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The latest news from Webassist: Price Reduction on Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor for Expression Web to $49.99. Now is just the right time to get this Expression Web addon AND to register for our new Migrating from FrontPage to Expression Web Class which is half price for this first session. The next session will be full price. The eBook is included F*REE as part of the class as well as sample templates that were created with CSS Sculptor and tweaked in Expression Web.

If you don’t have time to take the class now at this discounted price, the eBook will be available for purchase separately.  Course members receive the eBook as part of the class and will be able to obtain ebook updates for free for the next year. Plus you will have the eBook to refer back too.

Related Posts:

Migrating from FrontPage to Expression Web

Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor for Expression Web

Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor for Expression Web is now available for the regular price of $49.99.

I have been using Expression Web since it first became available in Beta format. EW is the successor to Microsoft’s web editor FrontPage which is being discontinued. You can download a free trial from Microsoft’s site. Expression Web 2 gives you all the tools you need to produce high-quality, standards-based Web sites including a very good css editor. EW2 comes with a variety of css based layouts you can use to build your sites.

One of the first books I purchased when I started learning how to use cascading style sheets was Eric Meyer’s Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide.

Eric A. Meyer is an American web design consultant and author. He is best known for his advocacy work on behalf of web standards, most notably Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), a technique for managing how HTML is displayed. Meyer has written a number of books and articles on CSS and given many presentations promoting its use. ~from Wikipedia ~

WebAssist, a company known for its DreamWeaver Extensions, is now offering Expression Web Addons. An EW Addon is software you install on YOUR computer that will add functionality to Expression Web that is not available with the original product. Then came the announcement from WebAssist for a free trial of their newest addon, Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor for Expression Web. Eric Meyer is recognized as a leading authority on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Continue Reading »

Have you been using FrontPage to design your websites? Do you use themes, shared borders and the navigation bots along with any of the other bots available. When you look at the source code, do you see lots of font tags?

Would you like to move up to Expression Web which is Microsoft’s successor to FrontPage and have the ability to create standards compliant code? Perhaps you have already downloaded the trial or purchased the program and are now struggling to convert your site. Would you like to learn how to do this in the easiest possible way?

If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions then Migrating from FrontPage to Expression Web Class and Ebook is just what you are looking for.The class starts on August 30th for the special introductory price of $39.50. Your instructors will be  Tina Clarke Microsoft MVP - FrontPage and Pat Geary Microsoft MVP - FrontPage

Prerequisites for the class:

• Installed Expression Web 1.0 or 2.0 - Or you can download the 60 day trial version of EW 2.0 from the Microsoft Expression Web Site. Make sure that you obtain and use the registration key or your trial will end before the full trial period.
• Firefox with html tidy extension
• Backed up your Website twice (Instructions in the Ebook)
• Completed the Introductory Questionnaire

Prior Experience:

• A website made with FrontPage (any version) with a local copy on your hard drive to use in the class
• Have read and implemented either EW 1.0 or EW 2.0 Setting up Ebooks
• Chosen your template from one of those provided

The eBook Migrating from FrontPage to Expression Web is included as part of the class and does not require a separate purchase.

Coursework includes:

Cleanup Preparations

• Making a Cleanup Toolbar
• Making Regular Expressions Queries

Removal Preparations

• Check for redundant graphics
• Removing Themes
• Remove Shared borders and Nav bots
• Detach DWT if you are using them
• Replace/Insert doctypes
• Replace/Remove other bots
• Clean Tables

Pages Preparation

• Use Cleanup Toolbar
• Run Regular Expression Queries

Revising Pages

• Add Semantic Markup
• Add Metas
• Validate
• Attach DWT
• Add Include Menu
• Use Site Summary

Are you new to CSS? Confused about box models and how to create a CSS based page layout? This Introduction to CSS class is for you. You must be able to write or at least read HTML and familiar with the terms of web design to participate in this class.

Introduction to CSS is another class offered by Cheryl Wise at Start to Web and will begin August 30, 2008.

