Continue reading »]]> Many of you will have recently moved or will shortly be moving to Expression Web 3 for your web development, you will no doubt be aware of SuperPreview, one of the most talked about features of the software.  For those of you who don’t know, SuperPreview allows you to preview your pages as they would appear in many different browsers / browser versions, including side-by-side previewing.

One thing that didn’t make the cut this year though, as mentioned on the Expression team blog by Steven Schermerhorn, is the ability to view authenticated pages within your site out of the box.  Instead, when previewed, these authenticated pages will display what they would normally display to an unauthenticated user, which will probably be your standard ‘please log in’ screen.

Whilst the ability for SuperPreview to ‘log in’ to your page is not in this release, Steven does suggest a possible workaround in the form of configuring your web site for debug access.

You can read the full post including a more detailed description of the workaround here, and it sounds like we can expect to see this feature in the next version of SuperPreview.

Technorati Tags: Expression Web, expression web 3, superpreview

Continue reading »]]> Expression Web 3, part of Expression Studio from Microsoft has now been released and is available for purchase / download.

MSDN license holders should find Expression Studio including Expression Web 3 available for download now from the MSDN web site, whilst everyone else can take advantage of free trials (the Expression Web 3 trail can be downloaded here and is around 122mb) and upgrade offers, where appropriate.

Expression Web 3 brings some exciting stuff to the table to improve on the already popular Expression Web 2.

Amongst the most notable features are;

• Brand new look and feel to match the darker style seen in Expression Blend 2.

Image used taken from Expression Web site from Microsoft. Coptright Microsoft.

• SuperPreview – allowing you to view your pages / sites in multiples browsers and examine and resolve any cross browser compatibility issues with your designs.
• SnapShot Preview – A browser preview that automatically updates side by side with your design / code, meaning that you do not have to load the browser everytime you make a change to see what it will render like.
  

  Image used taken from Expression Studio Web Site from Microsoft. Copyright Microsoft.

• Silverlight and DeepZoom support – You can now embed Silverlight movies as well as DeepZoom movies into your pages using Expression Web 3.
• Improved FTP Publishing and Site Management – Expression Web 3 now claims to upload and sync your sites with your remote server faster than before, uploading multiple files at once.  It now also boasts improved site management which should make switching between sites and saving associated settings a breeze.
• Internet Explorer 8 Support – Support for IE8 now comes with EW3 allowing you to target web sites for this browser.
• Expression Design 3 Included – The graphical editor from Microsoft, Expression Design is now included with Expression Web.

Also released as part of Expression Studio 3 are the new versions of Expression Blend, Expression Encoder and,  as already mentioned, Expression Design.

I have only just installed the new version of the studio, but will post some follow ups of anything interesting I think would be worth sharing.

Below are some links to pages for Expression Web 3 and Expression Studio 3;

Expression 3 Web Site

Expression Web 3 Trial Download

Expression Web 3 Product Information

Let me know your thoughts on the new versions….

Technorati Tags: expression studio, Expression Web, expression web 3

Continue reading »]]> UPDATE: Expression Web 3, Silverlight 3 and Expression Studio 3 have now been released, which you can read about in my post, “Expression Web 3 Released” here.

Scott Gu has just announced Expression Web 3 at Mix09 focussing on one feature in particular, SuperPreview.

SuperPreview finally allows you to test your web sites created with Expression Web on different platforms right from within the application itself.  SuperPreview supports IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox and Safari.

Even better than this, you can compare two browsers side by side or even use an overlay view to see any unwanted differences.

When you have identified a problem area you can even click on that area of the page to highlight that area of the DOM to assist you in fixing any cross-browser issues.

I am very excited about SuperPreview as it is something that has been desperately needed for a while.

The best thing though is that it is also available as a standalone tool and the beta is available right now from here.

Technorati Tags: Expression Web, expression web 3, superpreview