Microsoft kills FrontPage for Expression(tm) Web Designer |
Loading ...This seems to be a morning of abortions. I checked and Scoble hasn’t dug into this one yet. Curious when/where the Channel 9 interview is and/or will be on this story?
Microsoft just loves change. And this wouldn’t be so bad if some of their product names weren’t so nonsensical like Windows Live. And if a product isn’t doing well, they just nuke the product line and come up with a new name. God help us all if they don’t change the code when they change the names.
Soon we’ll be able to credit the Redmond lumberjacks with giving the exe by “late 2006″ to FrontPage:
After nine years of being an award-winning Web authoring tool, FrontPage will be discontinued in late 2006. We will continue to serve the diverse needs of our existing FrontPage customers with the introduction of these three brand-new application building and Web authoring tools using the latest technologies, Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Designer 2007 for the enterprise information workers, Microsoft® Expression™ Web Designer for the professional Web designer and Microsoft® Visual Studio 2005 for the Web developer.
It is so “award-winning” that they are discontinuing the line. Funny.
Is this a good move? FrontPage is almost universally despised by hosting companies and developers alike as not playing well with other programming so this move does give Microsoft a chance to pump some fresh into the space. Let’s hope they learned from their mistakes. And I wouldn’t touch their Frontpage extensions with a ten foot pole (on a Linux box) if it wasn’t sometimes part of my job. Never mind what type of code surgery is needed when mixing with PHP and other scripting languages in the editor. Not into BDSM, sorry.
I will admit (blasphemous, I know) occasionally using the FrontPage editor for roughing out tables visually, but I still rewrite most of the code and pull out all the garbage FrontPage adds. This is a bad habit I’ve been unable to shake, especially with better WYSIWYG editors out there. And the version I’m still using? FrontPage 98. That doesn’t say much for their numerous upgrades. Think I bought FP 2000 and promptly uninstalled.
Now what’s up with the name of their replacement program? Expression Web Designer? I dislike the name already. Maybe the program rocks but the name is weak. Of course if the program is good they can call it whatever they want and I’ll still use it, so who am I to namebash? Still, I wonder what do they do up there in the naming department? Sit around and think up the worst names they can use for something? FrontPage might have been tainted, but it had a better name and a history, albeit a rocky one.
Now, seriously, what other WYSIWYG editor should I switch to so I can cast off FrontPage editor forever from my coding toolbox? Something that works good with CSS since I do more of that these days than straight HTML and doesn’t hose code snippets.
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You can always try Nvu. Personally I could care less seeing that Microsoft is axing FrontPage. I recall basic web authoring class during high school. Every aspect of the curriculum revolved around FrontPage. Eight years later I try to imagine life if I had fallen to believe that FrontPage was the best tool for the job. Boy would life suck. Notepad++ for me.
Comment by Derek Punsalan — April 8, 2006 @ 2:18 pm PST
In the office 2007 install, there is a spot for frontpage, but it installs something called Sharepoint Designer. Since the beta for Expressions Web Designer starts next month, they can’t be the same thing. If you’re interested, you can sign up for the Expressions beta at connect.microsoft.com.
Fred
Comment by Fred Beiderbecke — April 8, 2006 @ 5:24 pm PST
OK, I’ll admit it — I do use FrontPage 2003 sometimes, but only because the sites were published years ago using FrontPage Extensions. For new stuff, I use a text editor, SlickEdit, which has all kinds of context-sensitive goodies for lots of languages. I hear than in v11 (just released) they are adding Ruby, too.
Comment by Sterling Camden — April 10, 2006 @ 12:40 pm PST
Yeah, you can tell thet “Expression Web Designer” is targeted at non-techies, ’cause the first thing that pops into my mind is regex.
Comment by Sterling Camden — April 10, 2006 @ 12:42 pm PST
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[…] tools from Microsoft and unleash your creativity to design professional sites.” with a link to a page that tells us what we already know : What happened to FrontPage? After nine years ofStudio 2005 for the Web developer. I know, this happened on April 7th. Sorry… I lost the link to the page I found this from. Microsoft does seem to like to be the best at everything. Moretime will tell… Technorati Tags: Expression, frontpage, Microsoft, web, webdesign [link] [Trackback] [] [ (?)] […]
Pingback by FileVille Blog » Blog Archive » Farewell Frontpage… — April 25, 2006 @ 7:57 pm PST
Microsoft Expression WEB WHATEVER , DONT HAVE HAVE (PREVIEW) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THATS A TRUN OFF , U HAVE TO SAVE TO WHAT WHAT YOU DID ?? WTF ? R THEY GOING BACKWARD ? FRONPAGE 2003 HAS THAT OPTION WHERE IS NOW ???
Comment by max — June 13, 2006 @ 3:12 am PST
As a non professional web creator I really liked FP because I use a lot of PSP7 graphics and do not like frames. I like to be creative with graphics and as I am not a small business but just a hobby cat breeder, I find people like to see as many pics of my cats and kittens as possible. The first time I “published” FP was a nightmare but once I got the hang of it , using a free FTP program was really easy. I don’t use extensions that are not supported and in my hobby they aren’t really necessary. I am disappointed FP is dead so what do I use now as a great wysiwyg program that I don’t have to understand more than the basics of coding?
Help please some of you more clever designers than me.
Comment by Valerie — September 10, 2008 @ 3:09 am PST