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    I have been experiencing crashes with Expression Web 2, whilst updating a website written using Frontpage, on a machine running XP, Quad core, ati graphics, 4gb memory etc.

    Each time I moved an interactive button, it crashed.

    So, with a completely clean install of Vista and Expression Web 2 on a Sony Vaio laptop - Nvidia graphics, Dual core, 1 gig mem, I tried again.

    Open Expression web, no website, just a new page, insert an interactive button, change its position to 'relative', click the button and....

    Expression Web crashes.


    Anyone know why? 


    Thanks,


    Si

    PS.  Vista reports "An unhandled win32 exception occured in EXPRWD.EXE[712]"
    Monday, March 9, 2009 6:00 PM

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    You are not going to believe how I have been able to reproduce your problem, and solve it.

    The button I was using, from an old page, did not have the MS comment in it.  (I'd cleaned up the code and removed those comments.)  It can be moved just fine with no crashing, after being positioned relative.

    Adding another button to that page, wherein EW adds the comment:

    <!-- MSComment="ibutton" fp-style="fp-btn: Border Bottom 1" fp-title="Demo" -->

    ends up with a button that will cause EW to crash when positioned:relative, then moved, which is what you are seeing.

    Move the comment from the new button to the old button: the old button will crash EW if moved, and the new button won't.

    Remove the comment altogether, and both buttons are crash-free.

    SO:  You have found a bug.  And, the workaround is to remove the button comments in code view.

    Try it and see if you can confirm my findings.
    • Proposed as answer by fcphdJim Tuesday, March 10, 2009 12:28 AM
    • Marked as answer by Simon Lindsey Tuesday, March 10, 2009 10:17 AM
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 12:24 AM

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    I can't reproduce that problem.
    Monday, March 9, 2009 6:17 PM
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     It must be platform independent as its a completely different machine and running Vista rather than XP.

    So is there a Service pack that needs running on Expression Web that I haven't found?

    The about tab shows:

    Microsoft Expression Web 2 (12.0.6329.5000) MSO (12.0.6320.5000)

    Thanks.

    Si

    PS - Sorry, perhaps I should have said select the button and try and move it. It's at that point that EW crashes.
    Monday, March 9, 2009 6:27 PM
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    Can't make mine crash when moving the relatively positioned button.  I'm running the same version you are.

    Post a link to a sample page showing the situation prior to applying the relative positioning to, and then trying to drag, the button.  That way we can see if we can duplicate it using exactly what you are using - in case there's something else on the page that is confusing matters. 
    Monday, March 9, 2009 6:43 PM
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    This is the code with no button.

    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
    <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

    <head>
    <meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type" />
    <title>Untitled 1</title>
    </head>

    <body>

    </body>

    </html>



    This is the code with button

    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
    <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

    <head>
    <meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type" />
    <title>Untitled 1</title>
    <script type="text/javascript">
    <!--
    function FP_preloadImgs() {//v1.0
     var d=document,a=arguments; if(!d.FP_imgs) d.FP_imgs=new Array();
     for(var i=0; i<a.length; i++) { d.FP_imgs[i]=new Image; d.FP_imgs[i].src=a[i]; originalAttribute="src" originalPath="a[i];" originalAttribute="src" originalPath="a[i];" }
    }

    function FP_swapImg() {//v1.0
     var doc=document,args=arguments,elm,n; doc.$imgSwaps=new Array(); for(n=2; n<args.length;
     n+=2) { elm=FP_getObjectByID(args[n]); if(elm) { doc.$imgSwaps[doc.$imgSwaps.length]=elm;
     elm.$src=elm.src; originalAttribute="src" originalPath="elm.src;" originalAttribute="src" originalPath="elm.src;" elm.src=args[n+1]; originalAttribute="src" originalPath="args[n+1];" originalAttribute="src" originalPath="args[n+1];" } }
    }

