Another thing you may want to set to your own desires before we move on, are the Preferences in Expression Web. And you’ll find these in a couple of different places in a way that may not be obvious because they’re different from Front Page. So for example under Site, you’ll find the Site Settings. These are very much like the Site Settings that you find under the Tools Menu in Front Page. In this dialogue, you can change things like the name of your website. This is the folder name, when you create a new site, or when you open an existing site. In this option, manage the website using hidden metadata files. This is a very important setting in Expression Web and one you would not have seen in Front Page.
What this check box indicates is that Expression Web has permission to add hidden files to your site. You won’t ever see these files but they enable Expression Web to manage your site. For example if you rename a file or a folder in the folders list and Expression Web automatically changes any references, any links to that page, so that if you rename things or move them around, you don’t break the links. That feature will only work if this check box is checked. And the reason Expression Web makes this an option is that in adding these hidden files, Microsoft is going outside of strict standards based web design. It’s adding files that aren’t necessary in your HTML site, but they are necessary for Expression Web, to have the information it needs to manage these kinds of advanced features. So I always keep this checked. I think its well worth having these files in here in order to have the added functionality. But I point this out because it is a big difference again between Front Page and Expression Web, in Microsoft’s effort to follow standards more carefully in this program.
You’ll also find here, this is where you set Check In and Check Out. That’s a feature if you’re working with a team of people and you want to be able to track when files are checked out by one person so they’re not overwritten by another. If you’re not working with other people or you’re not using this feature, I will leave this one unchecked because it will slow your system down to have this feature set if you don’t need it.
Under the Tools Menu, you’ll find some other Preference Options, like the Application Options. Front Page simply calls this, Options, but they are under the Tools Menu and there are some very similar settings. One of the options here is the Status Bar. In the bottom left hand corner you’ll see the results of that Status Bar. And in the Expression Web, it even includes little helpful tips. When you’re clicked on an element and Expression Web thinks you might need a little guidance, I find that a little distracting when I’m teaching so I’m going to turn it off for the rest of the series. But if you like having that information visible in the bottom left, you would want to leave that checked.
You’ll also find under the Tools Menu, the Page Editor Options. Front Page calls this simply Page Options, but again you’ll find a lot of similarities and some differences. For example when we were looking earlier in Front Page, if you click on Authoring, you saw you were able to turn on shared borders and themes. In Expression Web, those options have been completely removed so you won’t find them in these Preferences. Instead, you’ll find some Advanced Options for doc type settings. This is especially important if you’re using CSS, because the doc type declaration is what tells a web browser how to display your page.
By default, Expression Web sets this to XHTML 1.0 transitional. And you don’t have to worry about this too much, unless you’re an advanced CSS user and you want to change it. But essentially, if it’s set to XHTML 1.0, then the page will display by modern standards. If you’re working on an old website that doesn’t fit modern standards, you may want to change this to an earlier standard or the browser may misinterpret what’s on the page. But again, it only matters if that doc type is at the top of the page. So if the page was created in Front Page, it will have whatever doc type was created there.
Moving forward, all of the pages you create in Expression Web will be created based on the settings you have specified in your Page Editor Options. You also have some choice about what CSS scheme are you using. Again, default 2.1 is a great option for any pages you’re creating moving forward in Expression Web, unless you know you want to change it.
The other options you may want to look at under the CSS tab, because there are so many new CSS features in Expression Web, you’ll find more preferences here than you would have seen in Front Page. This has to do with how and where CSS styles are defined in your website. If you’re brand new to CSS, don’t worry about this. You can leave it all just the way it’s set. But as you get more advanced with CSS, you may want to come back to this dialogue and change some of these settings.
We’ll spend a lot more time on CSS later in this series. Anytime you make changes to any of these preference options, simply click OK and the program will automatically respond to those adjustments.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services