Microsoft Expression Web 4

Microsoft Expression Web, code-named Quartz, is an HTML editor and general web design software product by Microsoft. It is available free of charge from Microsoft and is component of the discontinued Expression Studio.

Expression Web can design and develop web pages using XML, CSS 2.1,ASP.NET or ASP.NET AJAX, XHTML, XSLT, PHP and JavaScript. Expression Web 4 requires .NET Framework 4.0 and Silverlight 4.0 to install and run. Expression Web uses its own standards-based rendering engine which is different from Internet Explorer's Trident engine.

Version History :

On May 14, 2006, Microsoft released the first Community Technology Preview (CTP) version of Expression Web. On September 5, 2006, Microsoft released Beta 1. Beta 1 removed most of the FrontPage-proprietary (non-standard) features such as bots (use of FPSE features for server-side scripting), parts, functions, themes, automatic generation of navigation buttons, FrontPage forms, navigation pane to build a web site's hierarchy, and other non-standard features available in CTP 1. The Release To Manufacturing version was made available on December 4, 2006. The first and the only service pack was published in December 2007.^[4] Expression Web does not have the form validation controls for HTML fields like FrontPage, but supports validator controls for ASP.NET.^[5]

Microsoft Expression Web 2 was released in 2008.^[6] Expression Web 2 offers native support for PHP and Silverlight. No service packs have been released for version 2.

Microsoft Expression Web 3 was released in 2009.^[7] Until version 2, Expression Web was the only application in the Expression Studio suite based on Microsoft Office code and dependencies.^[8] With version 3, Expression Web was rewritten in Windows Presentation Foundation, in line with the rest of the Expression Suite, without Microsoft Office dependencies. A result of this was features like customizable toolbars and menus, standard Windows color scheme, spell check, DLL addins, file menu export feature, drag-and-drop between remote sites, comparing sites by timestamp, automatic language tagging, basic macro support were removed in this version.^{[8][9][10][11][12][13][14]} Other features like Undo do not work reliably.^[15][16] Version 3 introduced Expression Web 3 SuperPreview tool for comparing and rendering webpage in various browsers. Also noted was the lack of support for root relative links, links that start with a "/" to refer to the root of a web server. This feature was added with Expression 3 Service Pack 1.^[17] Service Pack 2 for Expression Web 3 was released in April 2010.^[18]

Microsoft Expression Web 4 was released on June 7, 2010.^[19] It added the option of HTML add-ins, and access to a web-based SuperPreview functionality, for testing pages on browsers that cannot be installed on the user's system (such as Mac OS X or Linuxbrowsers). Microsoft Expression Web 4 also provides an SEO Checker which analyzes produced web site against the best practices for getting the highest possible search-engine rankings.^[20] Version 4 does not bring back all the features removed in Version 3.^[21]Expression Web 4 Service Pack 1 was released in March 2011 and added support for IntelliSense for the HTML5 and CSS3 draft specifications in the Code editor, HTML5 and CSS3 support in the CSS Properties palette, selected CSS3 properties in the Style dialogs, semantic HTML5 tags in Design View and new PHP5.3 functions.^[22] Expression Web 4 SP2 was released in July 2011, and fixed a number of issues and introduced new features such as jQuery IntelliSense support, a panel for managing snippets, Interactive Snapshot Panel, comment/uncomment functionality in Code View, and workspace and toolbar customization.

System requirements:

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP Service Pack 3

• PC with 1 GHz or faster processor
• 1 GB of RAM or more
• 2 GB or more of available hard-disk space
• .NET Framework 4.0
• Silverlight 4.0
• Support for Microsoft DirectX® 9.0 graphics with Windows Vista Display Driver Model (WDDM) Driver, 128 MB of graphics RAM or more, Pixel Shader 3.0 in hardware, 32-bits per pixel
• DVD compatible drive
• 1024 x 768 or higher resolution monitor with 24-bit color
• Internet functionality requires Internet access (additional fees may apply)
• Some product features require FireFox 3.0 or later, Internet Explorer 8