I have read the book Foundation of Expression Web and I am just not finding how to make a div go where I want it.  My layout is basic top, left hand nav menu, doc text beside it (which is what I am having a problem with) and bottom nav field, and copyright below that.  Expression Web is supposedly WYSIWYG. 

I cannot make a div go where I want it.  It arbitrarily positions itself when I pull it onto the page.  And then I have to do a relative position to make it go where I want,and this is another thing I am having a problem with, it works if I just pull to the position I want, but I can't seem to figure it out in the page editor options under position and layout.  What are the differences with these two.

  Where as a layer I can draw it where I want, and from what I can see no one supports using layers.  Now is a div a relative or absolute position only and I have to live with it or am I missing how to make a div go where I want without a positioning format.  I would like to make my site useful to dial up as this is a rural area.  And I want it to load quickly without a bunch of useless code.  Frontpage was alot easier, but I wanted to learn EW.  But I have been trying to build this new site for a month and spent hours and it is frustrating me to no end. 

 I want a page that will center in the browser without a bunch of overage on the right side or between my left nav and textbox, which is what I get with float (another thing I don't get).

 tc,

Can you provide a url to your page?

 It is very hard to figure out what is going on when we can't see it. There are several basic layouts that were included in the book. I know that the layout used in the Master Pages chapter is the same sort of layout you say you want to use. If you layout isn't doing what you want I suspect you have some positioned content not just floats and margin/padding for placement.

You can find our samples files at http://forum.by-expression.com/samples/default.html

This doesn't directly answer your question, because as Cheryl says, it is difficult to troubleshoot an issue such as this without seeing the page and code and, preferably, the CSS. The issue of positioning is quite complex, due to the both the fluid nature of the medium and to the differing implementations across browsers and CSS versions, and has spawned books, Web sites (check out "Position Is Everything"), and innumerable tutorials, so your question would not admit of an easy "here's how you fix it" answer in any event.

However, there is a tool that I have found to be extremely valuable in tracking down issues such as this, called WebTools Pro. I should say up front that I have no connection whatsoever with Iconico, who produces this software, other than satisfied customer since I purchased it in 2004. Anyway, this software has a feature called Page X-ray which allows you to put colored borders around various page elements--divs, images, spans, etc. You just click the desired element in WTP to enable or disable the color highlighting. This works on the page AS RENDERED, after any DOM manipulation, etc. It helps finding unexpected nesting, broken nesting, etc., and I've found it invaluable in troubleshooting complex page layouts.

I do this stuff for money, so the cost ($19.95 in 2004, $29.95 now) was negligible compared to the productivity increase gained. Hell, to my mind, for anybody who plans to do a good deal of Web design/development, it's worth it. The good thing is that they have a trial version that you can use, and if you decide it's worth the money you can then invest in it. There are many more features than just the Page X-ray, but since that touches on your problem I thought I would mention it. Check it out here: http://iconico.com/webtool/

Try it out and see if the Page X-ray (or one of the many other tools) helps you locate your issue. It's up to you whether you decide to go with the full version once the trial expires, and you lose nothing either way.

cheers,
scott