    function FP_getObjectByID(id,o) {//v1.0
     var c,el,els,f,m,n; if(!o)o=document; if(o.getElementById) el=o.getElementById(id);
     else if(o.layers) c=o.layers; else if(o.all) el=o.all[id]; if(el) return el;
     if(o.id==id || o.name==id) return o; if(o.childNodes) c=o.childNodes; if(c)
     for(n=0; n<c.length; n++) { el=FP_getObjectByID(id,c[n]); if(el) return el; }
     f=o.forms; if(f) for(n=0; n<f.length; n++) { els=f[n].elements;
     for(m=0; m<els.length; m++){ el=FP_getObjectByID(id,els[n]); if(el) return el; } }
     return null;
    }
    // -->
    </script>
    </head>

    <body onload="FP_preloadImgs(/*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/button9.jpg',/*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/buttonA.jpg')">

    <img id="img1" alt="Button Text" height="20" onmousedown="FP_swapImg(1,0,/*id*/'img1',/*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/buttonA.jpg')" onmouseout="FP_swapImg(0,0,/*id*/'img1',/*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/button8.jpg')" onmouseover="FP_swapImg(1,0,/*id*/'img1',/*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/button9.jpg')" onmouseup="FP_swapImg(0,0,/*id*/'img1',/*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/button9.jpg')" src="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Simon/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/WebTempDir/button8.jpg" style="border: 0" width="100" /><!-- MSComment="ibutton" fp-style="fp-btn: Border Bottom 1" fp-title="Button Text" -->

    </body>

    </html>


    This is the code with button position made relative.

    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
    <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

    <head>
    <meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type" />
    <title>Untitled 1</title>
    <script type="text/javascript">
    <!--
    function FP_preloadImgs() {//v1.0
     var d=document,a=arguments; if(!d.FP_imgs) d.FP_imgs=new Array();
     for(var i=0; i<a.length; i++) { d.FP_imgs[i]=new Image; d.FP_imgs[i].src=a[i]; originalAttribute="src" originalPath="a[i];" originalAttribute="src" originalPath="a[i];" }
    }

    function FP_swapImg() {//v1.0
     var doc=document,args=arguments,elm,n; doc.$imgSwaps=new Array(); for(n=2; n<args.length;
     n+=2) { elm=FP_getObjectByID(args[n]); if(elm) { doc.$imgSwaps[doc.$imgSwaps.length]=elm;
     elm.$src=elm.src; originalAttribute="src" originalPath="elm.src;" originalAttribute="src" originalPath="elm.src;" elm.src=args[n+1]; originalAttribute="src" originalPath="args[n+1];" originalAttribute="src" originalPath="args[n+1];" } }
    }

    function FP_getObjectByID(id,o) {//v1.0
     var c,el,els,f,m,n; if(!o)o=document; if(o.getElementById) el=o.getElementById(id);
     else if(o.layers) c=o.layers; else if(o.all) el=o.all[id]; if(el) return el;
     if(o.id==id || o.name==id) return o; if(o.childNodes) c=o.childNodes; if(c)
     for(n=0; n<c.length; n++) { el=FP_getObjectByID(id,c[n]); if(el) return el; }
     f=o.forms; if(f) for(n=0; n<f.length; n++) { els=f[n].elements;
     for(m=0; m<els.length; m++){ el=FP_getObjectByID(id,els[n]); if(el) return el; } }
     return null;
    }
    // -->
    </script>
    </head>

    <body onload="FP_preloadImgs(/*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/button9.jpg',/*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/buttonA.jpg')">

    <img id="img1" alt="Button Text" height="20" onmousedown="FP_swapImg(1,0,/*id*/'img1',/*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/buttonA.jpg')" onmouseout="FP_swapImg(0,0,/*id*/'img1',/*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/button8.jpg')" onmouseover="FP_swapImg(1,0,/*id*/'img1',/*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/button9.jpg')" onmouseup="FP_swapImg(0,0,/*id*/'img1',/*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/button9.jpg')" src="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Simon/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/WebTempDir/button8.jpg" style="border-style: none; border-color: inherit; border-width: 0; position: relative;" width="100" /><!-- MSComment="ibutton" fp-style="fp-btn: Border Bottom 1" fp-title="Button Text" -->

