Expression Web Blog

Spawn for Expression Web

When you need to create a popup window this low cost Expression Web 1.0/2.0 addon is just the job.

Spawn for Expression Web currently comes in two flavours, one for version 1.0 and one for 2.0 of  Expression Web. What about Expression Web 3.0 I hear you ask? Well Microsoft having redevloped the underlying coding of Expression Web have not had time to restore the ability to allow addon functionality. However at some point in time perhaps in the service pack 1 hopefully out in the fall or version 4.0 it will be back and we can use addons once more in the latest Expression Web version.

For $5 you get both versions of spawn for Expression Web. PLUS, current purchasers will also receive a free copy of the Expression Web 3.0 version once it becomes available.

NOTE: Upon installing, Spawn warns you that if you are installing this software on Windows Vista. Windows Server 2008, or Windows 7, you must install the package as an administrator by right-clicking on the setup package and choosing “Run as adminstrator.” Plus if you are installing Spawn on a version of Windows that uses User Access Control (UAC), you will need to launch Expression Web once as an administrator after you install Spawn so that the necessary settings are added to the Windows Registry. Thereafter, you can launch Expression Web as a regular user. To find the path under Windows Vista Ultimate go to C: Program Files – Microsoft Expression – Web 2 – WebDesigner – Exprwd.exe

You can find the addon under Insert, Jimco Software, Spawn Popup once its installed into Expression Web.

TIP: I find it best to select the element FIRST that I wish to trigger the popup from. Using the Quick Tag Selector in Expression Web is the easiest and quickest way to select the correct element.

Whats New

Previous versions of Spawn added an <a> element (a hyperlink) when adding a popup window. The current version of Spawn adds popups using the same technique as Expression Web Behaviors and will impact only the selected element. Spawn will never add a new element to your page.

What spawn won’t do

It won’t create a popup when your pages loads or unloads because most people block them, its not a good practice to use this method so if you are using some other code, change to the trigger methods Spawn uses instead it will further your sales instead of decreasing them with annoying page load popups.

1. How Much? – $5
2. Where from? – JimcoSoftware
3. For which version? – Expression Web 1.0 and 2.0

For those that were lucky enough to buy the WebAssist addon Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor for Expression Web or other EW addons you will continue to be supported. However, the products are no longer available. This is a great pity because the people who need it most are the FrontPage users that have had the courage to migrate to Expression Web, and a helping hand with templates which the CSS Sculptor provided very handily indeed is a asset no longer being produced. After all Eric Meyer’s (the master of CSS) coding could be relied on and trusted and you could get on with the business of creating your content without worrying about the html or CSS.

The next best thing are templates created from base with the tool and embellished with Pat Geary’s excellent choice of colours and sample graphics. Check out her Free Expression Web Dynamic Web Templates and observe the coding for the XHTML and CSS and give yourself some handy pointers to get yourself started.

Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor for Expression Web

WebAssist are having a site wide sale till the 30th of  June, that means that

Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor for Expression Web

is now $39.99 instead of $49.99

What you get:

• Total Customization
• Efficient and Intuitive
• Cross Browser Compatibility
• CSS Expertise

Never again do you have to start from scratch when making a new web template. This delightful Expression Web addon does it all for you. When I use the program I choose a basic layout and then insert it into Expression Web and I use EW  CSS Properites to tweak the styles to conform to my colours and graphics. I find this is best so that I practice using css within EW to keep up my skills.

If you don’t have this Expression Web addon yet – now is a really good time to get it, not only saving you credit crunch monies, but saving you time in getting started with that perfect template.