Microsoft’s Expression Suite of tools has made some headway into Adobe’s market share, especially in the Web development space. Though Expression has not been able to match the wide adoption rate of Dreamweaver and Photoshop, it is gaining a loyal following of its own. This is due, at least in part, to the fact that Expression is significantly cheaper than the Adobe family of tools and is of comparable quality. Long-time Adobe users may have some trouble adjusting to Expression's layout, but if you can get used to the way that Expression lays out its various features, then you should find it easy to develop a simple website in Expression and, with some practice, you may even be able to develop a more complicated site.
Instructions
Difficulty:
Making a Website With Expression Web/Design
Step 1
Sketch what you want your website to look like on a piece of paper. This may seem like a waste of time, but there is no better way to plan a website's layout.
Step 2
Format and adjust all the images that will be used in your site with Expression Design. It is important that you pay particular attention to the image's size and resolution. Low-resolution images that are resized to make them larger tend to lose their clarity. Thus, it is important to work with images in the highest resolution possible. Once you are done modifying your images, make sure you save them in a format that can be used on a website, such as JPEG and PNG.
Step 3
Design, by utilizing either HTML in the code view or the drag and drop WYSIWG (“what you see is what you get”) tools, your template’s or style sheet’s content areas, navigation bars and the like. You can have the option to work with either a dynamic Web template or CSS. Working with CSS in Expression Web is not nearly as simple or intuitive as working with dynamic Web templates. However, your particular needs will dictate what tool you use.
Step 4
Import the images you had previously made and modified into your website by either typing the HTML code manually in the code view or using the WYSIWG “add image” tool. There is no advantage to one method over the other. By right-clicking on the images, you can add and modify their behaviors for certain situations, such as when the mouse is hovering over them or they are clicked. This is how an image can be made into a link.
Step 5
Add any written content to your site using Expression Web’s built-in “insert text” tool. Once you have done this, be sure to revise your copy, so you do not publish a site with a foolish spelling or grammar error.
Step 6
Upload your site using FTP (file transfer protocol) or the somewhat outdated Front Page Server Extensions. Both of these uploads can be done from within Expression Web under the “transfer” tab. If there are no errors during the upload process, then you are done.