As a newbie can someone tell me why Expression is the best tool spend my hours to learn site creation. FrontPage seems to have a bad rap & folks tell me to goto Dreamweaver. I understand the Expression does .Net, ASP & other "Microsoft" technologies, but I need to feel good about future-proofing my learning curve.

PS: great site 

 

Hi GaryScott,
I have been a FrontPage user for many years. I have seen the changes over the years in FrontPage. To answer your question in my own opinion, FrontPage as with any new program may of had some issues, but over the years they were worked out.

Some people just tend to believe what they hear, so the rumors kept spreading regarding FrontPage. I firmily believe that it is not the html editor that you use, but whether you know what you are doing and how to work with in the program you are using. If you have a good knowledge of html and are willing to take time to expand your knowledge then you can make your website standout with what ever program you work with. I myself love FrontPage, as with any program it can have a learning curve.

When it comes to designing a websites, it takes more than just an HTML editor, you should have knowledge of a graphics program and understand CSS and SEO. These all work hand in hand in good design work. I tried DreamWeaver and for my comfort I found FrontPage to be more user freindly for me, only because I have been using it for years, does it make DreamWeaver a bad program, no, the same holds true for FrontPage. What makes a program get a bad name I think it to many people tend to expect to much from a program designed to be a working tool, instead of using it has a helping tool along with other helping tools.

Regarding Expression Web, it is for the designers of the future. It is moving forward with technology and the internet changes. I plan on moving forward and will advance and learn with Expression Web, will I give up FrontPage, no. It has meet my needs as a designer.

Like many people I started using FrontPage to get a website on the internet, I soon discovered that there was a lot more involved that just typing some words in a web editor. So, why Expression Web, this depends on whether you want to advance with technology. It is going to have a learning curve, but stick to it, ask for help. In deciding what program to use, I think it just depends on what you find helpful in meeting your web needs. For me that is FrontPage and as I gain more comfort level in Expression Web it too will be a great program for me.

First place while there are many things wrong with FrontPage it is not a bad editor. In fact FrontPage 2003 is a pretty good editor of its vintage but remember the web changes much more quickly than other areas. Since FrontPage was released there have been three new versions of Dreamweaver so of course it will have better support for standards and what is important to web designers now than a four- four and a half year old program. Besides most people who say "don't use FrontPage" have never used it or seen what it can do in the hands of anyone who knows how to use it properly instead of treating it as a web version of Word. People who do know how to use FrontPage don't use meta tags that say "generated in FrontPage" nor do they use the 1998 version which would "fix" HTML it considered broken. FrontPage grew up but the perception of it did not.

I can guarantee you that there are really bad sites created in Dreamweaver just as there are really bad sites created in FrontPage. Okay, there are more bad sites created in FrontPage but that's because FrontPage is easeir to use and costs a lot less so more people who are creating sites by going click, click, click are using it. I use both and have been using Dreamweaver since UltraDev 1 and even wrote the FrontPage 2003 to Dreamweaver 8 migration guilde so I do have at least a clue what I'm talking about.

Truth is you can create a really good site or a really bad site with any tool or method out there and that includes hand coding every character.

Now having gotten that little rant off my chest. :) Let's talk ablut Expression Web. You learn tehcnologies not tools. You can future proof only by understanding what you are doing and continuing to learn because the web evolves and changes all the time. What was state of the art and realy "hot" in 1999 looks like bad practice now becuase standards have changed. When is the last time you saw a new car sold w/o seat belts for example?

Expression Web is NOT FrontPage. It is easier to use than Dreamweaver.and right now has the best CSS tools - CSS is what you use to create the presentation layer or how the page displays in the browser. Expression Web creates standards complaint HTML that honors the doctype out of the box. This is what you need in any web editor since HTML and CSS are the basic foundations of web design and you cannot create a website without them.

Unlike FrontPage Expression Web is not tied to the development cycle of Microsoft Office and I expect it to be updated on a far more frequent basis, just like Dreamweaver.

RE ASP.NET - while Microsoft is the sponsor of ASP.NET and offers the best support for it ASP.NET is an approved standard that is open to anyone. You can get ASP.NET for Apache servers running on Linux. That version is created by the open source community and is available from http://www.mono-project.com/ASP.NET so it isn't just a Microsoft technology.

Expression is a web authoring tool, a good first generation tool. Is it perfect? Far from it but there is no such thing as a perfect tool.

Will it get better? Yes.

Can you learn Expression Web 1.0 and know everything you need to know to create great sites? Not really

Can you learn to use Dreamweaver and know everything you need to create great sites? Again the answer is no.

Don't think about this process as learning a tool becuase tools can't do it all and in fact a good web designer/developer never uses just one tool.

