/Expression/ Microsoft Expression Studio 3 ­ review

28/08/2009 | Filed under Discover > Expression

Microsoft’s Expression family of products reaches a highly competent version 3 with more than a little fanfare. With improvements including excellent wireframing, cross-browser compatibility profiling and Adobe CS compatibility, this is a strong update.

Microsoft developers have a few extra links in their pipelines because they’re built to service the corporation’s proprietary technologies. Now, you could see that as having additional tools at your disposal, or you could see it as a way to make people buy more than one application in order to get the most out of your technologies. Both would be valid positions.

Whichever you adopt, though, you have to admit that the Expression family has a lot going for it. Expression Web, for example, makes building ‘standards driven’ websites without actually writing any code about as straightforward as it could be.

Expression Blend is an excellent wireframing tool that enables designers to lay down paradigms for developers and be confident that these will actually make it to the final build. Expression Design is less compelling, but has its charms. Should you find yourself developing or designing for Microsoft technologies such as Silverlight or ASP.NET, these tools would be a Godsend.

They’ve got their own un-slick (though highly competent) way of going about things, but once you get used to that, it’s something of a relief if you’re used to working with Apple products.

Pipelines
The family tree looks like this: Expression Web handles creation of websites ­ that means PHP, HTML, CSS and so on. Plus it can handle .NET-related stuff and the embedding of Silverlight, Flash, Photoshop, video and so on. For the latter, Expression Web relies on Expression Encoder, which mills video formats and wraps them up for Silverlight.

Then there’s Expression Blend. This is where you manufacture interfaces for web apps that use Silverlight. It’s based on Microsoft’s XAML format, thereby delivering a solid foundation on which tech developers can build. It doesn’t have a sound platform for the development of the interactivity that Silverlight provides, though you can view and tweak the code.

Expression Blend incorporates SketchFlow, a superb wireframing and prototyping tool. A development phase might begin in SketchFlow, then migrate to Expression Design or Photoshop for production of the visuals.

Then it’s back to Expression Web, where the site’s put together. Meanwhile, some assets go off to Expression Blend where they’re melded into a reasonable facsimile of the Silverlight application, around which the site is built. Then the pipeline disappears over a hill.

This is probably the version number at which Expression Studio turned the corner and became a genuine draw for Microsoft as opposed to a mere gateway to its technology. Being able to see the code generated on-the-fly in Expression Blend as you manipulate objects in the design window is fun. Even drawing graphics in Expression Design is enjoyable, a bit like using an early version of FreeHand.

Having a simple way to compare previews from different browsers, side by side, on the same machine is also a bonus. SuperPreview (part of Expression Web), even if it just remained capable of comparing Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 alongside Firefox, would be a blinding addition to any toolbox. If and when it expands to take in other browsers, we’ll at least be able to see more clearly how badly messed up the landscape is.

Little details
There are plenty of little details in Microsoft Expression Studio 3 that make life easier. Snapshot Preview updates your preview as you edit code.

FTP uploads in batches, Expression Blend gives you simple plug-in interactivity in the form of ‘Behaviors’ and enables you to design around a set of dummy data until you’re ready to switch over to live updates. And of course, if you’re a Silverlight convert, then this is the only show in town.

Well, this and Visual Studio.

Though checking boxes and drop-down menus seem like a long way around such things as CSS and XHTML, there’s clearly a demand for it. That being the case, there are few apps better equipped for this sort of thing and more easily assimilated than Expression Web. The partitioning approach Microsoft has gone for has paid off there.

Expression Web is powerful and capable within its field (PHP, HTML, ASP.NET, that type of stuff), and it doesn’t lose the simplicity that the likes of Dreamweaver only ever had a loose grasp of. Then there’s Expression Blend, which is roughly analogous to Adobe Catalyst. For what it’s worth, Expression Blend is probably a better prototyping tool, although obviously it makes Silverlight UIs, not Flash ones.

All in all, the suite is surprisingly enjoyable. Clearly delineating asset creation, visual site design, application UI engineering and prototyping has resulted in a steady, very usable web development pipeline.

Rating: 4/5

Price: $599 (£364), upgrade $349 (£211)
Web: www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Studio_Overview.aspx
System: Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7

Silverlight 3
The fact that Silverlight is still a very young technology is illustrated by how Microsoft boasts of an upcoming visual development tool in Visual Developer 2010. Version 3 sees the Flash alternative able to survive outside of the browser, brings 3D graphics support, GPU acceleration and H.264 video. By the time 2010 comes around, anyone working on applications for Silverlight may have a monster of a platform on their hands.

What needs to happen now is for Silverlight to be hijacked by innovative individuals who see its potential, rather than being guided by less creative folk who hope that one day it’ll exceed their dreams. That’s how Flash evolved from an animation package with scriptable bits into the platform it is today.

It’s clear that when you start from first principles, you can produce something fast, efficient and very exciting. Being young, you assume that Silverlight doesn’t have too much in the way of legacy issues or compatibility problems. No doubt the new Bitmap API and Pixel Shader effects will be keeping the .NET developers of the world up late for some time to come. Looking at the apps showcased at silverlight.net, the field is wide open.