FrontPage 2003 vs. Expression Web

Expression Web has been out for several years and yet some die-hard FrontPage users seem reluctant move on. Many seem concerned about whether older webs will be compatible and what changes and problems this will bring. But the time has come when you need to seriously consider options other than FrontPage.

As you probably know, every software program has a product life cycle. Microsoft dropped support for FrontPage 2000 and 2002 quite a long while ago, and FrontPage 2003 mainstream support will end in April 2009. If you are still using FrontPage 2003, you are not getting the best results for your web site.

Rather than try to make much needed changes to yet another version of FrontPage, Expression Web was designed from the ground up. While you will find many similarities between Expression Web and FrontPage 2003, what goes on behind the scenes is vastly different.

Expression Web is not just a new, renamed FrontPage. It is a professional tool. Gone is the bloated code for which FrontPage was often criticized.  Gone are the "web-bots" that wrote code proprietary to Internet Explorer. Expression Web not only helps you by writing valid XHTML by default, it helps you learn by highlighting (in code view) errors. This makes Expression Web a great learning tool.

So it's time to take the plunge and give up FrontPage 2003 for Expression Web. Our new generation of templates are designed to the newest web standards. You will find the coding cleaner, W3C compliant, and well tested in several popular browsers.

At Round the Bend Wizards, we also have to consider how to long to continue keeping FrontPage templates in our catalog. We gave up the "web-bot" components a few years ago to help our templates retain a longer shelf-life, but we are revisiting their construction. Often it is far easier to delete them from our catalog and then make a note of the old favorites that could do with a new, updated look.

So What's Different?

• Many of the old FrontPage components have been removed from Expression Web. You won't find photo galleries, themes, guestbook forms, navigation view, automatic page banners, or Word Art.
• Don't assume that if you build a web site using Expression Web that your code will automatically be valid and clean. You will get a great start, but need to learn how to get the best results.
• Do check you page code for both valid XHTML and CSS using the built in tools in Expression Web. Go to Tools > Compatibility Reports > CSS reports and the use the validation tools available at http://validator.w3.org/
• Expression web was designed to be backwards compatible. This means that FrontPage web sites imported into Expression Web will still work. Note that you will not be able to add new content to older FrontPage web components.
• Remember that there is a learning curve with any new program.

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