Microsoft Expression Web

Last updated

Microsoft Expression Web
Developer(s) Microsoft
Initial releaseDecember 4, 2006;17 years ago (2006-12-04)
Final release
4 (4.0.1460.0) / December 20, 2012;11 years ago (2012-12-20)
Operating system Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 [1]
Platform IA-32; [1] DirectX, .NET Framework 4.0, Silverlight v4 [1]
Available inEnglish, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish [2]
Type HTML editor
License Freeware

Microsoft Expression Web is a discontinued HTML editor and general web design software product by Microsoft. It was discontinued on December 20, 2012, and subsequently made available free of charge from Microsoft. It was a component of the also discontinued Expression Studio.

Contents

Expression Web can design and develop web pages using HTML5, CSS 3, ASP.NET, PHP, JavaScript, XML+XSLT and XHTML. Expression Web 4 requires .NET Framework 4.0 and Silverlight 4.0 to install and run. [1] Expression Web uses its own standards-based rendering engine which is different from Internet Explorer's Trident engine. [3]

Version history

Legend:Old version, not maintainedOlder version, still maintainedCurrent stable versionLatest preview versionFuture release
DeveloperMajor versionRelease dateMinor updatesRelease dateNotes
Microsoft Old version, no longer maintained: 1.0 (12.0.4518.1014)December 2006SP1 (12.0.6211.1000)December 2007Included in Microsoft Expression Studio
Old version, no longer maintained: 2.0 (12.0.4518.1084)May 2008Update (12.0.6329.5000)December 2008Included in Microsoft Expression Studio 2
Old version, no longer maintained: 3.0 (3.0.1762.0)July 2009SP1 (3.0.3813.0)November 2009Included in Microsoft Expression Studio 3
SP2 (3.0.3816.0)April 2010
SP3October 2011
Current stable version:4.0 (4.0.1165.0)July 2010SP1 (4.0.1241.0)March 2011Included in Microsoft Expression Studio 4
SP2 (4.0.1303.0)July 2011
SP2a (4.0.1460.0)December 2012

On May 14, 2006, Microsoft released the first Community Technology Preview (CTP) version of Expression Web, code-named Quartz. On September 5, 2006, Microsoft released Beta 1. Beta 1 removed most of the FrontPage-proprietary (non-standard) features such as bots (use of FPSE features for server-side scripting), parts, functions, themes, automatic generation of navigation buttons, FrontPage forms, navigation pane to build a web site's hierarchy, and other non-standard features available in CTP 1. The Release To Manufacturing version was made available on December 4, 2006. The first and only service pack was published in December 2007. [4] Expression Web does not have the form validation controls for HTML fields like FrontPage, but supports validator controls for ASP.NET. [5]

Microsoft Expression Web 2 was released in 2008. [6] Expression Web 2 offers native support for PHP and Silverlight. No service packs were released for version 2, but in December 2008 it received an update that fixed a problem that prevented macros from running on Windows Vista-based client computers.

Microsoft Expression Web 3 was released in 2009. [7] Until version 2, Expression Web was the only application in the Expression Studio suite based on Microsoft Office code and dependencies. [8] With version 3, Expression Web was rewritten in Windows Presentation Foundation, in line with the rest of the Expression Suite, without Microsoft Office dependencies. A result of this was features like customizable toolbars and menus, standard Windows color scheme, spell check, DLL addins, file menu export feature, drag-and-drop between remote sites, comparing sites by timestamp, automatic language tagging, basic macro support were removed in this version. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] Other features like Undo do not work reliably. [15] [16] Version 3 introduced Expression Web 3 SuperPreview tool for comparing and rendering webpage in various browsers. Also noted was the lack of support for root relative links, links that start with a "/" to refer to the root of a web server. This feature was added with Expression Web 3 Service Pack 1, released in November 2009. [17] Service Pack 2 for Expression Web 3 was released in April 2010. [18] Service Pack 3 for Expression Web 3 was released in October 2011 and includes general product, stability, performance, and security fixes. [19]

Microsoft Expression Web 4 was released on June 7, 2010. [20] It added the option of HTML add-ins, and access to a web-based SuperPreview functionality, for testing pages on browsers that cannot be installed on the user's system (such as Mac OS X or Linux browsers). Microsoft Expression Web 4 also provides an SEO Checker which analyzes produced web site against the best practices for getting the highest possible search-engine rankings. [21] Version 4 does not bring back all the features removed in Version 3. [22] Expression Web 4 Service Pack 1 was released in March 2011 and added support for IntelliSense for the HTML5 and CSS3 draft specifications in the Code editor, HTML5 and CSS3 support in the CSS Properties palette, selected CSS3 properties in the Style dialogs, semantic HTML5 tags in Design View and new PHP 5.3 functions. [23] [24] Expression Web 4 SP2 was released in July 2011, and fixed a number of issues and introduced new features such as jQuery IntelliSense support, a panel for managing snippets, Interactive Snapshot Panel, comment/uncomment functionality in Code View, and workspace and toolbar customization. [25] Expression Web 4 SP2a, an hotfix released in October 2011, fixes an issue caused by corruption in the license store. [26]

