Microsoft Expression Web Designer

Has anyone tried the beta version of Microsoft Expression Web Designer? What 
do you think of it? If I have to learn a new program I'm wondering if this 
is the one I should be looking at? It is the replacement for Front Page. It 
looks like Front Page will be discontinued. I am testing Vista beta and 
Office 2007 beta and couldn't find Front Page 2007. Searching Microsoft I 
found EWD instead.

http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/web_designer/default.mspx

So far it is promising. The generated code looks more standard than FP. It 
mostly uses CSS. The user interface is a little frustrating but it looks 
like once learned it will be OK.

-- 
TechB 

Since I started using PCs in 1996 (those were the days of 2mb hard drives
and chips with the speeds measured in kilobytes! LOL) I have never touched a
new Microsoft product with a bargepole. Microsoft deliberately issue
products at beta state, deliberately wait for feedback and only just before
they upgrade to next revision do they create a stable product.

Of course, Microsoft will tell folks they are keeping ahead of the hackers,
making their own improvements and meeting suggestions for  improvements.
However, would you buy a car without a steering wheel?

Personally, I'll wait until I hear how good, bad or indifferent the web
community finds the EWD product before I go and spend money on it.

CSS is going to become mandatory and most of the leading WYSIWYG HTML
Editors are using this feature already within their templates and defaults.

Also, personally, I stick with Dreamweaver because it is so much more
powerful a product than FrontPage and will probably stay ahead of EWD
although I do accept that FrontPage has it's place and authoring WebPages is
very much a case of "horses for courses".

Iain

"TechB" <gt4NOSPAMdatsun@h*o*t*m*a*i*l.com> wrote in message
news:yPK0eEBjGHA.3312@GAMERA.annex.com...
Has anyone tried the beta version of Microsoft Expression Web Designer? What
do you think of it? If I have to learn a new program I'm wondering if this
is the one I should be looking at? It is the replacement for Front Page. It
looks like Front Page will be discontinued. I am testing Vista beta and
Office 2007 beta and couldn't find Front Page 2007. Searching Microsoft I
found EWD instead.

http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/web_designer/default.mspx

So far it is promising. The generated code looks more standard than FP. It
mostly uses CSS. The user interface is a little frustrating but it looks
like once learned it will be OK.

-- 
TechB

I agree with most of your comments about beta products. I have been using 
computers since the 1970's and have a lot of experience with beta products 
over the years. That's why I mentioned I am trying EWD on a test machine 
that has many beta products on it. I would never use a beta product on a 
production machine. EWD is in a limited public beta release currently. It is 
a properly run beta program unlike some of the other Microsoft betas that 
are really another way of releasing a program they don't want to support or 
are afraid of lawsuits from competitors.

I don't know CSS and was trying to find out how standard the CSS code 
generated by EWD is. I get free access to Microsoft software so for me the 
price is right. I only manage a couple of websites for my own business. I 
want to make sure whatever I use generates standard code that will work on 
different browsers. I have been using FP because I get it free but I have 
not been happy with the non-standard code it sometimes generates. FP 2003 
seemed to moving towards standardisation but it looks like that will be the 
last version of FP.

-- 
TechB

Bearz wrote:
> Since I started using PCs in 1996 (those were the days of 2mb hard
> drives and chips with the speeds measured in kilobytes! LOL) I have
> never touched a new Microsoft product with a bargepole. Microsoft
> deliberately issue products at beta state, deliberately wait for
> feedback and only just before they upgrade to next revision do they
> create a stable product.
>
> Of course, Microsoft will tell folks they are keeping ahead of the
> hackers, making their own improvements and meeting suggestions for
> improvements. However, would you buy a car without a steering wheel?
>
> Personally, I'll wait until I hear how good, bad or indifferent the
> web community finds the EWD product before I go and spend money on it.
>
> CSS is going to become mandatory and most of the leading WYSIWYG HTML
> Editors are using this feature already within their templates and
> defaults.
>
> Also, personally, I stick with Dreamweaver because it is so much more
> powerful a product than FrontPage and will probably stay ahead of EWD
> although I do accept that FrontPage has it's place and authoring
> WebPages is very much a case of "horses for courses".
>
> Iain
>
> "TechB" <gt4NOSPAMdatsun@h*o*t*m*a*i*l.com> wrote in
message
> news:yPK0eEBjGHA.3312@GAMERA.annex.com...
> Has anyone tried the beta version of Microsoft Expression Web
> Designer? What do you think of it? If I have to learn a new program
> I'm wondering if this is the one I should be looking at? It is the
> replacement for Front Page. It looks like Front Page will be
> discontinued. I am testing Vista beta and Office 2007 beta and
> couldn't find Front Page 2007. Searching Microsoft I found EWD
> instead.
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/web_designer/default.mspx
>
> So far it is promising. The generated code looks more standard than
> FP. It mostly uses CSS. The user interface is a little frustrating
> but it looks like once learned it will be OK. 

Bearz wrote:
> As I say, it's only my personal view but there is a lot of people who
> get sucked into buying the launched Microsoft products every time MS
> release a new product or a new version and then find it creates
> complications on their machines, doesn't work with other programs or
> just has lots of bugs and holes in it. I'm not alone as the internet
> is full of people who have experienced problems with MS products.
>
> As regards CSS Standards - the W3C Organisation define the web
> standards for HTML, XHTML and XML. They are defining the CSS
> standards now and it is good practice to start designing websites
> with CSS now and going forward.
>
> CSS is pretty much already constrained by the standards already set
> for HTML and XHTML as the CSS/Text file is just a way of
> co-coordinating styles rather than re-inventing them.
>
> The useful link is http://www.w3.org with a subsidiary link to the
> CSS pages via http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/.
>

Thanks for the links. I'll check them out.

-- 
TechB 

I wondered what they were going to replace it with. I'm a DreamWeaver 
convert.

-- 
Joan - Edmonton AB Canada
http://www.joansweb.com



"TechB" <gt4NOSPAMdatsun@h*o*t*m*a*i*l.com> wrote in message 
news:yPK0eEBjGHA.3312@GAMERA.annex.com...
> Has anyone tried the beta version of Microsoft Expression Web Designer? 
> What do you think of it? If I have to learn a new program I'm wondering if

> this is the one I should be looking at? It is the replacement for Front 
> Page. It looks like Front Page will be discontinued. I am testing Vista 
> beta and Office 2007 beta and couldn't find Front Page 2007. Searching 
> Microsoft I found EWD instead.
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/web_designer/default.mspx
>
> So far it is promising. The generated code looks more standard than FP. It

> mostly uses CSS. The user interface is a little frustrating but it looks 
> like once learned it will be OK.
>
> -- 
> TechB
>