Product Description

EXPRESSION WEB 2 ENG DVD DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2952 in Software
• Brand: Microsoft
• Model: 45117G
• Released on: 2008-05-26
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Format: CD-ROM
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.57" h x 5.51" w x 7.87" l, .50 pounds

Features

• Only design tool on the market that combines the power of design and development with Microsoft Visual Studio compatibility and support for ASP.NET 3.5 including ASP.NET AJAX and PHP
• Build sites according to today's standards, including XHTML, CSS, XML, and XSLT; enjoy better rendering in browsers, more relevant indexing in search engines, enhanced productivity, and more
• Design-focused tools simplify complex web technology and put you in complete control
• Expression Web 2 switches from standards to quirks rendering, depending on the doctype in use; have confidence that your designs will translate perfectly from your design tool to the browser
• Working visually with XML data has never been easier; now you can easily include, filter, and sort data from any XML source

Amazon.com
Enter a new era in Web design. Expression Web 2 gives you all the tools you need to produce high-quality, standards-based Web sites.

Expression Web 2 combines the power of design and development with Microsoft Visual Studio compatibility and support for ASP.NET 3.5 including ASP.NET AJAX and PHP.

Compatibility reporting of HTML/XHTML and CSS.

Split View allows you to review both code and site design simultaneously.

Deliver standards-based sites, by default
Microsoft Expression Web 2 builds sites according to today's standards, including XHTML, CSS, XML, and XSLT. For Web designers, that means better rendering in browsers, more relevant indexing in search engines, enhanced productivity, and more.

Give your creativity new legs
Today's sites use cascading style sheets to separate design from content. The design-focused tools in Expression Web 2 simplify this complex technology and put you in complete control. From visual drag-and-drop margin and padding control to a visual hierarchy of style applications, it's easy to take charge of your design.

What you see is what they get
Accurate page rendering in the design environment gives you full creative freedom. Expression Web 2 switches from standards to quirks rendering, depending on the doctype in use. You'll have confidence that your designs will translate perfectly from your design tool to the browser.

Present XML data your way
Working visually with XML data has never been easier. Drag and drop an XML file and watch as it's immediately rendered by an XSL stylesheet that can be reformatted to match any site's style. Now you can easily include, filter, and sort data from any XML source.

Do more with your sites
Expression Web 2 combines the power of design and development with Microsoft Visual Studio compatibility and support for ASP.NET 3.5 including ASP.NET AJAX and PHP.

Design

• Layers support
• Dynamic Web Template and ASP.NET 3.5 Master Page support
• Adobe Photoshop import
• XML drag-and-drop support

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

• CSS schema support for 1.0, 2.0, 2.1, IE6 & IE7
• Drag-and-drop CSS rule application and management
• Draggable CSS margins and padding
• Code editor

User Interface

• Split View allows you to review both code and site design simultaneously
• Design surface supports both standards rendering and quirks rendering

Code

• IntelliSense for HTML, CSS, XSL, JScript, JavaScript, VBScript, ASP.NET and PHP
• Code navigation hyperlinking
• Code snippet support

Web Application Development

• ASP.NET 3.5 Support including Master Pages and Control design time rendering
• ASP.NET AJAX support
• PHP Support including Intellisense and Includes rendering
• ASP.NET and PHP Development Server

Reporting

• Reporting of CSS usage errors
• Reporting of s508, WCAG 1 and 2 accessibility compliance
• Compatibility reporting of HTML/XHTML and CSS

Deployment

• HTML optimization tools
• Deployment through FTP, WebDAV, and FrontPage Server Extensions

Other

• Predesigned site templates included
• Support for third-party add-ins

Customer Reviews

Adobe needs to watch out
I have been using both Dreamweaver and Frontpage for a long time and have watched both grow. With Expression 1.0 Frontpage grew up and became a serious web tool, with Expression Web 2.0 it leaves Adobe playing catch up. There is simply no better tool out there that will help you create and manage your sites. Perhaps Adobe will make Dreamweaver CS4 better but for now this is the new leader in WYSIWYG web design

A product for beginners
I purchased this product with hopes to increase my Web site development productivity. Unfortunately, after using it for about a week I am greatly disappointed. Features that are common in other development environments are missing or buried deeply, like surround selection with comment tags or format the selected HTML to keep indentations correct for that selection. It seems it can only format the entire document -- and EW2 does it in the way IT likes, not in the way you may have become accustomed. For example, it formats the section as all left-justified.

EW2 doesn't visually indicate the close tag of an element or structure by clicking on it. You have to right-click and select "Select Tag." Other development environments (Visual Studio, Aptana Studio) have made such indications automatically for years. This is very cumbersome if you're trying to verify everything is closed correctly or determine the extent of a block of code.

In addition, if you're using CSS style sheets for page formatting, as is the method recommended by the W3C and other standards groups, the GUI modification environment ignores them. If you move something even one pixel in the GUI presentation, code (top: XXpx; left: XXpx; etc.) gets added to the element instead of modifying the style sheet - even if the element has an ID and a stylesheet unique to the page. That complicates things if you're trying to use CSS Stylesheets for your page formatting. Stay out of the GUI environment!

The Undo feature also works unexpectedly. If you haven't saved, and you undo, it sometimes appears to undo to the last saved state, and redo is left unavailable. Save often! No, I mean even more often than you used to -- as in every sentence or so. I couldn't get Undo and Redo to work reliably or consistently as I have done in other development environments.

Expression Web 2 also takes more liberties than it should in adding code to your document and making assumptions that may not be valid. If you're using PHP "include" statements EW2 gets confused. In such cases EW2 will try to correct your page in a way it understands, but not in a way that is correct. I encountered many problems -- some of which deleted code and resulted in lost work for me. You might say it was user error, but if I encounter such errors as an experienced user of *other* development environments in which I don't have such errors, then I say the product invites user errors and is too risky for me to use.

If you're just starting out, this might be a good starter program for you, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who is fluent in HTML, XHTML, CSS, or PHP. You'll end up spending half your time correcting what EW2 does to your web pages.

If I could return this product for a refund, I would.

Good, bad, similar
Expression Web 2 is very similar to Dreamweaver 8. 'EW2' handels CSS code very well and has a good Design Window. FrontPage did a poor job viewing CSS web pages. I miss the Review button. Now you have to press F12 key to view through the browser, same as 'DW8'. Overall, I like Expression Web 2, but I suggest buying a good manual to review the newer menu system, creating CSS, and publishing to the web. A good FTP program is suggested too. MS made just enough improvements to keep up with Dreamweaver 8. My give Expression Web 2 a positive review.