easier in the long run. The dark side of saying NO to this message is that you will be pestered every time you start the program. You can turn it off this annoying reminder by deselecting the Always Perform This Check When Starting Expression Web option. Best to say YES. The Privacy Options dialog box appears, prompting you to select options for tracking how Expression Web performs on your system and reporting information back to Microsoft. If you want to share your information with Microsoft, then allow this. The Expression Web development team uses this information to make future versions of Expression Web better. Just an FYI – I have this turned off. A dialog box appears, prompting you to sign up for the Microsoft Update service. This service offers automatic updates for Expression Web and other Microsoft programs installed on your system. Another one that you have to decide about. Mine is off because I'd rather download and install those updates I want and not those Microsoft wants. My decision, as it is yours. The Interface So, let's get started by looking at the interface. Remember this is the default view and, like other programs, you can customize the interface to suit what works best for you. Check the diagram and go to your Expression Web workspace, since this is too small an image to see things clearly. It'll make it easier for you to see what I'm saying. Continued... Please note: Lessons provide step-by-step instructions with detailed screen captures.

Course Goals

Upon completion of this class you will have gained knowledge and use of the Expression Web program.

Course Reviews

Ruby: “Donna was great about making sure everyone understood each lesson and the lessons were more in depth than I expected.” More...