Today I was reading through the comments on Soma’s blog post that I talked about earlier to see what I could glean from the responses posted by the Expression Web team and other folks at MS to see what will be in it. With Expression Studio v3 launching in just over a week it seemed like a fitting time to review. Especially since Microsoft is running a short 50% off sale on the current version for US customers (they just finished one for UK customers). Looks like Microsoft is clearing out inventory before the July 10, 2009 launch of Expression Studio 3.
SuperPreview
Expression Web Team said: 
@Ian Ringrose - SuperPreview in Expression Web (not SuperPreview for Internet Explorer) will support Firefox 3.x.
We are actively working on adding more browsers to SuperPreview, but right now we do not have any additional news to announce.
Thank you for your suggestions!
Expression Web Team
Root Relative Links
Expression Web Team said:
@Jeromey Gaudreau Balderrama - We understand that the root relative link bug is disruptive for some of our customer's workflows. Unfortunately, in Expression Web 3, this is not a bug that we fixed.
We are actively considering this issue for future service releases and hope to have better news for you in the not so distant future.
Thank you for your feedback - this kind of dialogue is very important to us and does help us align our priorities for future releases.
Expression Web Team
Keyboard Customization
Expression Web Team said:
@ALLOW CUSTOM KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS - Unfortunately Expression Web 3 does not let you create custom keyboard shortcuts, but this is something that we are receptive towards for future versions. Thank you for your input on features that are must-haves for you. We hope that you'll try our product regardless.
Pricing
Expression Web Team said:
@Denny - Pricing information will be available soon. Expect for Expression Studio upgrade prices to be competitive with our current Expression Studio pricing.
Extensibility
Expression Web Team said:
@Dennis DeRobertis - We have not announced details just yet for our extensibility story in Expression Web 3, but work is well under way and we are very interested in working with any add-in vendors to make sure that the transition from Expression Web 2 to Expression Web 3 is as easy as possible.
UI
Expression Web Team said:
@Roman - Expression Web 3 follows the same look and feel found throughout Expression Studio. This consistent, uniform interface is new for Expression Web 3 and does not let you change the colors in the interface.
You may find that it offers slightly less customizability than previous versions of Expression Web, at the expense of some new functionality that we have added, like a new Panel and Panel docking system.
We understand that customizability is very important to our customers, and we certainly hear loud and clear that this is something that we should invest in for future releases of Expression Web.
To all that have participated in the comments for this blog post, thank you for your feedback! We are very excited about this release. Feedback from customers definitely helps us shape future releases of Expression Web.
I got my invite today for the Expression Studio v3 launch in San Francisco July 10, 2009. Yes, I will be going and intend to have laptop or at least iPhone busy during the launch presentations, maybe both. So you will be able to follow what I have to say as they are showing the new stuff on Twitter (http://twitter.com/cdwise ) and a more detailed set of impressions and info here even if it takes a little longer to get posted (but will be posted as soon as possible since I do have cellular internet in this tablet.)
I’m looking forward to seeing the what’s new and hopefully improved.
In just under a month Expression Web v3 will be coming out. I am thinking of doing an editor comparison between Expression Web 3 and Dreamweaver CS 4 once v3 is available. What I would like to know is what sort of things should I compare the two programs and whether or not I should include Expression Web v2 in the comparison.
What do you think?
Okay, I’ll admit it when I own/moderate a web group I enforce the list rules. I’ve been on too many lists where there was no List Mom and ended up being filled with spam or dreck. If this makes me “arrogant” then so be it.
That means if you post a question to a list where I’m List Mom you need to:
- Be on topic – if you have a question not directly related to the list topic but related to web design/development in general mark it with OT so that list members are alerted to the nature of the question. Keep it relevant or it moderators will shut down the thread.
- Use a descriptive subject line – this helps ensure that you get the attention of contributors who are knowledgeable or interested about that particular area. Do use subjects such as PHP form display issue, or Content Div not displaying, or Set a default editor for images. Don’t use “Question”, “Help”, “I’m a beginner”. This is especially important on a large or high volume list.
