Expression Web Blog

Yesterday Microsoft launched Expression Web 2 Beta available for free download

To submit suggestions and bugs, go to:
 http://connect.microsoft.com/expression

It requires .Net Framework 3.5 to be installed before it will install

If you have the private preview Expression 2 previews installed you should uninstall these before installing the Expression Web 2 Beta. However it can be installed alongside Expression 1 with no problems.

What is new in Expression Web 2 Beta?

PHP

• Preview PHP pages
• target different versions of PHP
• Insert PHP snippets
• customizable color coding in Code View
• PHP IntelliSense (auto complete)
• PHP includes - rendered in Design view.

Byte order mark options

Enables control over Bom insertion

Silverlight 1.0

Expression Web 2 Beta allows you to insert or Edit a HTML file generated by Silverlight

Flash and Windows Media

Insert Flash SWF and Windows Media files, edit and preview flash files in Design View or run any other type of ActiveX control.

Photoshop Import

Expression Web 2 enables you to generate a .png, .gif, or .jpeg file from a Photoshop .psd file and select the Photoshop layers you want to include or exclude from the image.

ASP.NET AJAX

ASP.NET AJAX server controls that let you create web pages that include a familiar user interface (UI) elements.
ASP.NET AJAX server controls supported by Expression Web 2 include the UpdatePanel, Timer, UpdateProgress, ScriptManager, and ScriptManagerProxy controls.

Note:
To work with these controls in Expression Web 2, you must install ASP.NET AJAX or the .NET Framework 3.5. See Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 or ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 in the Microsoft Download Center online.

Custom ASP.NET controls

Custom ASP.NET controls that you have placed in the BIN folder of your website. Preview custom controls and access the Common Tasks smart tag menu in Design view, edit properties, and use IntelliSense and syntax checking in Code view.
Third party custom ASP.NET controls can be used

ASP.NET data

DataPager and ListView ASP.NET controls.

Note:
To work with these controls in Expression Web 2, you must install the .NET Framework 3.5. See Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 in the Microsoft Download Center online.

FTP publishing

Set Passive FTP or normal FTP, and save your FTP user name and password.

CSS

The Design view in Expression Web 2 now renders the CSS overflow property.
As well as internal CSS files the Compatibility Reports now check external CSS files, for compatibility with the CSS schema you specify.

HTML file extension

Expression Web 2 lets you set your preference for the default HTML file extension.

Alphabetized HTML attributes

A new setting in the Code Formatting options in the Page Editor Options dialog box enables you to control whether HTML attributes are alphabetized or not in the code of your web pages. By default, tag attributes are now written in alphabetical order when Expression Web 2 adds HTML tags to your page. Existing tags in a page are affected by the new setting only if you apply the Reformat HTML command to the page. For more information,

Have you been waiting for your Language to be available for Spell Check within Expression Web? Well wait no longer, the xweb team tells us the Expression Web Language Packs for multiple languages have arrived.

 Not only that, these packs enable the Expression Web Interface and the Help files to display the language of your choice from the selection in the EW Language Pack.

 Microsoft have written a small article on  How to Check the Spelling of Different Languages and this outlines the different languages available with links, and how to set the usage of the language packs. The same information is within the help file of Expression Web, minus the download lnks of course.                                                                                                             

The Microsoft xweb team have posted the first Expression Web VPAT

The Expression Web Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, or VPAT,  outlines how Expression Web meets key regulations of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act which is standardized form developed by the Information Technology Industry Council.

This shows how Microsoft employs accessibility within Expression Web which helps you make websites that are accessibility driven.

Previously if you wanted to file a bug the place for that was
https://connect.microsoft.com/expressionweb however, the Expression Web team will take down the old set up on Friday 17th August and make a brand new site for the purpose of submitting bugs and feedback at https://connect.microsoft.com/Expression

This will include not only Expression Web but all the Expression Studio products.

• Expression Web
• Expression Blend
• Expression Design
• Expression Media
• Expression Media Encoder

Just to make life easy, ahem, at the time of posting, the old well documented archive will no longer be available to the general public. Let us hope that situation changes.