Prerequisite:

Any CSS or text editor (code view of many popular HTML editors qualifies) maybe used in this class but the ability to work directly in the code is required.

Prior Experience:

Must be able to write or at least read HTML and familiar with the terms of web design. Minimum experience the equivalent of “The Language of Web Design” short class.

Book:

The book for this class is Cascading Style Sheets Separating Content From Presentation. There will be reference to sections of this book that will help you better understand CSS during this class so you should order it in time to receive it prior to the start of your class.

Other Requirements:

Web space to upload assignments. Minimum of 3 browsers for your operating system, recommended browsers: Firefox, Opera and either Internet Explorer 6 or Safari depending on your operating system.

Class Syllabus:

Week 1 Overview and Basic Concepts

• What is CSS?
• Types of Styles
  • Inline
  • Document Level
  • Linked or External
• Order of the Cascade
• Class, ID and Element Selectors
• Attributes
• Values
  • Units of Measurement
  • Colors
  • Shorthand
• Pseudo Classes

Week 2 Fonts, Text Properties and Positioning

• Font Families, Style, Weight and other font values
• Spacing
• Text-Decoration
• Box Model
  • Margin
  • Padding
  • Borders
  • Size
• The Box Model Differences
  • Between Browsers
  • How Doctype affects the box model.
• Flow
• Absolute
• Relative
• Floats

Week 3 & 4 Contextual Selectors & Pulling it All Together

• What is a “contextual selector”?
• Why and when you should use them.
  • menus
  • footer
  • content columns
• How to write “contextual selectors”.
• Media Type Styles
• Creating page layouts
• Final project - assigned week 3 for completion week 4

You can read more about Introduction to CSS and register for the class at Start to Web. Cost of the class is $89.95. Readers of this blog may obtain a 10% discount by using coupon code PGfriends. Expires Dec 15, 2008

Expression Web is a web editor from Microsoft that was released December 4, 2006. Cheryl Wise is the author of Foundations of Expression Web: The Basics and Beyond and is the instructor for this four week course which begins August 30, 2008.

Introduction to Expression Web - This class is newly updated for Expression Web 2 but you may take this class using either version of Expression Web.

Are you ready to take the plunge and move to a standards based web editor?

This class has been restructured to get you up and running with Expression Web in just 4 weeks. While you will not be an expert on Expression Web or a professional web designer you will be able to create and manage small websites and, with practice, be able to expand on the skills you learn to create more complex websites using Expression Web.

Prerequisite:

Expression Web - You may download the 60 day trial version from the Microsoft Expression Web Site our class is 4 weeks long so the 60 day trial is adequate. If you choose to take this class with the trial version make sure that you obtain and use the registration key or your trial will end before the full trial period.

Prior Experience:

No prior web design experience required but will be useful.

Book:

The book required for this class is Foundations of Expression Web: The Basics and Beyond available at Amazon or a bookseller near you.  ( There will be reference to sections of this book that will help you better understand CSS.

Introduction to Expression Web - The Class

This course covers the fundamentals of standards based web design, including xhtml and css:

Week 1 Getting Started

• Why Worry About Standards
• Why CSS Layouts?
• Website Planning
• Installing Expression Web
• Interface
• Configuring Expression Web
  • Site Settings
  • Page Editor Options Overview
    • Version 1
    • Version 2
    • CSS Tab
    • Font Family Tab
• File Menu
• Page Properties
• Semantic HTML - Structuring Your Page
• Publishing

Week 2

• CSS Basics
• CSS Tools
  • Fonts
  • Block
  • Background
  • Box
  • Positioning
    • Options in the New-Modify Styles Dialog box
    • Float vs Positioning
  • Lists & Tables
• Applying Styles

Week 3

• Contextual Selectors
• Creating Page Layouts
• Layout Examples

Week 4

• Dynamic Web Templates
  • Creating the DWT
  • New Pages and DWTS
  • Editing a DWT
  • Detaching or Changing a DWT
• Preparing an Existing Page for a DWT
• Site Reports
  • Report Options
  • Slow Pages
  • Hyperlinks
  • Accessibility Report
  • Compatibility Reports
  • CSS Reports
• External Stylesheets

By the end of the 4week course you will have a simple multi-page website that will work on all modern browsers. You will have an understanding of the underlying principles of effective web design that will look good.

