Does FrontPage 2007 upgrade FrontPage 2003

[jenh]

Since Frontpage 98 I have been a dedicated user to presetn with FP 2003. I
have overcome it's problems and bugs and ignored outside critiscism. I have
been watching and using the forums for the problems and some still unadressed
BY MS. I am starting to think that MS Front page has been a laim duck all
along and MS has known this, which is made true by the soon to be released
Web designer. MS should really be careful at how much you are going to price
for the updated FrontPage version. Does it upgrade FrontPage 2003? maybe but
most likely not since they have not mentioned it. Could it be, probably! Will
the price be high, if it is this whole idea about a new Web Design software
is not to provide a better building tool it's to make more money at the
expense of users. I am waiting as are many others I presume to see what MS
does. In watching the demos and other material I have come to the conclusion
because of the way it works it is no different than Frontpage in the way it
operates it just has been upgraded. I could see if their were drastic
interface changes and other components added to it or integrated other
tehnologies. CSS big woop nothing to brag about it was possible before but
does that warrent a new software program. I am not worried about having to by
a new software program all I am thinking about is which one "DreamWeaver
looks stable and apealing." At this moment I am using FP 2003 and probably
will still have to use since my clients are all using MS products for their
business operations but what do I tell them now. You can't upgrade FP it's
dead you have to buy new software. I want to see MS become responsible for
its ideas and bring continuity to its implemention. MS has possibly failed to
realize that these days it's a matter of making your users happy not just
your execs and stock holders. I really do expect allot from MS my business is
built on allot of it and their products have been evolving perfectly with
affordable upgrades but to reininvent the wheel when most everyone has there
car built something is just not right atleast it seems that way to me.

 

[Mark Fitzpatrick]

MS hasn't released all the details yet. They typically don't release pricing
until much closer in the release cycle. The new Expression Web Designer does
have a ton of nice features. A lot of the additions, such as CSS, though
they may seem a little trivial when read in the documentation have been well
executed in the actual program. The visual previews of the CSS styles are a
great things and a fantastic usability feature. There are tons of
improvements such as this in EWD that may seem little and trivial, but
really do help overall productivity.

MS really has listened to a lot of the FP concerns over the years. FP has
been quirky to be sure. It has been difficult to work with, especially if
you were using the very first MS version, FP 1.1. Keep in mind, FP was
originally an aquisition that they purchased from another company. Over the
years they morphed it from the two application approach into a single
application. FP 2003 works great, no doubt. But it still takes too many
steps to perform some tasks. It's far easier for me to have drag and drop
HTML elements then trying to dig through the menus to insert a text box or
image.

The new EWD is designed to also work with the other side of the development
coin, the Visual Studio line of tools commonly used to build web
applications. Visual Studio and it's web development components (including
the earlier Visual Interdev) have always been code-centric. They are very
difficult to product decent user interfaces in. Earlier releases of Visual
Studio actually recommended customers to use FrontPage to design the user
interfaces. VS.Net 2005 has a bunch of fantastic design features that
unfortunately couldn't be used with FrontPage. EWD lets me work very easily
with the design elements of a web application now.

Keep in mind, this product is now over a decade old. That makes it a
dinosaur in Internet time. A lot of the concepts that are at it's core, such
as the FrontPage Server Extensions should have been phased out 5 years ago
when people moved away from Perl and CGI scripts into scripting platforms
such as ASP, PHP, and CFM. EWD is moving in that direction.

Also keep in mind that not every upgrade is worth it for everyone to buy. A
lot of people will wait for another release of a product to get more bang
for the buck. For example, I don't upgrade my Adobe products with every
release, I usually do it every other release as that's when truly new
features creep in.

You can download the CTP freely over at the EWD site I believe. From there
you can see for yourself how it will work with your projects and meet your
own specific needs. It may not, but hopefully you'll find all the gems that
have been introduced and the features that have been improved on.

Hope this helps,
Mark Fitzpatrick
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage