Microsoft Expression Web Designer

With FrontPage dead, many scouters who have been using FrontPage regularly, have been apprehensive about an upgrade path forward. Some of the Lynix hosting services have started dropping the FrontPage extensions. RELAX, you will be very pleased with Microsoft Expressions Web Designer. In just under an hour from the time I completed the download, I accessed and edited a Scouting unit website I created with FP. This software had a familuar feel, but is completely different. FrontPage users will not have any difficulty adapting to this product.

This new software is not a new face on the old FrontPage product. This software has a very professional feel and is still very intuitive of those of us who used FP. Expression Web Designer was built for Web 2.0 and the standards for today. A major plus for this products is that it does not let you insert poor coding practices. It has On-The-Fly validation for XHTML and CSS!!!

Many of the tools that we like in FP have returned without the use of FrontPage extensions. Thank you Microsoft!!!

It's very fast. Uses about 40 MB of RAM. It does not feel bloated. However, it's a 250
+ MB download because it is built on top of MS Office.

The cost of this new software is a realy big problem. Some vendors are indicating that current users can upgrade for about $100. That is good for those of us who already have FrontPage. The rumor mill has it that to buy this package new will be r ~$400. No matter how good the software this cost will eventually exclude it from most of the scouting units. I am afraid that the solution to reasonably priced software for the Scouter Webmaster is to be found else where.

--Happy Scouting