    </body>

    </html>


    Thanks =]

    Si

    Monday, March 9, 2009 6:52 PM
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    Si, maybe you missed this part

    "Post a link to a sample page showing the situation prior to applying the relative positioning... "

    Still, what you did do might have worked, if you had used the Format Code Block icon (last icon on the right in the message editor) to paste your markup into your post. Since you didn't, you've got a bunch of "originalAttribute," "originalPath" junk that wouldn't be in actual page markup. In addition, there would have been syntax highlighting to make the code far more readable, the various elements of the markup more discernible.

    Please either do as requested and post a link, or at least use Format Code Block to paste the code into a new message.

    cheers,
    scott
    Monday, March 9, 2009 7:41 PM
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      I do not know how you are inserting / creating the images, but this:

    /*url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/buttonA.jpg')

    is totally wrong.


    Are you opening a website and then opening the page for editing.

    FrontPage MVP
    Monday, March 9, 2009 8:26 PM
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    Paladun,

    On the other hand, perhaps I'm not in a location where I can do that.  What I can do, and did do, is post what EW wrote.

    I of course regret that you are offended by my posting microsoft sourced code #here.

    Yours Truly,

    Si.





    Steve,

    That code is as written by Expression Web, cut and pasted from Expression Web at each stage as I recreated the crash in Expression Web.  The image files are as created by Expression Web, when you insert an interactive button.

    That's what EW does if you just open it and start a new page. It saves to the /Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/ folder.

    This is on a vanilla vista install, vanilla Expression Web install.   Before this experiment the machine in question had done nothing else.

    I would imagine if you follow the steps as I outlined at the top of this post, you'd get exactly the same code.

    So I see two possibilities - either EW is writing bad code, or there's something wrong with the the EW code itself. (Since this happens on a vanilla install on a different machine)


    But I also get this if I create a page within a website - so that ain't the variable that's wrong.


    Thanks again,

    Si




    Monday, March 9, 2009 8:53 PM
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    Actually it is not an EW issue, it is an issue of where the images are being saved.
    Are you not prompted to save the image to a location inside your website?

    When inserting behaviros buttons, you *must* open a site and then a page,
    and the images *must* be saved to a location in your web site.

    This:
    *url*/'file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Simon/Local Settings/Temporary Internet Files/WebTempDir/buttonA.jpg'

    is what is causing EW to close / crash. Vista is sensing a cross domain scripting issue
    and telling EW: bye bye.
    FrontPage MVP
    Monday, March 9, 2009 9:01 PM
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    "On the other hand, perhaps I'm not in a location where I can do that.  What I can do, and did do, is post what EW wrote."
     
    Scott was telling you *two* options: post a link to a page, or paste the code into this forum using the "Format Code Block" icon in the reply window.  If you don't do that, and just paste code into your reply, this forum software adds extraneous stuff, and it's very hard to read.  For example, all that "originalAttribute" stuff is most certainly not in EW's code.

    "That's what EW does if you just open it and start a new page."

    And that is a source of problems.  Open EW, open a website (or create a new one), and then create a new page.  Save it, and the files will be in the website, not in temporary locations.  Links will be relative, not absolute to your file system.  And EW won't crash when you try and do what you were doing.
    Monday, March 9, 2009 9:45 PM
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    Kathy, Steve

    Thank you for that, I do appreciate you guys trying to help, but your mileage clearly isn't my mileage. 

    I did point out that I have a website written in Frontpage, duly saved, with all the files saved in the appropriate places and in EW, if I try and move an interactive button, EW crashes.

