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Dry Lips
February 3rd, 2013, 07:17 PM
Ok, so Microsoft eventually found out that their Expression suite had no chance to compete with the likes of Adobe Illustrator and Dreamweaver, and their suite was discontinued. However, they are now offering Microsoft Expression Design 4 and Microsoft Expression Web 4 as a free download. Of course they aren't open source, nevertheless they are an interesting addition to the range of free graphic design tools out there...


http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/microsoft-killing-off-expression-suite-of-web-and-design-tools/


So, what do you guys think of these programs in comparison with Inkscape, BlueGriffon, KompoZer, etc? How will new competition influence the development of for instance Inkscape? (I've got a couple of opinions myself, but I'd rather hear from you first.)




Microsoft Expression Design 4
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36180

Microsoft Expression Web 4
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36179
prodigy_
February 3rd, 2013, 07:42 PM
no chance to compete ... discontinued ... aren't open source ... an interesting addition to ... graphic design tools

You could easily find "interesting additions" of this sort to the range of almost anything. Just visit your city dump.
Dry Lips
February 3rd, 2013, 09:26 PM
You could easily find "interesting additions" of this sort to the range of almost anything. Just visit your city dump.

Oh, you'd be surprised about the stuff that people throw away nowadays. ;) I know about a man who works at the recycling station who got himself a brand new computer. An elderly coupled had decided to get rid of it because they had recently bought a laptop, and thought that the desktop computer took up too much space in their living room. True story...

However, I didn't create this thread to discuss Microsoft, but whether or not Ms. Expression Design/Web are a match to Inkscape/KompoZer.
mr john
February 3rd, 2013, 11:20 PM
Kompozer is outdated. It was designed a long time ago and the web has changed alot since then. I also found it quite buggy.

They key thing with the Microsoft products are that they are relatively recent so support modern design techniques.
alphacrucis2
February 4th, 2013, 12:58 AM
Kompozer is outdated. It was designed a long time ago and the web has changed alot since then. I also found it quite buggy.

They key thing with the Microsoft products are that they are relatively recent so support modern design techniques.

The main problem with Kompozer is that the development stopped on it quite a while ago. BlueGriffon is still maintained though.
monkeybrain2012
February 4th, 2013, 01:23 AM
The main problem with Kompozer is that the development stopped on it quite a while ago. BlueGriffon is still maintained though.

Isn't it replaced by Kdevelop?
alphacrucis2
February 4th, 2013, 01:45 AM
Isn't it replaced by Kdevelop?

Not that I know of. Kompozer is purely a web page authoring app. It was a fork of the NVU project which was terminated. There was really only one developer of Kompozer and he moved on to other things nearly three years ago. The original NVU dev started up BlueGriffon as a new project which is still very much alive.


Ha!. I just looked at Kaze's blog. Looks like he hasn't totally given up on Kompozer:

http://www.kazhack.org/
MadmanRB
February 4th, 2013, 04:16 AM
You know I may play with this, for laughs I mean why the heck not?
Sslaxx
February 4th, 2013, 02:53 PM
Free or trial? Does Microsoft know the diference?
Dry Lips
February 4th, 2013, 03:44 PM
Free or trial? Does Microsoft know the diference?

No, it's actually free. Active development and support is being discontinued, which is why this happened. Quite unusual for Microsoft perhaps...



Expression Design 4 and Expression Web 4 are now available for download at no charge. Technical support will not be available for these free versions.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/expression/
Lars Noodén
February 4th, 2013, 04:11 PM
What about the file formats that the program uses? Can it use standards or does the data get locked into the program's on format so that the data dies with the program?
Dry Lips
February 4th, 2013, 05:04 PM
What about the file formats that the program uses? Can it use standards or does the data get locked into the program's on format so that the data dies with the program?

I assume that you're thinking about Expression Design here? It can export to SVG and naturally also XAML (since it's Microsoft). There's also support for the most common bitmap formats. Apparently Expression Design isn't primarily aimed at press, so I'm not sure how good the PDF support is, to be honest. It seemed quite sketchy at first glance. Only thing that's bugging me is that you can export to SVG, but not import it. (Duh.)

Expression Web had as far as I could tell excellent support for all imaginable web related file formats.