Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express
Am I the only one who didn’t know this existed? It’s like a HomeSite clone, but I wonder if it works any better than the classic HTML editor from yesteryear (which hasn’t improved a bit since it left Nick’s hands).
Visual Web Developer provides a powerful WYSIWYG visual design surface to create your Web applications and includes all of the common formatting controls such as font selection, font sizes, font formatting, bullets and numbering, and more.
But here’s what impresses me the most. We’ll see if it actually lives up to its hype, though:
You write HTML the way you want it to look. Visual Web Developer leaves it that way. Period. Your white space, indentation, casing, word wrapping, and carriage returns are retained throughout development. When you write your HTML code and then switch to design mode, rest assured that it will remain as you wrote it.
In many ways, I wish TopStyle would evolve to the point where HomeSite once stood. I’m gonna give Visual Web Developer Express Edtion a shot, if only because they have a tutorial on Microsoft for Displaying Your iTunes Library. I don’t use iTunes, but it’s impressive that someone at Microsoft recognizes the fact that Apple’s iTunes pwns the market.
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5 Comments
Bill Nadraszky
May 29th, 2006
at 11:51am
No you are not alone, I guess microsoft is just not very good at marketing. :) Thanks for the tip Chris
bobmorris
May 29th, 2006
at 2:13pm
This sounds like a smaller version of the just public beta’ed Microsoft Expression Web Designer, which I’ve been playing with. It’s a cleaned up, way more powerful next generation of FrontPage, with lots more added too. Quite impressive, actually. It is aimed at professionals, not the home market.
The beta download is free and 224 mb.
Not sure if these comments take links, so just google “Microsoft Expression Web Designer” to find it. My tech blog has posts on it, bobmorris.wordpress.com
Andy
May 29th, 2006
at 3:04pm
I downloaded this and perhaps I am just old school. I don’t do any ASP or .NET stuff, I do pretty basic HTML where Notpad and or yes, Frontpage has served me well.
I only took a 10-15 min peak at this, but I don’t see it being easy to say, Insert an image and a left alignment.
Darren Straight
May 29th, 2006
at 4:14pm
Microsoft’s Visual Web Developer Express has been around since the 30th of Novemeber at least as thats the date on my blog post, and whats cool is that you can even get 3 months free hosting on the UK site for it:
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/msdn/vwd/
And then theres also the Made in Express Contest!
http://www.madeinexpresscontest.com/
Julian
June 12th, 2006
at 6:53am
I’ve used FrontPage 2000 for a while, but have been trying to find an alternative as it is not very standards compliant. I don’t do ASP or .NET either, but WebDev Express seems good to me, especially as it’s free. However, I can’t figure out how to insert an image other than by drag and drop (I added an Images button to the toolbar but it doesn’t seem to do anything.)