    Which is why I came up with this, which to me seemed a very simple experiment.  A vanilla install all round, which replicates the behaviour I had already experienced.  My apologies if it now seems hugely compex and I hope you will understand why I view your explanations with some scepticism - the problems you are saying are the cause of the crash do not exist in the original website.

    Perhaps it's just me, but if we accept that your resolutions to the issue are correct don't you think it somewhat odd that a major company should release software onto the market which behaves like this?

    If the program only works properly if files are saved in location X, why then does it write them to a tempfile rather than ask that it be allowed to write them to a place it can handle?  And why is it then incapable of finding them again in a way that does not cause a crash?  And if the problem is that you're not allowed to write a new page which does not belong to a website, why is that option not greyed out?

    I may be the uneducated redneck here, but that looks to me like it would be a whole series of bugs and unhelpful program structuring.

    However, I shall of course try your suggestions when I am next in the right location.

    Thanks again,

    Si


    Monday, March 9, 2009 10:27 PM
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    We are the wrong people to ask about "why" a bug/crash happens.  Now, Microsoft has a Connect site where you can post bugs, give examples, etc., to Microsoft, and occasionally even get a response.

    (Here, you are talking to users, not Microsoft.)

    As for the problem happing in an existing FrontPage....  Is this a live site you can point us to?  Is there a page with an existing interactive button that will crash if made position relative and moved?

    ... I'll have to dig up an FP-started site and try it.

    Monday, March 9, 2009 10:48 PM
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    I don't think it is an issue with FP either. Just out of curiosity I opened up a test site and inserted an interactive button, then saved. The button images were saved in the correct folder, and everything displayed and worked correctly when previewed in a browser. I wasn't sure how to change the position to relative, so I finally settled on adding "position: relative" in the style definition within the image tag. So far, so good.

    Now I had margin lines and an id tag displayed around the button like EW does for layers. When I put the cursor over the id tag it changed to the four arrows as it does for positioning layers. However, if I tried to click to click and drag, EW immediately displayed an error message and quit. I tried saving the page first, immediately after adding the relative positioning, and it still worked fine in a browser. Then I selected the button and attempted to move it, and EW crashed again.

    Now, I will say that I would never attempt to position anything this way normally. For the sake of experimentation though, I did, and I have to agree with Si. It acted exactly as he described. And FWIW I'm running XP and have never used FP, so neither the OS nor the creator of the page should be a factor. I think the real issue is that Si should position his buttons using CSS rather than by dragging, but it would be nice if there was some warning about this.

    That said, hopefully this doesn't just cloud the question further. I'll leave it to someone else (Microsoft) to figure out why this happens. I just want to confirm that it does happen.

    Jim
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 12:13 AM
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    Still, I appreciate your help, Kathy, thank you.

    But it seems I have already lost the larger argument, having just received an e-mail the gist of which is "sign the purchase order for Dreamweaver like I asked for in the first place or else..." I can't see I have a leg to stand on. (I'll do it in the morning, Nick.)

    Si
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 12:16 AM
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    You are not going to believe how I have been able to reproduce your problem, and solve it.

    The button I was using, from an old page, did not have the MS comment in it.  (I'd cleaned up the code and removed those comments.)  It can be moved just fine with no crashing, after being positioned relative.

    Adding another button to that page, wherein EW adds the comment:

    <!-- MSComment="ibutton" fp-style="fp-btn: Border Bottom 1" fp-title="Demo" -->

    ends up with a button that will cause EW to crash when positioned:relative, then moved, which is what you are seeing.

    Move the comment from the new button to the old button: the old button will crash EW if moved, and the new button won't.

    Remove the comment altogether, and both buttons are crash-free.

    SO:  You have found a bug.  And, the workaround is to remove the button comments in code view.

