MS Expression Web Designer

[xfile]

Hi,

Has anyone tested Expression Web Designer?

I've used it for two days so far (working on a live site) and found it, as
claimed, is easy to use and retains most functions of FrontPage in addition
to the new ones.

It is also different than Visual Web Developer 2005 Express edition which is
buggy and resource draining.

Although there are some small bugs and problems (consider it is a community
review version), the overall performance is pretty stable - knock 3 times.

One particular thing that I am very pleased about this edition, and that is
it will not force you to go through and correct all "possible coding errors"
(as VWD would) before allowing to view a page in design view.

Why is this important? Yes, we made many mistakes during developing Web
pages (especially for those like myself who are not professional
programmers), such as not inserting "alt attributes" for images, and putting
incorrect attributes (e.g. marginwidth) in wrong places - and many of those
are done by our ex-best friend - FrontPage.

But why do we have to correct each of them (image how many of them if one
had used FP for developing Web pages throughout the past years) before we
can even see a page in the Design View? That requirement is totally
ridiculous.

For those who are concerned the discontinued of FrontPage, I'd encourage you
to download and try Expression Web Designer.

Once thing that I am not so happy about the current community version though
is about sending web pages through Outlook and the lack of "mail merge"
capability as in Word.

When I try to email web page within EWD, Outlook automatically block the
page as "unsafe" attachment. This will not happen if using FrontPage.

And when I work with FP 2003 for mail merging newsletters to subscribers, I
had to save it to a local copy and open with Word 2003 and perform mail
merger.

I would expect this can be improved with EWD so that we can use mail merge
directly with EWD.

Finally, does anyone have any inside information about the final release
date of EWD and its possible pricing?

That's all for now and hope this helps.

 

[Rob Giordano \(Crash\)]

They say there will be a "reasonably" priced upgrade from FP to EWD...dunno
what reasonable means though.

I like EWD too..pretty cool.


| Hi,
|
| Has anyone tested Expression Web Designer?
|
| I've used it for two days so far (working on a live site) and found it, as
| claimed, is easy to use and retains most functions of FrontPage in
addition
| to the new ones.
|
| It is also different than Visual Web Developer 2005 Express edition which
is
| buggy and resource draining.
|
| Although there are some small bugs and problems (consider it is a
community
| review version), the overall performance is pretty stable - knock 3 times.
|
| One particular thing that I am very pleased about this edition, and that
is
| it will not force you to go through and correct all "possible coding
errors"
| (as VWD would) before allowing to view a page in design view.
|
| Why is this important? Yes, we made many mistakes during developing Web
| pages (especially for those like myself who are not professional
| programmers), such as not inserting "alt attributes" for images, and
putting
| incorrect attributes (e.g. marginwidth) in wrong places - and many of
those
| are done by our ex-best friend - FrontPage.
|
| But why do we have to correct each of them (image how many of them if one
| had used FP for developing Web pages throughout the past years) before we
| can even see a page in the Design View? That requirement is totally
| ridiculous.
|
| For those who are concerned the discontinued of FrontPage, I'd encourage
you
| to download and try Expression Web Designer.
|
| Once thing that I am not so happy about the current community version
though
| is about sending web pages through Outlook and the lack of "mail merge"
| capability as in Word.
|
| When I try to email web page within EWD, Outlook automatically block the
| page as "unsafe" attachment. This will not happen if using FrontPage.
|
| And when I work with FP 2003 for mail merging newsletters to subscribers,
I
| had to save it to a local copy and open with Word 2003 and perform mail
| merger.
|
| I would expect this can be improved with EWD so that we can use mail merge
| directly with EWD.
|
| Finally, does anyone have any inside information about the final release
| date of EWD and its possible pricing?
|
| That's all for now and hope this helps.
|
|

 

[Cabby]

I downloaded EWD last Friday and am loving it. Very cool interface and so
much more functional than FP. I've had some glitches with things in the beta
not yet working, but I've found work arounds for these things--so far.

 

[xfile]

I found one of the most potential risk of using this beta is about managing
styles.

Maybe it is because of the beta or maybe it is because old FP did not do the
work well or maybe this is just by design.

In any case, many pages have been "silently" changed their style. For
example, a boarder had been added to images without my knowledge and it's
difficult to find where to remove it.

It is my guess that using EWD will eventually come up a cleaner page with
many new features, but it would take some house-cleaning works for all the
jobs done by FP previously.

 

[Murray]

For example, a boarder had been added to images without my knowledge and

it's difficult to find where to remove it.

Are these images links to something? If so, then EWD is not adding the
border, you are by making them links. To get rid of the borders, you would
need to have a style rule like this -

a img { border: none; }

What other changes are you seeing? I have not found EWD to do any "silent
changes".

 

[xfile]

Hi,

You are correct that these images are links, and I did not know if links, by
default, will be added by boarders or not.

However, I found another way of making the change is from the picture
properties and to remove boarder from there. Strange enough, using
conventional Format Boarder won't work.

Other silent changes are mostly related to styles such as fonts.

I have to admit that my site is not very well designed in the beginning. I
have a stylesheet comes with the template package that I purchased and used
for most pages including ASP and HTML.