- Trim your quotes, other than the forum here at http://by-expression.com/forms every group I moderate is an email group whether on Yahoo Groups or Google Groups. On some of these there are a substantial percentage of folks using dial-up, being charged by the byte or receiving the digest version. So we ask that people be considerate and not quote everything when they reply. In addition to removing any adverts put in by say Yahoo, trim everything except what is needed to put your reply in context.
- Be courteous, and that means to everyone including the moderators if they make suggestions on how to improve your post. Flaming is not allowed nor is trolling. Doing either will get you banned.
Lists I own/moderate include by topic:
<moderator hat>
This is a convention used on many mail lists that I first saw years ago on one of the mail lists I belong to (I think it was css-d but I really don’t remember) that is used to distinguish a post made by a list owner or official moderator to remind people of list rules OR to call a halt to a thread that has drifted too far off topic or become abusive.
The use of this tag is meant to be a more or less gentle reminder that the list is moderated and keep the list on topic. The alternative is to either ban participants in off topic threads and/or violation of list rules, something that seems to harsh or go to a list that is a free for all. Neither of which would be good for any list in the long run.
Looks like some information is on what is in Expression Web v3 is beginning to appear.
If you use some of the few Expression Web add-ons you may not want to upgrade to Expression Web v3 when it comes out according to Steve Guttman as quoted in the Expression Web team blog:
This means that a lot of things that worked before won’t work under the new unified UI framework, this can affect quite a few things when the coding of the program itself has to be changed. As Steve states at the end of his comment not everything will be ported into Expression Web 3.0 for this version. It also certainly means that none of the current Expression Web addons will work in EW 3.0 either.
So to my mind, if you like the CURRENT features of Expression Web 2.0 you should upgrade NOW. Since the SuperPreview will also be available as a standalone FREE version, you won’t be missing out on that particular new feature. http://www.expression-web.net/expression-web-3-insights/
So the question becomes will you gain more than you lose with the move to a “unified UI framework”?
Other links regarding Expression Studio v3 you might be interested in:
If you use Team Foundation Server here is what you will need to do to have it work with Expression Studio v3 http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/KB967483 Does this mean that you will now be able to have versioning and check-in/check-out for those working in teams with Visual Studio users?
Silverlight tools and debugging in Expression Web http://team.silverlight.net/announcements/expression-web-3-tools-simplify-debugging-and-silverlight-video-encoding/
Wonder what else we will find out before the July 10, 2009 release date?
Somasegar posted on his blog today some of the new things in EW v3. He's got more on the version of SuperPreview that will be in EW v3, sftp/ftps, something called "snapshot preview", Silverlight video and Photoshop integration see: http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/archive/2009/06/05/expression-web-3.aspx
Browser testing – BrowserLab from Adobe vs SuperPreview from Microsoft.
Today Adobe released their beta of BrowserLab which lets you preview a wider variety of browsers than the current beta version of SuperPreview (small images are linked to full size ones):
Previews are generated via a service which means you can preview on different operating system
- Firefox 2.0 – Windows XP
- Firefox 3.0 – Windows XP
- IE 6 – Windows XP
- IE 7 – Windows XP
- Safari – OS X
- Firefox 2.0 – OS X
- Firefox 3.0 – OS X
The benefit of using a service like BrowserLab over a locally run instance like SuperPreview does is that you can also see the color differences between OS X and Windows. Enlarge the image on the left and you will see significant differences in how the colors render.
The colors in IE 6 on Windows XP appear very washed out compared to Safari on OS X.
Both BrowserLabs and SuperPreview offer an overlay mode that lets you see how positioning maybe different between each of the browsers you are testing.
Looking at IE 6 (XP) and Safari (OS X) shows you just how quirky IE 6 can be.
What I would really like to see is the ability to test out more than a static browser view. See how rollovers work (or not). It will be interesting to see how these tools develop.
According to eWeek.com Microsoft has set the launch date for Expression Studio v3 at July 10, 2009 in the Bay Area of California.
Unfortunately, the article is sketchy on details about new features mentioning only Sketchflow in Blend v3 and Silverlight 3 both of which are in public betas. What this means for Expression Design and Expression Media is anyone’s guess. Granted my interest in these programs is somewhat limited but I am extremely interested in what is happening with Expression Web v3.