    Try it and see if you can confirm my findings.
    • Proposed as answer by fcphdJim Tuesday, March 10, 2009 12:28 AM
    • Marked as answer by Simon Lindsey Tuesday, March 10, 2009 10:17 AM
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 12:24 AM
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    Kathy, that's just freaky! I deleted the comment from my test button and I could instantly move it around without any crashes, just as you said. Nice catch!

    Jim
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 12:30 AM
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    I put some feedback on the Connect site, id=422089.  I'll be curious what they say.  How a comment can cause this is quite a puzzle!  I've reproduced it on Win XP, and on Vista, old sites, new sites.

    https://connect.microsoft.com/Expression/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=422089
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 1:13 AM
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    Paladun,

    On the other hand, perhaps I'm not in a location where I can do that. What I can do, and did do, is post what EW wrote.

    Well, no, in fact, you did not. What you did do was to post the mess that the (non-Microsoft) Telerik editor used in this forum makes of code that is pasted without using Format Code Block. That code is not what EW produced, and even if it were, pasting it without formatting and syntax-highlighting makes reading it and trying to analyze it needlessly difficult.

    That is what I explained, and what you apparently chose not to understand. I followed that with a polite request (I used to watch Captain Kangaroo and haven't forgotten "Please" and "Thank you") to either post a link or repost using Format Code Block.

    I of course regret that you are offended by my posting microsoft sourced code #here.

    Offended? Nah, baby, nah. What was to be offended about at that point? I was simply pointing out to you facts of which you appeared to be unaware, and asking nicely that you remedy the situation. Interesting, though, that you took that as an indication of offense taken...

    But it seems I have already lost the larger argument, having just received an e-mail the gist of which is "sign the purchase order for Dreamweaver like I asked for in the first place or else..." I can't see I have a leg to stand on. (I'll do it in the morning, Nick.)

    Aw, darn. Gone so soon? Oh, well...

    Oh, BTW, I use Dreamweaver CS4, too (and MX before that). Interesting stuff that comes up over on the Adobe-Dreamweaver group. Like this one under the subject "dreamweaver crashed, managed sites data gone!" — "It hasn't been a good day!! I went to launch DW CS3 only to find it didn't shut down properly. After a force quit & launch I noticed all my settings had changed and my list of sites empty. Is there a way to restore this data from my backup?" There are others in a similar vein, from multiple forums, but hey, why belabor the point, eh?

    Every program has issues. Some, like yours, have their causes discovered, workarounds determined, and are bugged for correction. Others hang around for the next revision or version release. Some may hang longer, unfortunately. But this is not exclusive to any particular application, and the more powerful and the more complex the application, the more likely those little critters get in to gum up the works at some point. Life is tough.

    Oh, yeah... Hey, Nick! You there? Yeah, I know you're listening, cause your ol' bud Si just spoke to you directly. Well, just a little sumthin you might want to consider. I hope that you (or your clients) have no need or intention of using any ASP.NET technology. Dreamweaver CS4 is a marvelous tool, no kidding. I am seriously impressed by the improvement since MX. Damn shame that they've decided that ASP.NET 1.1 is as far as they're going with that technology, what with framework 3.5 being the current version and all. But, I'm sure you'll get on just fine with Spry and HTML table datasources, yes? Ta ta, y'all...

    cheers,
    scott

    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 3:15 AM
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    Scott,

    I wasn't going to say this last night, as I could not be absolutely sure that it was correct.

    However, since I am now sat at my desk, with EW open, where I can see the code it wrote, and compare it on a line by line basis with what I pasted here, I can confirm to you that it is EXACTLY the SAME.

    So.  What you wrote was just plain wrong. 

    I could go on, but why belabour the soft skills point?


    Si


    Kathy, Jim, Thank you - I confirm your solution works =]
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 10:14 AM
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    "I can confirm to you that it is EXACTLY the SAME."

    Actually, no, it isn't.  The forum software added "originalAttribute," "originalPath" stuff.