Availability

As of December, 2012, Microsoft has announced that Expression Studio will no longer be a stand-alone product. [27] Expression Blend is being integrated into Visual Studio, while Expression Web and Expression Design will now be free products. Technical support is available for customers who purchased Expression Web or Expression Design following their published support lifetime guides, while no support will be offered to free downloaders. No new versions of Expression Web or Design are planned. [28]

Reception

Microsoft Expression Web received positive reviews. PC Pro awarded Expression Web 2 five stars out of six. "It largely succeeded by concentrating on providing standards-compliant support for the web's core markup languages, (X)HTML and CSS," Tom Arah concluded. [29]

PC Magazine also rated Expression Web 2 with 4 stars out of 5 and labeled it as a more cost-effective option compared to the main competitor, Adobe Dreamweaver. "Even if money is no object, Expression Web 2 might be your better choice," editor Edward Mendelson wrote. [30] However, PC Magazine criticized a lack of "Secure FTP in its Web-publishing functions" and "the ability to create browser-based (as opposed to server-based) scripting of dynamic pages that works in all browsers, including Safari". On the other hand, PC Magazine noted that "most designers won't care about their absence". [30] However, Microsoft Expression 3 later added support for SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) (otherwise known as Secure FTP) as well as FTP over SSL (FTPS). [31]

Expression Web 4, like the previous versions, also received positive reviews [32] with PC Magazine calling it an "efficient website editor with full support for current standards," and praising its "clear interface" and "flexible preview functions." [33]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Explorer</span> Web browser series by Microsoft

Internet Explorer is a retired series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft that were used in the Windows line of operating systems. While IE has been discontinued on most Windows editions, it remains supported on certain editions of Windows, such as Windows 10 LTSB/LTSC. Starting in 1995, it was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year. Later versions were available as free downloads or in-service packs and included in the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) service releases of Windows 95 and later versions of Windows. Microsoft spent over US$100 million per year on Internet Explorer in the late 1990s, with over 1,000 people involved in the project by 1999. New feature development for the browser was discontinued in 2016 and ended support on June 15, 2022 for Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel (SAC), in favor of its successor, Microsoft Edge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Browser wars</span> Competition between web browsing applications for share of worldwide usage

A browser war is a competition for dominance in the usage share of web browsers. The "first browser war," (1995–2001) pitted Microsoft's Internet Explorer against Netscape's Navigator. Browser wars continued with the decline of Internet Explorer's market share and the popularity of other browsers including Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge and Opera.

This is a comparison of both historical and current web browsers based on developer, engine, platform(s), releases, license, and cost.

Trident is a proprietary browser engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer, developed by Microsoft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Internet Explorer</span>

Microsoft developed 11 versions of Internet Explorer for Windows from 1995 to 2013. Microsoft also developed Internet Explorer for Mac, Internet Explorer for UNIX, and Internet Explorer Mobile respectively for Apple Macintosh, Unix, and mobile devices; the first two are discontinued but the latter runs on Windows CE, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Explorer 5</span> Web browser for Windows released in 1999

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 (IE5) is the fifth, and by now, discontinued, version of the Internet Explorer graphical web browser, the successor to Internet Explorer 4 and one of the main participants of the first browser war. Its distribution methods and Windows integration were involved in the United States v. Microsoft Corp. case. Launched on March 18, 1999, it was the default browser in Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows 2000 and Windows ME and can replace previous versions of Internet Explorer on Windows 3.1x, Windows NT 3.51, Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0 and the original release of Windows 98. Although Internet Explorer 5 ran only on Windows, its siblings Internet Explorer for Mac 5 and Internet Explorer for UNIX 5 supported Mac OS X, Solaris and HP-UX.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Explorer 2</span> Web browser for Windows released in 1995

Microsoft Internet Explorer 2 (IE2) is the second, and by now discontinued, version of Internet Explorer (IE), a graphical web browser by Microsoft. It was unveiled in October 1995, and was released on November 27, 1995, for Windows 95 and Windows NT, and on April 23, 1996, for Apple Macintosh and Windows 3.1.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Explorer Mobile</span> Mobile version of Internet Explorer web browser by Microsoft

