Classrooms open Jan 4, 2010
Registration closes Jan 6, 2010
First lesson posts Jan 9, 2010
Course Fees:
$30.00 New Students
$24.00 Returning Students
Courses are 6 weeks long unless otherwise noted.
Certificates of Completion are available.
Registration for the November session is open. Sign up for the Expression Web, CoffeeCup Software or the new Introduction to 3D for Photoshop class.
Check out all the new classes being offered here: http://lvsonline.com/
I suspect the issue is with my computer (it hates change) but I was unable to install this program. It requires .NET Framework 3.5 and my machine absolutely hated it. (I’m hoping Windows 7 come with it already integrated into the OS). After about 90 minutes on the phone with Microsoft, I got it installed and working (or so I thought).
Then I installed Expression Web 3. I won’t go into detail on what it did to my computer, but at one point I thought I was going to have to reformat and reinstall everything. That’s how bad it was. And to boot, I couldn’t uninstall it.
Another 90 minutes with Microsoft, only this time I wasted my time. The guy was less than helpful and quite the smarmy one. He was too impressed with himself to really listen and try to help. I probably kept him from his break!
I finally got it all figured out, reinstalled so I could uninstall (the program never did come up…only crashed my computer). When I did get it uninstalled, thankfully my computer was OK and back to its cantankerous self.
Now…I suspect it was the .NET Framework that was the issue and I’m not sure why my computer didn’t like it. What I don’t like is that Expression Web now uses this new version which might not be ready for prime time.
If you already have Expression Web or Expression Web 2 and are happy with it, I would hold off a bit on purchasing and installing this latest version. While I’m sure it’s wonderful, if I can prevent anyone from suffering the nightmare I did, I’m happy.
The latest version of Microsoft Expression Web is now availale for purchase. The following is a list of the new features included in this release, taken from the Microsoft website:
What’s new in Expression Web® 3
SuperPreview
Expression Web provides new tools to make sure that the pages in your site work in multiple browsers.
Using SuperPreview, you can preview and compare pages simultaneously in multiple browsers, even in multiple versions of Internet Explorer. You can also compare browser views against a comprehensive mock-up (”comp”) image.
You can select individual elements within a page and see details about each selected element, helping you quickly find and fix cross-browser layout and positioning errors.
Snapshot Preview
Snapshot Preview provides a high-fidelity browser preview that updates live as you edit your code, saving you the time and effort of loading the page in a browser for each code change.
Deep Zoom
You can add both Silverlight and Seadragon Ajax Deep Zoom Composer images to your page in Expression Web from a composition created in Deep Zoom Composer.
FTP publishing
Publishing your site with FTP is faster than ever. When you click Publish, Expression Web automatically transfers several files at a time, instead of transferring them one by one, and it transfers them faster. You can easily manage multiple sites and remote locations and you can publish a site to multiple destinations.
Also, you can now publish your files over a secure FTP connection, using FTPS or SFTP.
Silverlight
Silverlight is a cross-browser, cross–platform plug-in for delivering rich interactive applications for the web. With Expression Web , you can add Silverlight video and applications to your web pages.
Expression Encoder 3 is now included in Expression Web . You can use it to convert your video to Silverlight and easily add it to your Web page. You can even choose a “skin” to customize how the video player appears on your site.
Internet Explorer 8
Expression Web supports Windows Internet Explorer 8, so you can update your older sites to be compliant with and take advantage of the new technologies in Internet Explorer 8.
Professional graphics tools
Powerful vector drawing and editing tools in the included copy of Expression Design 3 let you explore new artistic possibilities and create compelling graphic designs and illustrations.
Watch this video to find out more:
Expression Web 3 Overview Video
To find out all the features and to order, visit the Microsoft Expression website.
To learn how to use this or any of the other versions of Expression Web, be sure to enroll in this class. Registration is now opened and you can’t get a better deal!
Registration for the September session is open. Sign up for the Expression Web Or CoffeeCup Software classes.
Information for new courses and available courses is provided here: http://lvsonline.com/blog/category/in-the-spotlight/
When you insert an image you get the “alt” dialog box. Within that box you have a short and a long description
If you don’t have this dialog box, you need to turn it on so it comes up whenever you add an image. It’s a good reminder to add the description. OK…so what exactly is it?
The Alternate Text part is your alt text in your image. It allows those folks who are visually handicapped and cruise the web with a screen reader to know what’s in that position. It’s usually a short description of the image.
The Long Description is another accessibility issue. If you have a complex image that requires more of a description than the Alt Tag provides, you can put that additional information in a text file and put the link to the text file in the Long Description.
The screen reader will see the longdesc and read the information you’ve entered in the text file.
Before you think about doing it, check out this article I found on the Net Mechanic web site. While doable, it might not be worth it.
http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol3/css_no15.htm
If nothing else, it’s food for thought!
Registration for the May session is open. Information for new courses and available courses is provided here: http://lvsonline.com/blog/2009/04/new-courses-at-lvs-online-classes/
It’s quite important to add an alt tag to all of your images. These are used as an aid to visually handicapped visitors so they know either what the image is or, if images are turned off in their browsers, so they know what occupies that space on the page.
Expression Web has an option that loads a dialog box for you to insert the alt tag as soon as you load an image. If you’ve turned this off by mistake or it’s not showing up for some reason, here’s the way you can fix that problem.
Go to Tools/Page Editor Options
Make sure you’re on the General tab. Select the last option before the spelling section.
Make sure that option, “Prompt for accessibility properties when inserting images” is selected. Then, the next time you add an image to your page, the dialog box will pop up.
When you create a web page in Microsoft Word, Excel, or other product, the page contains proprietary information that allows the page to be reopened in the program that created it. When you import it into Expression Web, you get a whole lot of unnecessary code that will most likely conflict with the style information you’ve created for your site.
If you don’t create your pages in Expression Web, then this will happen. The way to prevent that from happening is to save the file as a text file. The problem is you lose all your formatting and will, most likely, have to reformat the information when you add it to your web site.
Although this process can be tedious, it does insure that the page will only contain the code pertinent to your site and the page will be formatted to conform with the other pages. It’s a no harm-no foul kind of thing!
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