    I quote one example section from your pasted stuff:

    function FP_preloadImgs() {//v1.0  
     var d=document,a=arguments; if(!d.FP_imgs) d.FP_imgs=new Array();  
     for(var i=0; i<a.length; i++) { d.FP_imgs[i]=new Image; d.FP_imgs[i].src=a[i]; originalAttribute="src" originalPath="a[i];" originalAttribute="src" originalPath="a[i];" }  
    }  
     

    That's what pasting directly into the forum does.
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 12:48 PM
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    The OP raised a problem, and the first 3 people who respond deny or give wrong answers.  The 4th person then says the OP is right, and only then does the tone change, and the first person to answer goes "oh yeah..."  and finds a fix.

    That's like science all round. Anomaly meets denial, abuse and ugliness until someone else replicates.  Cold fusion anyone? (That's a pun btw)

    Does this nixing ms comments also fix other probs with expression that FPCleaner wasn't fixing?


    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 3:12 PM
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     Oh, BTW, I use Dreamweaver CS4, too (and MX before that). Interesting stuff that comes up over on the Adobe-Dreamweaver group. Like this one under the subject "dreamweaver crashed, managed sites data gone!" — "It hasn't been a good day!! I went to launch DW CS3 only to find it didn't shut down properly. After a force quit & launch I noticed all my settings had changed and my list of sites empty. Is there a way to restore this data from my backup?" There are others in a similar vein, from multiple forums, but hey, why belabor the point, eh

    I see you have been reading my Dreamweaver Mail List. :-) I don't recall ever seeing you post there though.

    MS MVP Expression Tutorials & Help http://by-expression.com and online instructor led Expression Classes
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 3:48 PM
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    "The OP raised a problem, and the first 3 people who respond deny or give wrong answers.  The 4th person then says the OP is right, and only then does the tone change, and the first person to answer goes "oh yeah..."  and finds a fix."

    The first person who replied couldn't reproduce the problem, and said so.   That was me, and no, the problem did not occur.  I relative positioned existing interactive buttons on an existing page, dragged them to my heart's delight in Design View, and: no crashes.

    The issue was diverted for a couple posts by the OP posting markup with a hard link to C drive, describing creating a new page, not opening a web first, which causes an assortment of problems.

    When poster said it happened in an existing website, I tried again to reproduce it, and created new buttons on a new page.  *Only then could I reproduce it*, so I tried to find the difference.  I did find the difference, and posted it.  [This was not an easy thing to find!  Who would have though a comment could be the factor?]

    It had nothing to do with someone else saying the OP was right changing the tone - I didn't even see that post.  It had to do with me having the time to dig into it when the OP said it happened with an established website. 
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 4:28 PM
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    Cheryl D Wise said:

    I see you have been reading my Dreamweaver Mail List. :-) I don't recall ever seeing you post there though.

    MS MVP Expression Tutorials & Help http://by-expression.com and online instructor led Expression Classes

    Hey, I just joined last week, the 5th, IIRC. ;-)

    For some reason (probably the volume of stuff I get in the ordinary course of events—newsletters, mailing list items, etc.) I didn't see the original message you sent about the Group. I came across it last week when I set up a folder for you and a message rule, which obligingly highlighted your posts and copied them to the folder.

    Interesting group, and tons of traffic, with some very knowledgeable folks indeed. I also noted, as expected, that there are (percentage-wise) just as many cluel... er, novices there stumbling about, bewildered, as we have here. I wonder if it wouldn't be advantageous sometimes to point those here who say, "Well! Since EW is so _______, I guess I'll just go with Dreamweaver... " over to that group. Could be some interesting revelations... ;-)

    Truth be told, I haven't been working extensively with DW CS4 to date. For Web work it's been mainly EW, because I already had everything set up there, having purchased it seven months before DW CS4. I have been exploring it, and have been through the three Lynda.com courses, but the key is that for the last several weeks I have been in saturation mode on Illy CS4.