If you are interested in taking this class, you can read more about Introduction to Expression Web and register for the class at Start To Web. Cost of the Class is $89.95. Readers of this blog can obtain a 10% discount by using the coupon code PGfriends. Expires Dec 15, 2008.

If you are a new user of Expression Web 2.0,the very first thing you should do is set up the program so that you have the best possible work environment. A must have resource is Tina Clarke’s just released Setting up Expression Web 2.0 Ebook. Best of all it is F REE.

We have written this new Setting up ebook about Expression Web 2.0 as there are new features and settings that you need to be aware of. One in particular might have you confused as to what is happening unless you un-tick a certain selection set by default. There are few new beyond the basics settings too which you can find at the end of this page.

By Setting up Expression Web you set the parameters by which you design your web sites, taking the time now, saves you grief in the future. Expression Web setup the right way can enhance your design experience and not only help guide you in the use of CSS but warn you of html errors as you create your template design and content.

She has also revised her Setting up Expression Web 1.0 Ebook which is also F REE.There are a few new settings to watch out for and tweak and the new F ree Ebook tells you how to do just that.

Set yourself up the right way with this F R E E ebook for the Expression Web communties.

Expression Web comes with a series of “in box” templates that you can use to get started with. If you go to

File > New > Web Site > Templates

You are then presented with a list of templates to choose from with a Preview of what it will look like. Make your choice and the site will be created for you. Click on thumbnail for larger image.

Screenshot File > New > Web Site > Template.

Using Personal 4 as an example, the website is created where you have specified on your computer and the following files/folders are created. Click thumbnail for a larger image.

Default in-box template organization

master.dwt
default.html
about_me (folder)
contact (folder)
images (folder)
links (folder)
resume (folder)
photo_gallery (folder)
styles (folder)

The styles folder contains the various style sheets you can use with the master.dwt. I would leave that folder as is. With the exception of the about_me and resume folder, each of the other folders contains only one page.

My suggestion for using this setup would be to move all of the images to the image folder and move the pages within the folder to the root directory with the default.himl page. If you intend to use the photo gallery, then leave that folder as is. At the same time, I rename the default.html to index.html. (Use the name for the file that your server requires.)

Your website folder/file system should now look something like this. Click thumbnail for a larger image.

Screenshot of reorganized file/folders.

Your newly reorganized website is now ready to work with.

NEW TRAINING SESSION STARTS August 5th!

While this class is geared towards small business owners, ANYONE from the webmaster of a hobby site, a genealogy site or a volunteer webmaster for a church or other organization, who wants to increase traffic to their website can benefit from the classes. It’s not to late, you can join the class anytime. This is one of the best things you can do for your website.

We provide a structured SEO training class through our private Yahoo group: SEO Techniques. The online class is 100% free and is email based. You work at a pace that is comfortable for you.

The SEO Training Class helps small business owners learn the basics of search engine optimization to increase the visibility of their business in the search engines. By combining these techniques with excellent marketing skills, you will be well on your way to building a successful online business. - from SEO Training Class -

Intensive Full Month Long Training Session starts August 5th

We are working to add more in depth training to help you better understand and implement the lessons, along with the addition of a few more advanced topics and interactive assignments. I am also currently working on training tutorials for effective newsletters.

Everything we do will be focused on greatly increasing the targeted traffic to your website to help you develop a successful online business.

- SEO Techniques Training
- Successful Website Marketing Training

You will want to get registered now so that you don’t miss a thing!

If you can somehow find 3-5 hours per week to dedicate to your website, you are going to LOVE this upcoming session. The focus will be entirely on increasing business to your site!