My view, Expresion Web is good. It is a valuable addition to any web designer's toolbox but it is not and should not be the only tool you need. Besides the price if you can get your hands on any version of FrontPage makes it a bargain. :)

Thanks for the great advice.

For someone new to web design/publishing the world of css, ajax, php, asp, flash etc. etc. etc. get confusing when trying to decide on a " please don't waste my time" learning path.

From your responses I think that I understand that EW is like the trowel used to apply the cement to build the brick wall- so learn about the bricks I want to use, right?

My thought is that EW is the tool to help you build the main foundation and you then use other tools to enhance your foundation. Just like building a house you start with the plans on paper and you move forward from there. When building websites, you need to plan and have a picture of what you want your design work to look like. This will require a lot of homework and research on your end.

 It will take many trial and error pages and hours, but in the end you will have a completed design you can be proud of.

In my past experience in working with web page design, I have learned, to play and play and experiment, this is one of the best ways to learn. You will have moments of frustration and moments of joy. What makes a good web design is the person that is willing to put forth the effort to learn, study and learn, then once you think you have it mastered, you keep going and learn more. After you have acheived a level of knowledge, you share your knowledge, this will again help you as, when you share your knowledge, others will share their knowledge.

Thanks folks. It is slowly becoming clear what FP, EW, and DreamWeaver is and does.

More than the trowel, since it also has some of the characteristics of motar in that helps put the pieces together but you do need some bricks. The most important brick is good content.

Expression will help you with the basics, good clean xhtml (or html if you prefer) , very good CSS tools (currently the best out there with TopStyle then Dreamweaver 8 in second and third though StyleMaster is also in that third tier).

Unless you are really into or want to be really into programming learn those two first. At some point you will probably need to learn some scripting whether it is javascript (basis for ajax/spry) or something like asp.net or php but you need a good foundation before you start building those walls to use your building analogy.

EW will help you in putting your structure together and help you make it ready to release on the internet and as Cheryl D Wise stated you also need good content which will bring the vistors and help with your SEO placement.

Another thing that is over looked is having a good understanding of graphics. While EW will help you with the code, page layout and clean html, all this work can go down the drain if you do not have clean, optimized graphics and pleasing color combinations.

EW is the future of web designers and helping them move forward and teach them how to use and work with xhtml and css. If you are new to web design, then it is best to start out fresh with a web editor that will work with you and teach you at the same time some of the important issues that can be the downfall of many new websites. CSS is an impotant tool and one that is over looked.  With CSS features built into EW, you have a web editor that that can be very educational in today's web page and browsing needs. So as you learn html, xhtml, you will also learn CSS.

While working in EW when it was in Beta release, one thing that impressed me was the beautiful css templates. For new web designers, these templates will help you in a lot in learing how to create clean appealing web sites while helping you understand what css does and how it works.

While I love FrontPage, I think EW is going to offer a lot to both worlds. It will help new people just getting into web design understand the need for CSS and it is going to help the professional designer in providing the tools to enhance and upgrade their current websites. I myself have not made the switch to EW yet, as I have a comfort level in FrontPage. In order for me to advance, I will need to leave my comfort level and move forward. I know some CSS, but have a lot more to learn and I'm looking forward to the knowledge I will gain while using EW.

I agree with nearly everything said here.

EW, like FrontPage, Dreamweaver, GoLive, or any other editor is only a tool. As far as creating CSS-based layouts, I really like EW the best, though I still use Dreamweaver fora few reasons:

1. It's more familiar to me and I haven't migrated my sites yet (a lame excuse, but a valid one nonetheless).
   
2. I only have the beta release on a beta version of Windows, and so I've noticed a few bugs I have to work around.
3. Most importantly, though, I use PHP extensively, and until I can see dynamic include updates, syntax highlighting, and so forth, I'll continue to only use EW for initial design and not continued site development.

Even Dreamweaver is not even very good at syntax highlighting for PHP. Truthfully, the best syntax highlighter for PHP I've seen is the PHPEclipse plugin for the Eclipse IDE (both Eclipse and the plugin are free). It's very bloated, though -- it's running the PHP language over the Java IDE over a program, which at the end of the day, is Java -- but boy, do I love the highlighting it gives. It even gives me little squiggles under invalid code, kinda like Word does with misspelled words (a feature I love!!), and it has built-in XAMPP controls for if you're testing your sites locally. If someone could invent such a plugin for EW, I'd switch in a heartbeat, and I'd probably even pay for the plugin if I knew it could be as good.