Internet Explorer Mobile was a mobile version of Internet Explorer developed by Microsoft, based on versions of the MSHTML (Trident) layout engine. IE Mobile comes loaded by default with Windows Phone and Windows CE. Later versions of Internet Explorer Mobile are based on the desktop version of Internet Explorer. Older versions however, called Pocket Internet Explorer, are not based on the same layout engine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTML5</span> Fifth and previous version of hypertext markup language

HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML Living Standard. It is maintained by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), a consortium of the major browser vendors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Explorer 8</span> Web browser for Windows released in 2009

Windows Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) is the eighth and, by now, discontinued version of the Internet Explorer web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on March 19, 2009, as the successor to Internet Explorer 7. It was the default browser in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Explorer 9</span> Web browser for Windows released in 2011

Internet Explorer 9 or IE9 is the ninth version of the Internet Explorer web browser for Windows. It was released by Microsoft on March 14, 2011, as the ninth version of Internet Explorer and the successor to Internet Explorer 8. Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 as a major out-of-band version that was not tied to the release schedule of any particular version of Windows, unlike previous versions. It is the first version of Internet Explorer not to be bundled with a Windows operating system, although some OEMs have installed it with Windows 7 on their PCs. Internet Explorer 9 is the last version that is called Windows Internet Explorer. The software was rebranded simply as Internet Explorer starting in 2012 with the release of Internet Explorer 10.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Web typography</span> Publishing considerations for the Web

Web typography, like typography generally, is the design of pages – their layout and typeface choices. Unlike traditional print-based typography, pages intended for display on the World Wide Web have additional technical challenges and – given its ability to change the presentation dynamically – additional opportunities. Early web page designs were very simple due to technology limitations; modern designs use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript and other techniques to deliver the typographer's and the client's vision.

This is the version history of Internet Explorer.

Apache Cordova is a mobile application development framework created by Nitobi. Adobe Systems purchased Nitobi in 2011, rebranded it as PhoneGap, and later released an open-source version of the software called Apache Cordova. Apache Cordova enables software programmers to build hybrid web applications for mobile devices using CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript, instead of relying on platform-specific APIs like those in Android, iOS, or Windows Phone. It enables the wrapping up of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript code depending on the platform of the device. It extends the features of HTML and JavaScript to work with the device. The resulting applications are hybrid, meaning that they are neither truly native mobile application nor purely Web-based. They are not native because all layout rendering is done via Web views instead of the platform's native UI framework. They are not Web apps because they are packaged as apps for distribution and have access to native device APIs. Mixing native and hybrid code snippets has been possible since version 1.9.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CSS HTML Validator</span>

CSS HTML Validator is an HTML editor and CSS editor for Windows that helps web developers create syntactically correct and accessible HTML/HTML5, XHTML, and CSS documents by locating errors, potential problems like browser compatibility issues, and common mistakes. It is also able to check links, check spelling, suggest improvements, alert developers to deprecated, obsolete, or proprietary tags, attributes, and CSS properties, and find issues that can affect search engine optimization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CSS box model</span> Model used for styling websites

In web development, the CSS box model refers to how HTML elements are modeled in browser engines and how the dimensions of those HTML elements are derived from CSS properties. It is a fundamental concept for the composition of HTML webpages. The guidelines of the box model are described by web standards World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specifically the CSS Working Group. For much of the late-1990s and early 2000s there had been non-standard compliant implementations of the box model in mainstream browsers. With the advent of CSS2 in 1998, which introduced the box-sizing property, the problem had mostly been resolved.

Modern HTML5 has feature-parity with the now-obsolete Adobe Flash. Both include features for playing audio and video within web pages. Flash was specifically built to integrate vector graphics and light games in a web page, features that HTML5 also supports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet Explorer 10</span> Web browser by Microsoft for Windows released in 2012

Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) is the tenth, and by now, discontinued, version of the Internet Explorer web browser and the successor to Internet Explorer 9, released by Microsoft on September 4, 2012, shortly after the completion of Windows Server 2012. It was the default browser that shipped with Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 and can replace previous versions of Internet Explorer on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 but unlike version 9, this version doesn't support Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 or earlier.

