Expression® Web Design

New Feed Added to Microsoft Expression Web Blog

Thursday, September 27, 2007

I could not decide what category to place this post in, so I finally chose the Miscellaneous category since I was thankful to Michael Duz of Search Engine Optimization for Site Owners and Small Businesses for pointing this out.

A post on Michael's blog, QR Codes, helps to explain this technology.  Now I can hope that since my T-Mobile Wing has a camera that at some point we might even see this hit the United States.

Visual Developer - Expression MVP

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Microsoft® has add Visual Developer - Expression to its competency.  Some of the Microsoft® Office FrontPage MVPs were moved over to this category.  You can also see a complete list of Microsoft® MVP Awardees as well.

Naming Your Web Pages

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Usually when you start out, you need to have a "home" page.  This page is usually something like

• index.htm
• index.html
• index.shtm
• index.shtml
• index.phtm
• index.phtml
• index.asp
• index.aspx
• index.cfm
• index.php
• default.htm
• default.html
• default.shtm
• default.shtml
• default.phtm
• default.phtml
• default.asp
• default.aspx
• default.cfm
• default.php

Most servers will be set up to show one of these pages when you enter your domain name.  If not, contact your hosting provider for more information or check their support / knowledge base.

More Web Page Naming Conventions

When working in Frontpage, it is very easy to use a space in the name of the web page.  Don't do it though.  Don't use a space in the file name.  This will be translated to something else in the URL and might cause more problems.  Consider using a underscore (_) or dash (-).

Also, I would keep the file names lowercase.  On *NIX servers, they are case sensitive - meaning that image.JPG is not the same as image.jpg.  This sometimes will cause some problems if you link to aboutus.html but you named your web page AboutUs.html.  On Windows servers, it is not case sensitive, which is one less thing to worry about.

Center a Website in FrontPage

Monday, September 10, 2007

To center a website in FrontPage (assuming you are using tables), right click in the main table and choose table properties.  In the layout section choose Center in the selection.  This should add

<div align="center">

above the beginning main table and

</div>

at the end of the closing table element.

A Much Better Way to Center a Website

A much better way to center a website would b Centering in Firefox and Centering (One more time) using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

CSS Code to Center a Website

HTML Example (2,057 bytes) | Text file (2,060 bytes) | Zipped file (1,815 bytes)

Processing the Form with the JMail EMail Component

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Earlier I showed you how to create a form with XHTML and lay it out with CSS. And later I will show you how to use Expression Web and ASP.NET to create and process the form. 

The Jmail ASP Email Component

This is something that I have been using for a very long time actually.  I stopped using Frontpage Server Extensions (FPSE) to process my forms because FPSE allow users (spam bots) to see your email address.  And this can cause them to spider your site, get your email address, and sell it to thousands of companies unfortunately.

With the Jmail ASP Email component, your email address is hidden from the spammers.  It is on the action page and processed on the server.  When that page is rendered in the browser, your email address is never seen.  

Source code: Text file (1,186 bytes) / Zipped file (623 bytes)

Once you download the examples, see a webcast of how easy it is to add this to your website.

Adding a Field

Adding a field was pretty easy on the creating a form page, and it is pretty easy on the Jmail processing page (copy and paste will become your best friend).  Basically you will be adding the following lines to your confirm.asp page:

Dim Telephonename, Telephone
Telephonename = "Telephone: "
Telephone = Request.Form("Telephone")
strbody=strbody & Telephonename & Telephone & vbcrlf

I would make sure to add the above code near the other similar code.  You can see where I have added it in the webcast.

If you have problems with the code, you can ask in the Expression-FrontPage forum or the International Web Developer's Network.

*There is an option in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0: Go to Tools - Internet Options - Security - Custom Level called open files based on content, not file extension. If this is disabled then it correctly opens the text file for viewing.   You can change the setting or leave as is.  (I would just right click on the TXT file and say Save As.)

If your web hosting provider supports ASPEMail, check out Processing the Form with ASPEMail.

Creating a Form

Creating a form is pretty easy with XHTML code if you understand a bit of the code.  FrontPage helped you create forms very easily and processed the form on the server with FrontPage Server Extensions.

With Expression Web, there are many way to create and process a form actually.  Later, we will show you how to create a form with Expression Web and process it with .NET (a server side language).  Today, let's talk more about creating a simple form and processing it with an ASP component known as Jmail. 

Form Processing with Jmail

Jmail is an ASP component that must be installed on the (Windows) server.  There are a few different ASP email components like CDONTS / CDOSYS, ASPMail, ASPEmail.  Check with your hosting company to see what they offer and support.  I am pretty certain that TechEvolution will support Jmail, along with a few other ASP components.

Creating the Form

Creating the form is pretty easy.  In this example, I laid out the form using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) instead of tables and cells.  If you have any problems with this, please ask in the Expression-Frontpage Forum or the International Web Developers Network.  You can download the code in this text file. (Microsoft Internet Users: Right Click and download TXT file*)  (Don't forget to change the SMTP Server and update the recipient email address.)

This can easily be changed or you can add more inputs as needed.  I'll show you in the next blog on how the Jmail ASP component processes the form and I will show you how you can add an input field if needed.

Adding a Field

Let's say that you want to add a telephone number to the form.  And you want to add it to the under the email address.  So you have something like:
<label for="email">E-Mail</label><input id="Email" name="Email" /><br />


Now all you need to do is add:
<label for="telephone">Telephone</label><input id="Telephone" name="Telephone" /><br />


Make sure that if you do add this code, you also add the proper code to your Jmail processing form, which we will also show you how to do this as well.

Don't be afraid to dive into your code some and make a few changes.  If you are on a *NIX server (Linux / Unix), chances are you will need to use PHP.  For some help with processing a PHP email form, check out the International Web Developer's Network.

*There is an option in Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0: Go to Tools - Internet Options - Security - Custom Level called open files based on content, not file extension. If this is disabled then it correctly opens the text file for viewing.   You can change the setting or leave as is.  (I would just right click on the TXT file and say Save As.)

Publishing Option is Grayed Out

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Chances are when you cannot publish, you are not working in a Frontpage website (or Expression Website).  You can easily check to see if you have converted this folder to a Frontpage (or Expression) website by going to the location on your computer and drilling down to where the website is.  Usually in Windows XP, it is something like C:\Documents and Settings\-USER-\My Documents\My Web Sites.  (In Vista, it might C:\Users\-USER-\Documents\My Web Sites).  My Web Sites might even have a globe on it .  This is ok.  To one extent, this basically means that all the Frontpage (or Expression) Websites that are under this is a sub-web (or sub-site).  It really does not matter since chances are you are going to be publishing it to a specific website on the Internet.

If you open the My Web Sites with the Frontpage - Open Website tool and see that the folder you are working in does not have a globe on it, you can right click on the folder, choose Convert to Web. This will then allow you to open the Website via Frontpage - Open Site.  You can also double click on this Frontpage Website and a new Frontpage Window will open as well. 

You can also see an online tutorial as well on how to convert a folder to a web.