Yes I too agree. Through the years I too have tried GoLive, Dreamweaver, and Namo. WHY??? Because I thought there was a program that would do everything for me. But, no program makes up for plain hard work and knowledge. It takes more than a single tool to really create the sites that make you go WOW. It takes the knowledge of several programs, knowledge of how the internet works and understanding that everyone will be viewing your sites on different computers.  Knowing your visitor may not have that fancy font you love. So you need to know how to make it look like you want and to use every tool to your advantage. I see and get questions all the time, will FrontPage do this and will it do that. The same thing is going to hold true for EW, there will be questions, will EW do this and will it do that. No program is going to do everything for you. Just like running a business, it takes team work to make things flow. Well, the same thing applies to web design, team work of knowledge and team work of learing other programs. Once you get them all working for you, you will then have the site that will make you and your visitors go WOW!

For me, Why Expression Web, because it will help me to learn new tools to use with my other tools and the knowledge I already have. I can then advance and offer more to my visitors and customers.

I've been developing sites since around the end of 1995. Needless to go into details, I've used a LOT of different desktop applications to do the work. Its been pretty much nailed head on in a post above though, that if you already know what you're doing it wont matter much what software you use. Software preference should be based not on what you think the software can do for you, but how easy and fluent your daily work will be in using it.

 

I haven't tried Expression web yet, though I am an avid Dreamweaver and Bluefish user. I love the features that these programs have for keeping your place in your code framework.

I've never heard of Bluefish before but Expression Web has reduced the time I spend in Dreamweaver by 50% and I only open FP for answering questions now.

Wow,  I think the posts posted here are the best regarding EW vs DW.

I am a asp.net 2 developer, but would like to venture into the unknown and start creating websites as a part time thing.

I initially was going to ignore EW due to all the bad rap FP was getting and purchase DW.   But if I'm to deliver sites which require Carts/purchasing/login etc I will need to do some coding so I thought EW would be best as it supports ASP.NET 2 and this is my comfort.  where as If I was to do the same thing in DW I would have to learn php.  Is this right? or can you develop sites requiring carts/paypal/login in DW without coding?

Another thing that would make go towards DW (although I have not used it) was the fact it would take care of alot of the hand coding of javascript I need to in asp.net, for horizontal menus etc.

my CSS is quite good

but I need to know can EW also add things like horizontal/vertical popup menus etc etc.

thanks guys

 

  

 

 

Dotnetjunior,

For all intents and purposes, I just published my first web site and it was with EW. I had a minuscule bit of experience with FrontPage three or four years ago but so little that it hardly counts, and I'd forgotten about everything I learned then. Although I do specifically recall how frustrated I was trying to figure out how to use FP because all I really wanted was a layout grid (I ran a print publishing company in an earlier life) and all the books talked about frames and such. I finally figured out that I could cobble together somethng with tables, and later learned that was evidently how most web sites were built. I mention this only to point out that I am a novice. (And quite envious of your skills with ASP, etc.) The others who have responded to your inquiry know far more about these things than I.

When I bought FrontPage a few years ago I was well aware that the "experts" looked down on it, including the company that hosts my site. There were, however, two reasons to consider FrontPage: It was supposedly easy to use, and it was cheap. I reasoned that there was a third. Long history had taught me not to bet against Microsoft. They have a habit of acquiring a product, or entering a product category, where they're considrabaly less than stellar and eventually becoming, if not best in class, certainly the dominant player. (I don't know how much money I've spent over the years on applications from Lotus, Ashton-Tate and a multitude of others that have been discontinued or no longer exist, but I can't think of a single Microsoft application I've purchased that I don't still use today in its more recent incarnation.)

My bet was that FrontPage would meet my very simple needs at the time, and that the product would evolve to become more sophisticated over time; as I needed the sophistication.

As has been mentioned, if you already have FrontPage (or can still acquire it) the upgrade to EW is an absolute bargain. Since I have no experience with Dreamweaver--which seems to be the gold standard--I can't compare the two. But experts I've read who are familiar with both products consider EW a very worthy competitor. Dreamweaver, having been around a lot longer, has more third-party plug-ins (which I haven't felt a need for yet) but I trust that these will become available for EW over time too. Cheryl Wise, who manages far more sites than I could ever contemplate keeping track of, is troubled that EW insists on entering the appropriate access codes for each and every site. Since I have only one site to worry about, I like to think of that (probably naively) as a nice security feature.

I'm quite intrigued by PHP, since so many of the aficionados seem to like it, and am encouraged by the announcements that support for PHP will be included in the next release of EW. Microsoft appears to be quite committed to EW.

Perhaps the only really worthwhile thing I could add to what others have written is this. I was looking at using those nifty fly-out menus and concluded that they could be made in Expression Web. But after kicking around and looking at quite a number of sites I decided against them. For the simple reason that names of things probably wouldn't mean anything to our customers; and fly-out menus can have an irritating way of getting in the way. Our customers--and potential customers--need and want to see that things look like. So I used "index" pages for each product category with several pictures per page, and image and text swaps. I seems to be more user-friendly. Which, of course, is the objective.