Prince is a computer program that converts XML and HTML documents into PDF files by applying Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Prince is a commercial product, which is free to download and use for non-commercial purposes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CSS grid layout</span>

In Cascading Style Sheets, CSS grid layout or CSS grid creates complex responsive web design grid layouts more easily and consistently across browsers. Historically, there have been other methods for controlling web page layout methods, such as tables, floats, and more recently, CSS Flexible Box Layout (flexbox). CSS grid is currently not an official standard although it has been adopted by the recent versions of all current major browsers.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Microsoft Expression Web 4". Download Center. Microsoft. December 20, 2012.
  2. ↑ Localization and What Goes on Behind the Scenes
  3. ↑ Mauceri, Rob (April 16, 2007). "Office Live and SharePoint". Microsoft SharePoint Designer Team Blog. Microsoft corporation. Retrieved August 23, 2010. SharePoint Designer doesn't use Trident. SharePoint Designer, Expression Web, and the next version of Visual Studio's Visual Web Designer (code name Orcas) all use the same standards-based web design component. This component was developed jointly by the three product teams for high fidelity rendering of web standards like CSS, XHTML, as well as ASP.net.
  4. ↑ "Microsoft Expression Web Service Pack 1 (SP1)". Microsoft.com. December 8, 2007. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  5. ↑ "Use ASP.NET Validation Controls in Expression Web". Expression.microsoft.com. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  6. ↑ Kyrnin, Jennifer (September 26, 2008). "Microsoft Expression Web 2 Review". About.com . The New York Times Company. Archived from the original on December 2, 2010. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  7. ↑ James, Justin (September 1, 2009). "Review: Microsoft Expression Web 3 HTML editor". TechRepublic . CBS Interactive Inc. Archived from the original on May 30, 2012. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  8. 1 2 "How to customize Toolbar Icons in Expression Web 3". Social.expression.microsoft.com. Archived from the original on December 31, 2010. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  9. ↑ "Expression Web 3 File Export Function Missing?". Social.expression.microsoft.com. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  10. ↑ "Why I can't copy files between two sites on Expression Web 3?". Social.expression.microsoft.com. Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  11. ↑ "Using timestamps to compare if remote website has changed (EW 3)". Social.expression.microsoft.com. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  12. ↑ "Has Expression Web a future?". Social.expression.microsoft.com. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  13. ↑ "Using Microsoft Expression Web for Non-English Sites". Tlt.its.psu.edu. May 11, 2011. Archived from the original on June 12, 2011. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  14. ↑ "Cannot figure out how to create macros in Expression Web". Social.expression.microsoft.com. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  15. ↑ "Expression web 4 undo is broke. When will it be fixed?". Social.expression.microsoft.com. Archived from the original on August 14, 2012. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  16. ↑ "Buggy Undo still present in EW4". Social.expression.microsoft.com. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  17. ↑ Moscinski, Todd (April 26, 2010). "Different types of hyperlinks". Microsoft Expression Web team blog. Microsoft corporation. Retrieved August 25, 2010.
  18. ↑ "Microsoft Expression Web 3 Service Pack 2 (SP2)". Microsoft.com. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  19. ↑ "Microsoft Expression Web 3 Service Pack 3 (SP3)". Microsoft.com. October 24, 2011. Retrieved November 28, 2018.
  20. ↑ Wilson, Jeffrey L. (June 8, 2010). "Microsoft Launches Expression Studio 4". PC Magazine (PCMag.com). Ziff Davis Inc. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  21. ↑ "What's new in Expression Web". Microsoft Expression Web product page. Microsoft corporation. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  22. ↑ "No ability to customize toolbox in Expression Web 4?". Social.expression.microsoft.com. Retrieved June 7, 2011.
  23. ↑ "HTML5, CSS3, and More with Expression Web 4 SP1". Chris Bowen. March 24, 2011. Retrieved November 10, 2016.
  24. ↑ Description of Expression Web 4 Service Pack 1
  25. ↑ Description of Expression Web 4 Service Pack 2
  26. ↑ "FIX: Product key is not accepted when you install or activate Expression Web 4". Microsoft.com. Retrieved October 26, 2011.
  27. ↑ Rand-Hendriksen, Morten, "Microsoft Abandons Expression Web and Front End Web Development," 20 Dec 2012 Archived December 24, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  28. ↑ "Microsoft® Expression®". Microsoft . Archived from the original on April 13, 2008. Retrieved April 14, 2008.
  29. ↑ Arah, Tom (May 16, 2008). "Microsoft Expression Web 2 review". PC Pro. Dennis Publishing Limited . Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  30. 1 2 Mendelson, Edward (August 11, 2008). "Microsoft Expression Web 2 Review & Rating". PC Magazine (PCMag.com). Ziff Davis . Retrieved May 16, 2009.
  31. ↑ Leeds, Chris (July 2009). "Expression Web 3 FTP Publishing". Microsoft Expression Newsletter. No. July 2009. Microsoft corporation. Archived from the original on January 10, 2013. Retrieved May 14, 2010.
  32. ↑ "Microsoft Expression Web review". TrustedReviews. February 5, 2011. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  33. ↑ Mendelson, Edward (May 3, 2012). "Microsoft Expression Web 4 Review & Rating". PC Magazine (PCMag.com). Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on January 16, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.