    I had basically given up on Illy back with v.10 and gone to Xara Xtreme (actually, I think it was Xara X1 back then). I could do the standard things with one-tenth the effort in XX that I could in Illy, and could do many things that simply could not be done in Illy. Now that I've gotten CS4 with the Design Premium Suite, WOW! what a difference five or six versions makes! What an amazing graphics tool, and with the new integration with InDesign, Flash, Photoshop, et al, I can see myself using it a great deal in the future.

    I just finished the terrific "Illustrator CS4 One-on-One: Fundamentals" 16.5 hour course presented by Deke McClelland (great presenter!), but it took much longer because I took notes on everything in EverNote and I worked the exercises where I felt the most need of improvement. I'll tell ya, I've been using the Pen tool for years, and thought that I was fairly decent with it. Hah! After this course I can truly say that I finally understand fully how Bézier curves work (as well as spline curves ;-), and although I can't (yet) do it as fast as Deke, I can do anything I've tried to do so far (and all of the techniques presented in the course), something I couldn't attest previously.

    Anyway, that's where my non-work time has been (is being) eaten up. And I'm not done yet; there's a new course by Mordy Golding on "Illustrator CS4 for the Web," which I have just started. So, if you don't see me being too active on the Group for a while, try to understand, OK?  ;-)

    cheers,
    scott (who is wondering if there'll ever come a time when we get to quit learning... Nah, baby, nah!)
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 7:19 PM
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    Interesting group, and tons of traffic, with some very knowledgeable folks indeed. I also noted, as expected, that there are (percentage-wise) just as many cluel... er, novices there stumbling about, bewildered, as we have here. I wonder if it wouldn't be advantageous sometimes to point those here who say, "Well! Since EW is so _______, I guess I'll just go with Dreamweaver... " over to that group. Could be some interesting revelations... ;-)

    You do like to live dangerously - remember over there I control everything and would get even. :-> I'm not following the "done in Illy" reference to Illy.

    Though if we are going to chit chat, I'd suggest we move this thread over to the coffee house forum at  http://by-expression.com/forums/default.aspx?GroupID=6 

    MS MVP Expression Tutorials & Help http://by-expression.com and online instructor led Expression Classes
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 8:13 PM
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    Yeah, this has drifted pretty far OT. I'll just close it up with a very short reply on the "done in Illy" reference. Xara pioneered a number of things in vector art tools, such as vector transparency, vector soft shadows, real-time vector anti-aliasing, integrated raster image handling, and other effects. And at the time, its text-handling capabilities were vastly superior to the execrable tools in Illustrator. There was much that could be accomplished in Xara that I could find no way to do at all in Illy, or that required jumping through so many hoops that it was a major productivity hit.

    That has all changed now. Actually, it may have been improving steadily, but I skipped everything after v.10, so never saw CS, CS2, or CS3. CS4 might as well be an entirely new tool, and it is quite an impressive one. It is now well worth the time invested to learn all of the multitudinous capabilities of the program, and I am trying to do so.

    And that, as they say, is that.  ;-)

    cheers,
    scott
    Tuesday, March 10, 2009 9:27 PM
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    Just chiming in that my EW2 crashes frequently as well. Sometimes just opening a certain file or deleting a little paragraph or image. I can often replicate the crash over and over and over again just by doing the same thing each time. I'll have to then open as text or something and manualy make the insignificant edit that way. It's like EW2 gets goofed in the head and flakes out for no apparent reason.
    Thursday, March 12, 2009 3:52 PM
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    Eric,

    Your behavior is not common or the forum would be filled to the brim with complaints. However, if you are able to reproduce it at will I would urge you to go to the connect site http://connect.microsoft.com and file a bug. Include a file that you can consistent reproduce crashing on and your exact steps. If you can, go download Jeng and make a screen capture and seen that too.
    MS MVP Expression Tutorials & Help http://by-expression.com and online instructor led Expression Classes
    Thursday, March 12, 2009 8:25 PM