We saw little bits of Expression Web v3 in the background of Eric’s presentation of Super Preview at MIX 09 but that’s the only feature or change we have any information on. There was a preview release of the standalone version of Super Preview released at that time but nothing since. Eric indicated that the version of Super Preview that will be included with Expression Web v3 will have more features than the standalone version. It will support Safari, Firefox and I believe he said other browsers physically installed on your computer not just IE 6 and whatever other version you have of IE installed. (Not sure if you will be able to run both IE 7 and IE 8 as separate browsers in it as opposed to IE 8 with compatibility mode for IE 7, something I’d like more information on.) No information on any other changes or features for Expression Web v3 is available. I will admit to being somewhat concerned about this lack of information.
Months ago in February we talked about bugs in Expression Web v2, some of which had been carried over from v1 that came up in our November 2008 Live Meeting. In March and April during our MIX 09 Live Meetings we discussed SuperPreview, Seadragon and other stuff from MIX. We have been waiting more or less patiently for a CTP or beta of Expression Web to see which of our top bugs have been fixed, what features besides Super Preview are being added. It has been over 2.5 months since MIX 09 and we are still waiting.
Though now it appears there will be no CTP of Expression Web, Media or Design given the short time between this announcement and the launch date given in the eweek article. This is a departure from the previous versions where there was a long CTP/Beta of Expression Design v1 (over a year) and a shorter preview between two (v2) and five months (v1) of Expression Web. I don’t know about you but I’d like more information on what to expect in each of the Expression products in the version three release which is coming much earlier than I for one had expected. (I expected a November-December time frame based on the time between version 1-2 and the relatively little information provided on version 3 at MIX 09.)
What do you think?
Why 67% font size? Usually when I see something like that it is because the person responsible did so because they believed that 67% was the magic number where all browsers showed text as the same physical size. The idea behind this approach is that you set a base font size then scale items in ems from that. While I think this is an over controlling approach that still allows font sizes to scale in IE using Text > Size > Larger it is a reasonable approach.
However, the only way this works well is if you then scale every element on the page to a reasonable size. Let’s do some math so you can see what I’m talking about.
Default font size without any scaling is 12pt or 16px on both Windows and OS X systems. So when you do the math you get 8pt or 10.72 (which may be rounded down to 10px). Now if you are on a high resolution screen that is the equivalent of 4.5-5pt print. Not something comfortable for most to read. Even on a “normal” screen 10pt text is the smallest you should use for text that is comfortable to read for more than say a menu item. So if you use 67% as the page level default to get the equivalent of 10pt type you would need to use 1.25em for body text.
So what does MS do? They use 67% with no multiplier or other scaling for body text.
How do I know this?
Because this morning I noticed that the font seems smaller than normal when I went to http://social.expression.microsoft.com/forums/en-us/web/threads/ and discovered that the text seems smaller than before. So I opened it in the page in Expression Web and used its excellent CSS tools to see what is being applied.
So why didn’t MS scale the text so something more readable?
Your guess is as good as mine.
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I’m considering pulling all of the free tutorials on this site since most of the comments I’m getting are complaints about downloading.
I’ve had a few comments posted on my tutorials, primarily the Building a Basic Website in Expression Web tutorial that indicate some people have had problems with viewing or downloading the tutorials. The latest ones have been quite rude and frankly, I don’t appreciate comments like “get a real host”.
So I’m going to make a few comments of my own:
The tutorials are large – 1:20 minutes for the full version (122.7mb) and 18-30 minutes for each of the four parts if you go that route. Unless you are on a really fast connection expect it to take a few minutes to start. Heck, I’m on a 20mps connection and find that load time varies for me between 30 seconds and 3 minutes before the video will start to play after clicking the play arrow.
The full tutorial has been viewed over 12,000 and downloaded almost 1,700 times. That’s a lot of bandwidth.
Bandwidth is expensive and after months of overages bills ranging up to $130 a month I decided that I could not afford to provide unlimited bandwidth. As a result if there isn’t enough bandwidth available when you go to view or download.
Over the three years I’ve been offering free tutorials on by-expression.com I have received exactly 3 contributions from people who appreciated the material enough to make a contribution. That’s a grand total of less than $100.