There is another stylesheet residing in the folder of the shopping cart
which comes with the shopping cart package and is used for the control of
shopping carts pages.

In the past, I could ignore some styles listed in stylesheets by using
Format Font in FP. For example, in the stylesheet, a link is defined by a
font (e.g. Times New Roman), but I could also use FP to format a link to
another font (e.g. Academy). That works fine.

The reason for this is that I am using two languages (Chinese and English)
for developing pages, and some Chinese fonts look better for certain words
and vice versa.

When using EWB, it will enforce strictly which might be good but does not
look very well. That means it will look for the linked stylesheet and
changed all links to that particular font. Any changes I made with EWB using
Format Font won't work.

I also noticed that "relative links" might also be changed sometime.

That's all for now. I believe this might be a powerful tool but I guess that
design concept might be totally different than FP, which could be the reason
for MS to come up a new one and stop FP.

I just thought it might take us some time to learn it and may need do some
house cleaning works for all the old works done with FP.

Eventually, we might have a "cleaner" and "powerful" site, but it would take
some efforts.

 

[Murray]

However, I found another way of making the change is from the picture

properties and to remove boarder from there. Strange enough, using
conventional Format Boarder won't work.

No - that's not strange, it's logical. By using conventional format border,
you would get this -

img { border:none; }

which will not apply to this -

<a href="whatever"><img ...></a>

You would have to use this -

a img { border:none; }

to force the application of that style to images that are links.

Other silent changes are mostly related to styles such as fonts.

I cannot comment on those since I don't know exactly what you are
describing.

In the past, I could ignore some styles listed in stylesheets by using
Format Font in FP.

Yes, well that gives you non-standard code that will not validate. EWD has
no way to do this.

but I could also use FP to format a link to another font (e.g. Academy).
That works fine.

Only on your computer. Since Academy is not web safe, nobody else will see
that font unless they have it installed on their computer too.

The reason for this is that I am using two languages (Chinese and English)
for developing pages, and some Chinese fonts look better for certain words
and vice versa.

You will have to learn how to use the regionalization headers of the pages
to effectively transfer font assignments like this.

When using EWB, it will enforce strictly which might be good but does not
look very well. That means it will look for the linked stylesheet and
changed all links to that particular font. Any changes I made with EWB
using Format Font won't work.

Well, that only means that you don't know how to use EWD with CSS well.
It'll come to you, but you have to study and work at it. It is more than
easy to have multiple font declarations for multiple links on the same
page....

I also noticed that "relative links" might also be changed sometime.

What? EWD only does what you direct it to do.

I just thought it might take us some time to learn it and may need do some
house cleaning works for all the old works done with FP.

Without a doubt, EWD is going to put pressure on everyone to ramp their
understanding of CSS, and standards-compliant layout methods, and will
surely require both mental and physical cleanup.

Eventually, we might have a "cleaner" and "powerful" site, but it would
take some efforts.

Yes - and that's a good thing. Your old methods will no longer be good
enough.

 

[xfile]

Hello,

Only on your computer. Since Academy is not web safe, nobody else will
see that font unless they have it installed on their computer too.

Well, I am just using Academy as an example, and yes, it is not a web safe
font. The actual font used in this example, is listed in font family of the
style sheet and is available in most Asian computers installed with XP using
IE.

It is more than easy to have multiple font declarations for multiple links
on the same page....

That is really new to me. If you could, kindly advise what will be the key
words used if I need to search additional information about this from the
net. I will also try myself, but thanks for point out. I don't know it
could be done with multiple font declarations for multiple links.

What? EWD only does what you direct it to do.

With regard of relative links changes, I am sure that I did not ask EWD to
change any of it. I opened a footer page from a folder (e.g. A) and trying
to change a link's font (only one link and in this case, it is written in
English) back to Times New Roman. I did not change any of other 10 links.

When I saved the page, all links were saved to as referred to the "A" folder
for where the footer page is resided. For example, one link is titled
Customer Service (in another language) and its old link is to, for example,
".../B/customerservice.asp" and it has been changed to
".../A/customerservice.asp".

For all these links, I did not even touch them as they were perfectly with
their intended fonts (using Asian font), and I was trying to change only one
link written in English to be using English font.

In any case, I understand this is a beta version, and even it is not a
"problem" for the software, we might just have to change some of our old
habits.

Finally, this is my little wishes for MS:

(1) Very detailed help file for the final version: I assume MS should know
that many (although not all) users who are using FP are not "professional"
programmers. Although FP has done a great job in the past for helping us
accomplished what we wanted, it also generated some not-very-written HTML
codes. Not a complain but a simple fact. When we're moving from FP to EWD,
it'd be the best if we have certain kind of tools or wizard that could help
us to "convert" or "migrate" old HTML files to a more EWD compatible HTML
files. In addition, please provide lots of detailed instruction, tutorials,
and so on, for "non-professional" programmers to develop a more cleaner web
pages using more correct codes, and CSS is a good example for that.

Thanks a lot.

 

[Tom Willett]

The newsgroup you need to be posting in:
microsoft.public.expression.webdesigner

 

[xfile]

Noted and thanks.

The newsgroup you need to be posting in:
microsoft.public.expression.webdesigner