Website Development Training Center
- HTML and CSS Training
- RSS Feeds and Basic WordPress
- Optional Interactive Discussion Groups

As always, the training classes are provided at absolutely NO CHARGE. If you are 100% serious about learning how to develop a successful online business, and you are willing to work hard, we would love to invite you to register to join us!

- The classrooms are extremely structured.

- Membership is NOT approved unless ALL registration steps have been completed.

- Both the Marketing Class and the SEO Class are required. You cannot join one without the other.

- Individual emails are REQUIRED. Please plan which email address you will be using before joining.

Overview of the main classes can be found on the following page:

SEO Training Class
===================

The registration checklist can be found here:

Training Class Registration Information

For those of you who may just be getting started with  separating the presentation of your website from the content of your site by using cascading style sheets, understanding the difference between using id and class attributes may seem overwhelming. The id attribute provides a unique identifier for an element within the document. The class attribute classifies this element into one or more subtypes. The biggest difference between the ID and class attribute is that an ID can be used only once in a document while class can be used as many times as needed.

Chris Coyier has written an excellent article The Difference Between ID and Class

We need to ways to describe content in an HTML/XHTML document. The basic elements like <h1>, <p> and <ul> will often do the job, but our basic set of tags doesn’t cover every possible type of page element or layout choice. For this we need ID’s and Classes. For example <ul id=”nav”>, this will give us the chance to target this unordered list specifically, so that we may manipulate it uniquely to other unordered lists on our page. Or we might have a section on our page that has no relevant tag to signify it, for example a footer, where we might do something like this: <div id=”footer”>. Or perhaps we have boxes in our sidebar for keeping content over there separated in some way: <div class=”sidebar-box”>. These ID’s and Classes the “hooks” we need to build into markup to get our hands on them. CSS obviously needs these so that we may build selectors and do our styling, but other web languages like Javascript depend on them too. But what is the difference between them?  Chris Coyier has written an excellent article  The Difference Between ID and Class

Do you want to make your own web pages but are too worried about falling short in the complex depths of CSS? Not too worry - all it takes is some patience, some practice, and a little bit of time. Don't stress out with overly-complicated tutorials - start here with 20 awesome introductory tuts to CSS. Read Getting Started With CSS: 20 Awesome Introductory Tuts

While I have been using cascading style sheets for some years now on all of the sites I design/maintain, many people are new to them. I am always on the lookout for new resources to help those just learning to use style sheets. The first question most people ask is why should I use CSS? What advantages does it have. Two sites that are referenced to answer this question are:

1. 10 Reasons To Learn CSS
2. Wikipedia - CSS

One you understand why it is a good thing to use style sheets and how they can make site maintenance easier, then you need to learn how to do this. The list of tutorials referenced include:

1. CSS Basics - This site includes an eighteen chapter book that you can print or download in pdf format.
2. Learn HTML & CSS: A Beginner’s Guide from SitePoint
3. Starting With HTML & CSS from W3C
4. CSS - Beginners from CSSDog
5. CSS For Beginners from devianArt. A tutorial to download in Word format.
6. The Basics from CSShark.
7. CSS From The Ground Up from WPDFD - WebPage Design for Designers
8. Back To Basics: A Beginner’s Guide To Starting A CSS Document from CSS Juice.
9. Style Master CSS Tutorial - Excellent tutorial by the makers of StyleMaster.
10. Site In An Hour -
11. An Introduction To CSS is one I have recommended in the past.
12. CSS Tutorials by Design Shack
13. CSS Introductory Tutorial
14. Introduction To CSS
15. CSS Do’s And Dont’s Part 1: CSS Selecting by CSS Globe
16. CSS Do’s And Dont’s Part 2: Markup by CSS Globe
17. Creating A CSS Layout From Scratch
18. CSS Beginner by Tag by Tag with a printer friendly version
19. Video: Introduction To CSS Design Part 1 - You Tube Video
20. Video: Introduction To CSS Design Part 2 - You Tube Video

Once you finish all of the beginner tutorials, there is another list of more advanced tutorials.