It has been quite a few months since I last mentioned Microsoft Expression Web Designer. Since that first mention, it has become my tool of choice when working on XHTML/CSS web sites. For a beta, this thing is impressive — everything just works and works well.
Ok ok, I know… real web developers use black & white text editors and eschew color coding, syntax hiliting and other such toys. On a Mac. Guess I’m not a real web developer! I like color coding, syntax hiliting and useful property dialogs. 
But maybe I’m close? For PHP and ASP stuff I do still use Notepad++.
This may be the heir apparent to the old MS FrontPage, but it’s so much better that comparisons can’t really even be made. No more reliance on server extensions. No more “goofy” code. In fact, standards-based coding is made easier. Once the DOCTYPE is set, the editor will alert you whenever you’ve done something that would cause validation issues.
Speaking of the editor, the split screen mode rocks. I’ve attached a shot of what things generally look like. There’s a lot of flexibility here, and a lot I’ve not even messed with yet. For instance, I want to learn more about these things called Master Pages and Dynamic Web Templates. But again, even without knowing every little feature, this is still a great editor for working on sites.
I just realized, today, that there was an update to the beta back in September. That post about the update mentions a rename from “Expression Web Designer” to “Expression Web”, but the downloaded software is still the former name. I’m a bit confused, but it all seems to work so I’m still happy.
I see pricing on Amazon now, looks like you can pre-order for a December 22 release. $90 for upgrade from any version of FrontPage (I’m not too proud to take advantage of that) or $269.
[Expression Web Free Trial (beta)]
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November 28th, 2006 
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