If you want the video and it won’t work for you tell you what, I’ll burn it to DVD and send it to you for $79.95 – that’s $20 less than what Total Training charges for their “Essentials” CD.
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Today’s live meeting on CSS menus:
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This is the zip file for the menus discussed and created during the April 22, 2009 Live Meeting on CSS menus. All of the code as well as a text based tutorial on using the images and code to create three types of menus are included in the zip file. Download it and extract to your hard drive.
Types of menus:
- Simple horizontal CSS menu with image based rollovers
- Simple vertical (suitable for sidebar or floated) CSS menu with image based rollovers
- Tutorial on using the Project Seven CSS Express Menus with Expression Web
Alistapart.com has published their Web Design Survey results. Their conclusions are interest, especially considering the state of the world’s economy right now. The data, conclusions and results are at http://www.alistapart.com/articles/findingsfromthewebdesignsurvey2008 and I found several of them interesting especially regarding employment. First, I wish they had broken out “large company, university, library, museum, nonprofit, or other organization” which accounts for 56.4% of the survey respondents. Since they make the raw data available if I get time I might try breaking it out myself but realistically I don’t have the time so if someone else has done so, please let me know where.
I’ve argued with folks at MS that they underestimate the freelancers and small firms that do web design and development. If you consider small firms to be those with less than 10 members (owners, partners, employees) 33.6% fall into that category. (Note only 26.2% used that category but my number comes from the business size section which might or might not be more accurate.)
I was surprised at the number of volunteer/hobbyists that took the survey. I suspect the number is low because alistapart.com is a site for those who take web design seriously and actively work to improve their skills. Most of the volunteers I’ve worked with aren’t that dedicated to improving their skills but maybe that has changed, hope so but I suspect the volunteers/hobbyists that took the survey are a small percentage of those who create/maintain personal, hobby or small nonprofit websites. I work with my sons’ PTO and scout websites, both maintained by volunteers, I create the design and get applications working and matching the rest of the site but they handle content, calendars, moderate forums, etc. but I also “fix” the things that get broken. Over the 10 years I’ve worked with these groups and their volunteer site maintainers less than 20% have had any desire to learn more than the minimum necessary to update content.
Anyway, what else I found interesting:
- I expected the gender ratio to be smaller only female 16.2%
- Freelancers with over 10 years of experience – 11.2%
- Percentage with the goal of “a better class of clients” 7.7%
- Weighted average salary $52,095
- Median range $40,000 - $59.999
- Job titles where age seems related to job title – Accessibility Expert and Information Architect, maybe those are what Interface/UI Designers, Usability Experts and Project managers grow into. <g>
- Roles with the highest percentage of women – writers/editors, usability experts, web producer, or information architect.
- Women web developers are scare at 6.8% – wonder how that compares to development in general? Web developers make up 27.8% of the respondent’s job titles overall.
- Of the entire sample, 9.1% make more than $100,000. A significantly greater percentage of Creative Directors, Information Architects, Interface Designers, Marketers, Usability Experts, and Web Directors make more than $100,000.
- I suppose it doesn’t surprise anyone that the group that considers education to be the least relevant is the under 18 group (only 25% think it is important and relevant). In all the other age groups the majority think educations is relevant to their job.
- Job satisfaction rates are high averaging 70.7% with org 15.4% dissatisfied with their job. Though more females tan males are dissatisfied at with almost half dissatisfied which I suspect may reflect other job related issues and that more women are in the lower paying positions or in the uncompensated roles. I suppose nobody is surprised to job satisfaction is highest in those who make more than $150,000.
- Art Directors, Web Designers, and Designers, less than half participate in formal training. Accessibility Experts, Usability Experts, Interface Designers, and Information Architects (who, coincidently, represent the leading edge of the field), have the greatest percent participation in formal training. The higher the income, the more likely people are to participate in formal training.
I was recently sent an offer where Canadians initiated in Expression Web can get it for $0 from Angie Lim at Microsoft Canada:
It is for a free Exclusive Web Solutions Toolkit consisting of: a free copy of Microsoft’s Expression Web 2 software (retail $299 CDN), three part web development webcast training, hosting offers and more just by joining Microsoft’s Web Solution Community for free. Registering takes a few minutes and allows partners to access sales, marketing and training resources right at their fingertips all for free. I would be more than happy to help anyone with this process if need be.
