This suite consists of 5 separate Web-related tools and is quite an achievement when compared to Microsoft's earlier attempts at Web development. Of course it is not to be compared with the actual Web Development capabilities in Visual Studio. The tools in Microsoft Expression Studio are more for Web designers rather than actual Web Software developers.
Expression Web is a Web Designer that has an interesting twist. Usually Web designers are used offline to design a Web site or page and then files are transferred to the actual Web Server so that they are available through a Browser. However, Expression Web has a different approach. If you use it for an existing Web site (that you have admin rights for), then you can do a sort of reverse engineering. There are two modes to use the software when accessing a Web site.
The Web site can be edited "live" or it can be edited offline by copying the files to local directory and publishing back to the server when editing finishes.
In both modes it is possible to see all the components of the web page/portal and edit the ones which can directly be edited, such as images, icons or other visual elements. It is also possible to apply style sheets (css styles) or add new graphical user interface elements.
Expression Encoder is an advanced video encoding and live broadcasting application that is especially geared to Silverlight projects. Silverlight is Microsoft's alternative to Adobe's Flash for interactive and also promotes the use of XAML.Expression Blend is a Design tool that helps web designers to create user interfaces for Windows applications. It can help to separate the design aspects and development aspects (which should be handled via Visual Studio). It can handle JavaScript, XAML and other aspects of modern web development.
Expression Media is a tool that helps you manage your media (photos, audio files, videos, etc.) so that you can use them easier in your Web projects. It is not superior to tools specifically made for certain types of media (e.g. Picasa for photos or iTunes for audio files), but it is a useful tool if you want to stick to Microsoft.
Expression Design is Microsoft's new drawing tool to design graphics to use for Web development. Again, there are much better tools to do this, but if you use Microsoft's tools as a suite, it could be logical, since they have the same look-and-feel and also they can easily exchange data. Although not earth-shattering, it is yet another set of tools in the ever-growing software arsenal of Microsoft.
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