Expression Web 3 by Microsoft is a feature-rich HTML editor. If you’ve had issues with Microsoft products before and set your mind to staying away, you might want to rethink your position. Expression Web 3 has all the functionality you could want in a website builder and a whole lot more. At first glance, Expression Web looks like the late, lamented FrontPage 2003, as it uses a similar menu structure and a similar choice of more-or-less WYSIWYG design view, pure-code view, and a view with the code on top and the visual design at the bottom. New task panes and toolbars create and edit CSS styles and give point-and-click control over XML data sources. Expression Web abandons FrontPage’s proprietary Web ‘bots, which required special “additions” installed on your Web server. The app does, however, let you reuse the FrontPage feature that automatically inserts the latest revision date on a page. The FrontPage features that still work are the ones that create standards-based code for any browser and any Web server.

Features
Expression Web has tons of great features seldom seen in many HTML editors, including full, integrated versions of Expression Encoder and Expression Design. Expression Encoder allows you to customize videos, add cuts to clips, titles and captions and create computer-screen training videos. In addition, all your media can be delivered in Silverlight. Expression Design, on the other hand, allows you to create beautiful vector graphics that combine easily with Adobe Photoshop and have full layer support. You can apply live effects to vector or bitmapped images; the live effects are non-destructive and easy to add or remove. Expression Design has a wide range of vector and raster tools, import files, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop can take advantage of their operating time. Support Slices helps you to quickly export any part of the composition of one of the most popular image file formats (. PNG,. JPEG,. PSD,. GIF,. TIFF,. BMP,. WDP, PDF), and application developers WPF and Silverlight will be able to export directly interface in XAML. Expression Encoder – a real find for fans of video, allows for only a few minutes to place a video clip on the Internet, its user-friendly pre-editing tools. You no longer need to worry about developing their own player, Expression Encoder will automatically generate all the necessary code XHTML pages, which will only have to lay out on the Internet for public viewing. Expression Encoder also can record Usability and supports IIS Smooth Streaming.

Summary
Although beginners to web design may find Expression Web 3 a little too much to handle, intermediate and advanced developers will enjoy the flexibility, functionality and sleek layout. Beginners won’t need to know HTML or coding, but will need to take the time to learn the program; it’s not made for out-of-the-box use. We do recommend downloading the trial version first, to make sure Expression Web 3 is an HTML editor you’ll be comfortable using. However, we’re confident that many will find this program meets a wide variety of development needs.