You can access the Web Resource Kit page at: www.microsoft.ca/webkit
Angie says this offer is good until April 30, 2009.
Someone asked me yesterday if the quiet announcement by Microsoft that starting April 1, 2009 SharePoint Designer was free and that Expression Web would become a SharePoint instead of web tool the FAQ it is not. The handwriting for the separation of internet from proprietary oriented editors at Microsoft is on the wall:
But Expression Web does not currently support SharePoint sites. When will that change?
Expression Web does not currently support SharePoint sites directly. However, we are working to ensure that Expression Web becomes an excellent choice for SharePoint customization. This capability will be available in a future version of Expression Web. In the mean time, customers who receive this Software Assurance benefit should continue to use SharePoint Designer for their SharePoint needs, and can utilize Expression Web for other non SharePoint needs.
I am extremely disappointed to read this because one of the major problems with FrontPage that caused it to be perceived as a second class citizen in the web design community was the proprietary nature of the FPSE and that so much of the "advanced" functions required Microsoft proprietary installs on the hosting server. As a result the output was heavily biased towards Internet Explorer and not always the latest version of it either.
I have been an outspoken advocate of keeping MS proprietary intra/extranet tools out of their "internet" oriented web Expression Web.
Many of you will remember that I argued that all the FPSE required bots should be removed from Expression Web back when we first saw the original CTP release in 2006. The decision to keep that key difference between Expression Web and SharePoint Designer was something I thought a good decision. I believe that the headway Expression Web has made in the professional web designer/developer community is directly due to that decision and was helped by Adobe’s decision not to support ASP.NET Master Pages in Dreamweaver.
[aside: Several shops that I know of who have used Dreamweaver exclusively are now using Expression Web for their front-end design of ASP.NET sites and master pages. So I think Adobe made a mistake not to support ASP.NET 2.0 Master pages in CS4 even if they did decide to drop ASP.NET application support.]
Unfortunately, this decision of Microsoft's to incorporate SharePoint design and editing into Expression Web will only validate the position taken originally by many that Expression Web is nothing more than a new name for FrontPage and its proprietary output. In addition, Expression Web has been on a release cycle comparable to other web editors, approximately every 18 months or so. This allows it to keep up with the pace of what people are doing on the web. Expression Web and SharePoint Designer were released more or less at the the same time in 2006. Expression Web is now in version 2 and we’ve seen at MIX 09 something of what they are working on for the next version with SuperPreview. Yet SharePoint has not had a new release being tied to both Office and Windows Servers it is on a much longer release cycle. Will putting SharePoint support in Expression Web put it on the same release cycle as Office and/or Windows Servers? Seems to me this change puts the strengths of Expression Web – the ability to host on any server and use PHP as well as ASP.NET into what may become a second class status in favor of a proprietary SharePoint orientation.
This is the second Expression Studio product that will be a casualty of Microsoft turning away from standards and towards proprietary solutions that server only a small segment of web designers/developer's needs.
I have watched Microsoft take a good graphics program and strip it of almost everything that made it a good web graphics program and turn it into something useful only to create WPF graphics. Now I see Microsoft taking their best web editor to date and moving it in the direction of a Windows only tool and am disheartened. Turning the focus of the entire Expression Studio inward to focus on SharePoint and Windows desktop (WPF) applications will only destroy what remains of the Expression Web community that has still not recovered from the move to the forum structure.
Microsoft – make SharePoint Designer free if you want to encourage people to use SharePoint but please don’t turn Expression Web into the “new” SharePoint design application.
The next webcast we will be sponsoring will be on CSS Based Menus
When: Thursday, April 23, 2009
Start Time: Thursday, Apr 23, 2009 10:30 AM CDT
End Time: Thursday, Apr 23, 2009 11:30 AM CDT
Attendee URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mvp/join?id=BS7CG2&role=attend&pw=g%27nRQ%3BP8k
More information will be posted later this month, We are hoping to be able to record this meeting and have it as a tutorial on our site.
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