Expression Web Designer?
Posted on August 7, 2006
2 Comments
I’m probably a bit confused. Until today, I had been assuming that something like Visual Web Developer (Express) was the replacement for good ol’ FrontPage. Then i stumbled over Microsoft Expression Web Designer (free trial). I’d wager that my assumptions were all wrong!
Microsoft® Expression® Web Designer gives you all the tools you’ll need to produce high-quality, standards-based Web sites the way you want them. Take advantage of the best of dynamic Web site design, enabling you to design, develop, and maintain exceptional standards-based Web sites.
All that, and it can be used for ASP.NET development too. I have it downloading right now as I’m quite curious to see what the differences are between this, Visual Web Dev and, for that matter, Visual Studio 2005. As VWD Express is free, and Visual Studio is expensive… I’d guess this one fits somewhere in the middle? But the other two are very similar in look & feel. Is this too? Stay tuned.
I feel so… out of the loop on this one!
Ok, it actually finished installing as I wrote this. But insists upon a reboot (bah, Windows…). I’ll post more later.
[Update] From the FAQ:
How does Expression Web Designer compare to FrontPage® 2003 and Visual Studio as a Web design/development tool?
Expression Web Designer is a new product for professional Web designers that combines the best of both FrontPage and Visual Studio technologies in a professional designer user interface for creating XHTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, and ASP.NET 2.0. Where appropriate, the user interface and features of Web Designer and Visual Studio are identical (such as for ASP.NET control properties).
Ah ha. Well there ya go as that about sums up what 5 minutes of clicking around showed me. At first glance it feels like a hybrid of FrontPage 2k3 and Visual Web Dev Express.
Hopefully this will help retire ye olde’ frontpage extensions…
[Update, 2 days later] Pretty slick. Still need the FP extensions for some of the tasks, but not mandatory. I spent a few hours with it the other night and have no real complaints. With the free Visual Web Dev already available, the pricing on this will be interesting. I haven’t gone deep enough with either to know which one is “better”. So far, both seem quite useable.
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2 Responses to “Expression Web Designer?”
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Please read the "Comments" section on the Disclaimer page. Don't use SEO terms instead of a name. That drives me nuts.
Oh, and contrary to what you might have read on some SEO forum, this is not a "Do Follow" blog.
Actually, the FPSE are only there for backwards compatibility so if someone has a site that is using a webbot they can migrate at their leisure. By the time Expression Web Designer ships there will be no EWD components that require FPSE which is a good thing because MS has discontinued support for them. Try to download a new copy of the FPSE and you will not be able to from the MS site. This has been throughly discussed on the Microsoft Expression Web Designer Newsgroup and also mentioned in the tutorials on using Expression Web Designer on my site.
Cheryl,
MS MVP FrontPage
Thanks Cheryl! A new site to look at.
I was probably thrown off by the mention of FPSE in the “Remote Web Site” config thingy. Top option there is FPSE or Share Point Services. Is the Share Point thing replacing FPSE? (I had kind of assumed it was more of the same with a new name…)