Microsoft's replacement for Expressions web?

Question

I am a long time FrontPage, then Expressions web user. With MS dropping support for Expressions, do they have a paid product that essentially replaces it? I'm looking for a product that has "design tab" WYSIWYG functionality rather than a straight programmer's interface.

(And it not, is there a 3rd party product that works like this?)

Answer 1

Microsoft offers Visual Studio Community version for free. But if you are looking to design an HTML website, not an asp.net Web Forms or MVC application, it won't offer you anything other than what EW4 offers, and will be far less easy to navigate since it really is for asp.net, primarily.

There's nothing in modern web standards that you can't do in EW4.  Is there a reason you want to change?  And, I'll point out that EW is NOT and never was a WYSIWYG editor.  It can give you an approximate visual in Design View, and even then, depending on what CSS you are using, it may not be very close.  You always need to preview in real browsers to see your actual result.

The only competitor is Dreamweaver, which is not free (quite expensive, now, actually), and has its own list of foibles and critics.

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Kathleen Wilber
BrightWillow - ASP.NET applications

Answer 2

Thanks for the thoughtful and knowledgeable response. The only reason why I am looking for alternatives is a fear that one day – either from an OS upgrade, the move to Office 365, the move to 64-bit Office, or something else – Expressions web will no longer run, and I’m dead in the water without a paddle.

Answer 3

EW does not rely on Office (unless you have a very old version of EW - you should be using the last and final free EW4), so that's nothing to worry about.  EW4 runs on Windows 10 64 bit computers with no problem.  EW requires asp.net to be installed on the computer, but that comes with Windows.

Don't worry before the problem actually happens.  By the time it does, whatever alternative you found might also have problems. : )

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Kathleen Wilber
BrightWillow - ASP.NET applications

Answer 4

I am having a lot of issues running EW4 on Windows 10 64bit. After publishing site changes on EW4 it takes up to 3 or 4 minutes to become usable again. I don't know if that has something to do with the following issue.

W4 can't seem to scale pages to run on the newer 4K monitors. I have tried everything changing page sizes in EW4, and in Windows settings customizing the display by changing the size of  txt, and app to 300%, and also tried lowering screen resolution from 3840 x 2160. Nothing seems to work and some things in EW4 are just too small to see.

Answer 5

This question is off-topic for the question asked by the OP (which, BTW, has already been answered and marked as answer by the OP). The answer  to "Microsoft's replacement for Expressions web?" is, as I replied in another thread, Expression Web 4 SP2a is the last, final version of EW. That's it. There will be no further releases, no further updates. Microsoft has ceased development, back in 2011, of the entire Expression Studio.

You should ask this question in a new thread, which has not already been marked as answered, and which has a subject line consistent with the problem you are trying to resolve (which is [a] performance issues after publishing, and [b] display issues when using a 4k monitor). Choose one, or both, for your subject line and start a new topic.

cheers,
scott

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Please remember to "Mark as Answer" the responses that resolved your issue. It is common courtesy to recognize those who have helped you, and it also makes it easier for visitors to find the resolution later.

Answer 6

Use the F12 key. A single keystroke will display your page in whichever browser is at the top of your browser list.

Answer 7

???

WTF, JWL2010?! What are you talking about? That is certainly the way to display the currently edited file in the last-used browser and pixel dimensions, but it has no relationship whatsoever to either the OP's question or to any of the responses to it, nor even to the OT post to which I responded TWO YEARS AGO!

Hmm... looking at your history, you've only posted to two other threads since you joined in 2009, and your last post was 5 years ago. Might want to lurk a bit, read a few threads marked Answered in several forums, kinda get an idea what is expected. You know, like relevance to the original question and, if appropriate, to any ancillary discussion in the thread so far, some degree of temporal concurrency, etc.. Unfortunately, resurrecting dead, already answered threads with complete non sequitur responses doesn't qualify.

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Please remember to "Mark as Answer" the responses that resolved your issue. It is common courtesy to recognize those who have helped you, and it also makes it easier for visitors to find the resolution later.

Answer 8

I too have similar problems. I am a Win7 user with OLD Macromedia Dreamweaver 8. Nothing comes close to DW8 for WYSIWYG and CODE editing/ creating and Library item management. Closest I have found is Web Expressions 4 that seems to have picked up most of DW8 stuff except the Library function. Now MS is dropping support for it and  DW8 users have nowhere to go. 
My problem is that my laptop with DW8 has become infected and is almost terminal. If I upgrade now to Win 10 on a new box, I am unsure if DW will run, and if I can't use NE4 I am lost. Might have to pack it all in and send people to the touchy-feelie rubbish that is so popular now (WordPress et al).

Answer 9

I have no idea why you didn't post your own question in a new thread.

I have EW4 on three Win 10 computers.  It runs on Win 10, as has been said many times.

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Kathleen Wilber
BrightWillow - Asp.Net Applications

Answer 10

Why not just upgrade to the latest DW?