Expression Web Blog

You know when your rushed off your feet and don’t have time for anything? Well I had to make time to tell you that Eric Meyer’s CSS Sculptor for Expression Web pre-release trial is available for free download. It will retail for $99.99 to begin with, so don’t waste time. I’ll be showing you the template I made with it shortly and a more indepth review.

 I’m in the middle of moving house, so I can’t get everything done as quickly as I would like but it will be worth the wait I promise <smiles>

Yesterday Microsoft launched Expression Web 2 Beta available for free download

To submit suggestions and bugs, go to:
 http://connect.microsoft.com/expression

It requires .Net Framework 3.5 to be installed before it will install

If you have the private preview Expression 2 previews installed you should uninstall these before installing the Expression Web 2 Beta. However it can be installed alongside Expression 1 with no problems.

What is new in Expression Web 2 Beta?

PHP

• Preview PHP pages
• target different versions of PHP
• Insert PHP snippets
• customizable color coding in Code View
• PHP IntelliSense (auto complete)
• PHP includes - rendered in Design view.

Byte order mark options

Enables control over Bom insertion

Silverlight 1.0

Expression Web 2 Beta allows you to insert or Edit a HTML file generated by Silverlight

Flash and Windows Media

Insert Flash SWF and Windows Media files, edit and preview flash files in Design View or run any other type of ActiveX control.

Photoshop Import

Expression Web 2 enables you to generate a .png, .gif, or .jpeg file from a Photoshop .psd file and select the Photoshop layers you want to include or exclude from the image.

ASP.NET AJAX

ASP.NET AJAX server controls that let you create web pages that include a familiar user interface (UI) elements.
ASP.NET AJAX server controls supported by Expression Web 2 include the UpdatePanel, Timer, UpdateProgress, ScriptManager, and ScriptManagerProxy controls.

Note:
To work with these controls in Expression Web 2, you must install ASP.NET AJAX or the .NET Framework 3.5. See Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 or ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 in the Microsoft Download Center online.

Custom ASP.NET controls

Custom ASP.NET controls that you have placed in the BIN folder of your website. Preview custom controls and access the Common Tasks smart tag menu in Design view, edit properties, and use IntelliSense and syntax checking in Code view.
Third party custom ASP.NET controls can be used

ASP.NET data

DataPager and ListView ASP.NET controls.

Note:
To work with these controls in Expression Web 2, you must install the .NET Framework 3.5. See Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 in the Microsoft Download Center online.

FTP publishing

Set Passive FTP or normal FTP, and save your FTP user name and password.

CSS

The Design view in Expression Web 2 now renders the CSS overflow property.
As well as internal CSS files the Compatibility Reports now check external CSS files, for compatibility with the CSS schema you specify.

HTML file extension

Expression Web 2 lets you set your preference for the default HTML file extension.

Alphabetized HTML attributes

A new setting in the Code Formatting options in the Page Editor Options dialog box enables you to control whether HTML attributes are alphabetized or not in the code of your web pages. By default, tag attributes are now written in alphabetical order when Expression Web 2 adds HTML tags to your page. Existing tags in a page are affected by the new setting only if you apply the Reformat HTML command to the page. For more information,

I have finally launched my latest Expression Web Tips Vol ll Ebook containing twenty-six Original Tips that can not be found elsewhere. The ebook is priced once again at $7  the same as Volume l. However if you buy both together you can obtain them for $13 with $1 reduction. I keep the price low so that everyone can afford them.

Chris Leeds the well known Content Seed CMS developer who is also a Microsoft MVP - FrontPage gave Any Expression Web Designs an interview and told us about the book he has written Expression Web Step by Step

We asked him about any new projects and he kindly told us about a special build of ContentSeed that will be coming out shortly. He also told us about his new form handler, which we look forward to hearing more about.

You can read the full Expression Web Interview with Chris Leeds and drop any comments back here on the blog.

Today I received an email to an addy that I only use with PayPal, so of course it is reflected in their code on the buy buttons I use. The only people that would use it would be someone who had illegally spidered my addy.

This email was from someone who used this email addy. It was about Genealogy and since I belong to a FP and EW lists on Rootsweb and two of the help lists there I thought it was someone from the lists emailing me and it was not marked spam by my spam checker so I opened it and read it.

The email was touting a new book about how to make a site and publish it as a book also. Admirable you might think, that might be so if they had told you how to do this with a Web or Text Editor. However they were touting a Word Processor and a Desktop Publishing Editor, namely Word and Publisher.

How simply awful. The mere thought sent me to shuddering at the thought many people that will read that and produce sites that web users will not be able to read. Either because it will crash browsers or cause untold accessibility problems not to mention TEACHING this method.

I believe when you teach, no matter the subject you should be ethical in your practices, every single time.

In my humble opinion this is not the case here.

Make a book yes but please, please, please do NOT publish the output as a web site. That is what Expression Web is for. Or there are plenty of free Web editors around to produce your site in the correct way.

I won’t advertise their book for them so in order to recognise the book and site I am talking about .. this is a quote from their pdf file they ask you to look at.

“This appendix presents detailed information on the two website authoring applications we recommend, Microsoft Word and Microsoft Publisher, and how to use them to createa genealogy website. A website authoring application creates the HTML files of the website. Also, the website authoring application should be capable of producing, in a straight-forward project, the genealogy book from the genealogy website. “The Book” as it is called in this guide is the traditional product of genealogy research and the dream of many genealogists.”

Start as you mean to go on and learn the right way when it comes to coding your site and the correct editors to use.  If you are going to teach people how to create a book you do it one way. If you teach them how to create a website you teach another way.  The two do NOT go hand in hand.

So what is the lesson here?

Firstly, kindly don’t spam. Spamming is liable to backfire on you.

Secondly if you are going to teach a method make sure your not promoting bad practices to those people who have the least idea on how to proceed in a new and scary genre.

Lastly the owners of this book and site sent the email to the wrong two people who feel strongly about valid and accessible code. (My good friend Pat Geary also received this email). Hence this post from two irate web designers!

Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Editionis provided free by Microsoft. So what about that is to do with free Expression Web? Well it uses the same engine that Expression Web does so much of features are available within VWD08EE with the added bonus of the ASP.NET features.

 The following features are not available within Visual Web Developer, now some of those you are not going to miss and can even substitute by using a free html editor or other third party tools.

1. Image tracing
2. Picture editing tools
3. Ability to draw tables
4. Layout table tools and task panes
5. Advanced, HTML-oriented Find and Replace
6. Spell checker
7. Quick Tag Editor
8. Behaviors
9. Frame-set editing
10. Image map tools
11. Previewing pages in predefined fixed sizes

The point is, Visual Web Developer 2008 is free for your usage and for those that can learn quickly but are on a lower budget this is an ideal stop gap to further your tool-set for web design. I also see it as an encouragement to learn ASP.Net by being in a familiar setting to Expression Web.

I told you previously about ReMix07 Boston - An ongoing conversation about Web Design in that post I mentioned Cheryl D. Wise my fellow MVP who is now a Microsoft MVP - Visual Developer - Expression. Cheryl was invited to talk at ReMix07 Boston and now the videos of her talks are available for viewing on Building CSS Based Websites with Expression Web