Channel 9 Forums - Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

ixdatul — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 19:58:07 GMT

As the title says I'm looking for the pros/cons in Expressions/Adobe, so I can judge which stack I will be trying this year ie: CS3 or Expressions. Any opinions welcome with the exception of "run Linux and use " I'm a VB.NET dev in nature , and have been using Windows as my primary OS since 3.11. Although I appreciate you're love for your OS selection, it is not my own.

Discuss and Thank You.

EDIT:

(Richard Nixon Voice) The question is vague....

See post below for better phrasing. I appologize for that, but there are so many products in each suite, I thought I could get away with being a bit vague. Sry

Ix

Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

YearOfTheLinuxDesktop — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:09:16 GMT

Which product in particular are you interested in? Dreamweaver and Fireworks?

Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

Jorgie — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:11:27 GMT

I don't under stand the question.

If you are making WPF UI, use Expression.

If you are doing vector graphics for print/web use CS.

What am I missing?

Jorgie

Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

ixdatul — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:13:41 GMT

YotLD,

Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, and Photoshop. I am also interested in the new document type one of the Expressions (can't remember which) comes with (ala Acrobat).

Jorgie,

I recently went to a Microsoft conference at my company, I was given a brief expressions demo there, from my understanding, Expressions Suite is remarkably similar to the Adobe CS Suite. Because of that limited knowledge, I posted here for a better understanding prior to investing one way or the other.

Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

erik — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:22:54 GMT

ixdatul wrote:

As the title says I'm looking for the pros/cons in Expressions/Adobe, so I can judge which stack I will be trying this year ie: CS3 or Expressions. Any opinions welcome with the exception of "run Linux and use " I'm a VB.NET dev in nature , and have been using Windows as my primary OS since 3.11. Although I appreciate you're love for your OS selection, it is not my own.

Discuss and Thank You.

Ix

pros/cons for what sort of task, I think you need to be more specific to get a good and usefull answer. There probaly is a difference between using the applications to for example design for print press and design for desktop applications.

I can't tell you them, but I assume the expression suite is more targeted towards creating online content. And adobe has a wide range of products, where some can be used for online and some for offline content creation.

Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

ixdatul — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:28:16 GMT

erik_ wrote:

ixdatul wrote:
As the title says I'm looking for the pros/cons in Expressions/Adobe, so I can judge which stack I will be trying this year ie: CS3 or Expressions. Any opinions welcome with the exception of "run Linux and use " I'm a VB.NET dev in nature , and have been using Windows as my primary OS since 3.11. Although I appreciate you're love for your OS selection, it is not my own.

Discuss and Thank You.

Ix

pros/cons for what sort of task, I think you need to be more specific to get a good and usefull answer. There probaly is a difference between using the applications to for example design for print press and design for desktop applications.

I can't tell you them, but I assume the expression suite is more targeted towards creating online content. And adobe has a wide range of products, where some can be used for online and some for offline content creation.

I prefer to design my own images for projects (illustrator and photoshop for touch up), if I want immersive user content i'll occasionally use Flash. For documentation typically Acrobat. and for markup editing and the occasional Javascript, I use Dreamweaver. Ocaasionally use Fireworks, but not too often.

I guess the better question is, was the evangelist at the conference correct in stating that Expressions could accomplish all of this, while still giving access to WPF "design mode", and if so, what functionalities are missing in one vs the other that I might miss, or want?

Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

Lee B — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 21:04:07 GMT

I'm aware that you might be asking in a more application-developement oriented sense, but I'm a web designer, and here are my experiences-
I spent a day each in both GoLive and Expression Web, but after using both to try to create a CSS-based standards-compliant site, I quickly switched back to notepad.
One thing that I noticed, with Expression Web, was that the edit mode and IE7 rendered the page *very* differently, in relation to the CSS styling (mostly concerning the box model and alignments). These are familiar problems to any web designer, but it's still unacceptable for a WYSIWYG editor to display differently than it's default "preview" browser.

Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

ixdatul — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 21:07:24 GMT

Lee B wrote:

I'm aware that you might be asking in a more application-developement oriented sense, but I'm a web designer, and here are my experiences-
I spent a day each in both GoLive and Expression Web, but after using both to try to create a CSS-based standards-compliant site, I quickly switched back to notepad.
One thing that I noticed, with Expression Web, was that the edit mode and IE7 rendered the page *very* differently, in relation to the CSS styling (mostly concerning the box model and alignments). These are familiar problems to any web designer, but it's still unacceptable for a WYSIWYG editor to display differently than it's default "preview" browser.

Perfect feedback! Thanks Much

Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

ixdatul — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 22:10:22 GMT

YotLD,

Really good points, thanks much.

Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

YearOfTheLinuxDesktop — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 22:10:23 GMT

ixdatul wrote:

YotLD,

Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, and Photoshop.

if you use flash and photoshop that are not replaceable with microsoft solutions maybe it's more convenient to use only adobe software.

dreamweaver is also leaps ahead expression web designer, especially in standards support.

ixdatul wrote:

I am also interested in the new document type one of the Expressions (can't remember which) comes with (ala Acrobat).

XPS? it will take years to become mainstream because only Vista can read it without installing NETFX 3.

ixdatul wrote:

I recently went to a Microsoft conference at my company, I was given a brief expressions demo there, from my understanding, Expressions Suite is remarkably similar to the Adobe CS Suite. Because of that limited knowledge, I posted here for a better understanding prior to investing one way or the other.

I'd try the trial versions of both before deciding. but as long as I could see the Adobe suite is a far more advanced web designing solution.

Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

JonathonW — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 22:46:46 GMT

Back during the September CTP, I would have recommended Expression Graphic Designer over Illustrator. It was a great vector editor, plus it had some powerful pixel-editing features that couldn't be found anywhere else.

However, the powerful pixel-editing features have been removed. Expression Design is a crippled remnant of what it once was-- it's now geared only towards generating graphics for WPF projects. The current version is definitely one to skip.

I liked Expression Web as HTML editors go, but I haven't used Dreamweaver (so I can't make a comparison), and still prefer using a text editor for HTML.

Coffeehouse - Expressions vs Adobe? pros/cons (MS Staff Welcome)

AndyC — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 09:46:01 GMT

YearOfTheLinuxDesktop wrote:

XPS? it will take years to become mainstream because only Vista can read it without installing NETFX 3.

There is an unmanged code version of the viewer in the XPS essentials pack (RC1)