Software Review: Microsoft Expression Studio 2 - Expression Web 2

This is the first of a series of three reviews that will cover what is contained in the Microsoft Expression Studio 2 Collection. Expression Studio is the latest version of Microsoft's development design set. In Studio 2, there are five programs that are geared to Web and application developers and designers. The products include Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Design, Expression Media, and Expression Encoder. The goal is define what each product does and provide information of what it can do for you.

What do you need to run Expression Studio 2? On Windows you need an 1GHz or faster processor, Windows XP SP2 or Vista; on Mac, a PowerPC® or multi-core Intel processor, Mac OS X v10.4.11 – 10.5.4 (Leopard), 1GB RAM, 1024x768 display (1280x800 recommended) with a 24-bit video card, 2GB hard drive space, and DVD-ROM Drive.

Here I will look at Microsoft Expression Web 2. Expression Web is a HTML Editor and general Web design program that was developed to replace Microsoft FrontPage. It is targeted toward professional Web site developers. It allows the authoring of Web pages using XML, CSS, ASP.NET, XHTML, XSLT, and JavaScript. Differing from FrontPage, it uses its own rendering engine, and contains accurate standards compliant rendering.

In Expression Web 2, you have an editing screen that toggles between design screen, straight code, and split screen with the editing screen at the bottom. While it retains some similarities to FrontPage, it really is totally different under the hood. Instead of inserting jacked up tags and code, it really builds nice CSS-based code that is easy to maintain. It is also pretty easy to build larger sites by using templates.

So what is new with Expression Web 2?

• PHP Support – now will let you work with PHP sites and provide the standards-based features to this platform. You can just open up a PHP page and start creating. You get syntax color coding and full InteleSence control to help you choose functions and global variables, as well as tool tips that provide information about parameters. Once you have PHP on your system, you can also preview your pages locally without having to upload to a server.

• ASP.NET Support – has been enhanced as well to not only support ASP.NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, but AJAX support as well. AJAX is the essential technology for creating a modern state of the art site in which the full page refresh is no longer needed and gives it a more responsive, dynamic feel. You can now work with any ASP.NET Control as well.

Article Author: T. Michael Testi

T. Michael Testi is software developer, a writer, and a photographer. He also blogs at PhotographyTodayNet and at All This and Everything Else.

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