Microsoft Expression Web – Bridging the Gap
Mike July 13th, 2009
There are some really great – and really expensive – website design software suites out there that require hours of reading and even professional training to use. Then there is Expression Web from Microsoft. Expression Web puts that same power in the hands of the home-user and small-business that wants to see their ideas come to life quickly and easily; while maintaining the look of those more expensively designed sites.
With a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) interface, you use Microsoft’s graphical interface to layout your page the way you want it; and an impressive behind-the-scenes core takes over, converting each image and keystroke into streamlined HTML code.
“Streamlined” code is a key note. Users of the predecessor of Expression Web – Front Page – will recall that the code created was often bulky and excessive with each line of text creating several lines of extra code denoting the font, size and other aspects of the design. With Expression Web Microsoft eliminates this concern by incorporating inline Cascading Style Sheets. Simply put; whereas before if you have ten paragraphs of text in one font you would also have ten sets of code describing that font; now you have one style marker covering all uses of that text style.
But Expression Web is not just for entry level web designers! With the click of a tab, you go from the WYSIWYG display, to raw HTML allowing experienced designers to tweak the graphical design, or fully code a site. Click back and verify your work; or click on the Preview button to launch the page in your web browser for a live preview of how your site will look to others. And now Microsoft is introducing Super Preview in Expression Web 3 (due in August) that will allow you to view and debug code against multiple browsers at the same time! An impressive tool to be sure.
Expression Web 3 boasts an affordable $149 price tag, making it one of the most cost-effective web design platforms out there, with the power to get the job done.