In my previous post I asked for the things Microsoft did right to tell the product team at MIX 07; Now I'd like to know what features in Expression Web you would give a thumbs down to.

I'd like to see  at least three of those as well BUT I do not want to see "I miss the xyz from FrontPage" save those for the next thread.

EW not able to remember the sign in info for ftping to site. Real pain. -pat-

Ditto on remembering sign-in and login for FTP, but also add: do the same for FrontPage logins for those still publishing via http:. (Mind you, FrontPage stopped having the option to remember the login/password, in later versions, too!  It would only work on a site I had started in an earlier version.)

Give the user the option to choose to remember the sign in data or not, based on their comfort in the security of their own computer, and store it encrypted.  If Microsoft thinks that's too much of a security risk, consider the result of people needing to keep cheat-sheats with their various logins and passwords, if they maintain several websites.  Picture a screen surrounded by login/password Post-Its.  ...Not a security improvement!

The ASP.NET controls integration sucks. If you are going to allow ASP.NET controls, you need to be able to customize the toolbox with third party controls. As it stands today, you have to either blindly add the controls or wait until you get into Visual Studio (or Visual Web Designer Express) to add controls.

After updating sites the past couple of days, I have to say that publishing to an http address is a whole lot easier and much, much faster than publishing to a ftp address. EW remembers my username and password when publishing to http while it does not via ftp. The process of publishing to an http address is almost instantaneous while the program seems to hang and hang to an ftp address sometimes for so long that I disconnect and fire up my ftp program. It really is frustrating. And it does not seem to matter the size of the site. -pat-

1. EW should not need FP cleaner to work properly (and this saves me from posting the grumbling I had about this issue.)

2. EW should have 'regular' (non-ASP) versions of some of the controls available to asp site creation, at least some of the drop-down menu stuff, maybe a variation of the ad rotator that would allow fresh imagery to be plugged into pages when they open. (after all, the code is out there, having it integrated would have been nice)
 3. More help available through the built-in help function; there is too much leaning on a 'find help online' paradigm. Most of the online help is useless to someone without broadband, and there are still a lot of us out there.
4. Don't know how used to COREL products you are, but their style of 'roll-ups' for thing such as manage styles pane would be a great help; it is better as a vertical strip than showing at the bottom, but when it appears your page gets squeezed up or partially covered, quite often making it impossible to see the problem you're trying to rectify. You can't minimize this or the other panes, they are either open or closed. Which can be a pain.
5. This is more of a wish: as we know, previewing in browser is an absolute necessity. Sure wish that funtion was extended with an emulator so I could see what the page would look like on a, say, 800 x 600 15" screen, or higher rez 14" screen such as on a laptop. The more screens your pages look right on, the better, and sometimes the only way to know is to see it for sure or for real. This would help keep people with 19" or larger screens from building pages that are a train wreck on anything smaller. I work on a 17" but design for 15" which will also usually display properly on a 14" LCD (and Dell among others sold a lot of them with their lower-end desktops)
6. A tad more information about error/code compliance repair. A popup tells you that a specific attribute is no longer considered proper or is devalued. But does it help you find the proper alternative? This is especially an issue for converting pages written with FP.

-Steve 

A couple of things.

1.  You can dock the task panes anywhere on the screen including stacking them all on one side or docking them to the bottom or top of your document window where the report pane is by default. There is a tutorial over on the main http://by-expression.com site on customizing your Expression Web interface.
2. There is no such thing as a laptop resolution tied to screen sizes. I have a 12" tablet that has 1400x1050 screen resolution. a 12" PowerBook (Mac) that has 1024x768, a 13.3" MacBook that has 1280x768. Other laptops in my house have 15.4" 1280x768, 15.4" 1440x1050, 3 different older laptops with 15" 1024x768 and we may have another 12" laptop soon with 1280x768.

There really is no difference between a laptop screen and any other flat panel. We have a media center machine with a 22" flat panel monitor that has a native resoluton of 1680x1050 but I fequently find it at 800x600 because that is the resolution used by one of my son's games.

Very few people with high resolution screens will browse full screen. Generally those with lots of pixels know to resize the screen if the page is too wide for comfort. Those who are an smaller screens will thank you if the page does not produce a horizontal scroll at 800x600 because even those who have 1024x768 may not browse full screen or if they do may have a sidebar open. My husband has his history sidebar open while my fathe always has his favorites folder open. As for me if I'm using Firefox the odds are good I'll have EditCSS open. :)

The library where I'm a trustee has four low-end Dells with 15" flat panels and they are real cranky about displaying at anything other than 1024x768. Same for the circ desk LCDs. Just passing on what I've encountered, certain LCDs preferring a native resolution, and me aiming for what they will probably see..

The bottom dock is workable, but you don't get left with a lot of design/code workspace--especially if you are showing both panes, even on a 17" screen. I've been moving them around trying to find where they will cause me the least aggravation. Still would be handy to be able to minimize those panes, rather than opening and closing them repeatedly when you also need/want to see the full screen. As for the tutorial, again, too little information comes with the program!

I shoot for non-scrolling display on anything better than a 14" EGA (we just took one of them out of service!).

-Steve 

 

If collapsing task panes is something you are willing to spend a few dollars on see http://panemanager.com for an add-on that allows you to collapse the panes like Visual Studio.

Thanks for the suggestion! The next time I'm at the library (as I was just an hour ago before reading this) I plan to download the trial version to check it out. It's weird. I'm more fussy about my computer screen workspace than my physical workspace; my office looks like a bomb went off in it, and when I'm doing carpentry or remodeling I can work happily in almost lethal chaos.

-Steve 

For me, overall speed and refresh rates of the screen need vast improvement. Agree with the FTP portion - horrid implementation.
Wih they had a selective publish feature for folders.

Steve Banks

To selectively publish select the files or folders you want to publish from the Folder List using either shift or control + click then right click and select "Publish" which will publish just the selected files.