Microsoft Expression Studio 2 Upgrade

software: Microsoft Expression Studio 2 Upgrade

software:

Microsoft Expressi...

	Microsoft Expression Studio 2 Upgrade Windows, Mac OS X \| Microsoft Software, 2008 average customer review:based on 1 review view larger image
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Microsoft Expression Studio 2 Mac/Win English UPG DVD , a suite of tools for creative designers that gives you the freedom to bring your vision to reality and boosts developer collaboration in the delivery of rich user experiences for the Web, Windows Vista applications and beyond.

Quite a package

Version 2 of this suite of programs seems to have smoothed out some rough edges from the first release, as you'd expect.

Blend 2 has helpful verbose tooltips on the various properties you can set in the Properties Panel.

Blend 2 offers Silverlight 1 layout and design, but people who buy Blend 2 or Expression Studio 2 will get Blend 2.5 for free. Blend 2.5 will be able to create Silverlight 2 applications. You can download the Blend 2.5 Preview for free. It can run on the same computer as Blend 2.

Expression Web 2 is a solid HTML/CSS Web design program. If you edit HTML or web pages, it's as good as any program out there.

Expression Design 2 is a capable drawing program similar to Adobe Illustrator but without as many filters and effects and layer blending modes. Its main advantage is its native file format is XAML so anything you create can be exported for WPF or Silverlight. I've had good luck opening Adobe Illustrator files with it, then exporting them as XAML.

Expression Encoder 2 is supposed to be faster than version 1 and produce better results, according to the training videos on the DVD. The presenter really seems to know video production and the free training videos have whetted my appetite for the full training series.

That brings me to the first extra -- there are hours of free training videos from Total Training on the DVD. They'll give you a quick start on each program. It's a lot easier to watch someone demonstrate something in a video than to read step-by-step procedures in a manual.

The Expression Web training gives a quick tour of the program and new features in version 2. The Expression Blend videos cover a lot of info about how Blend creates WPF content. In fact, the trainer said that basically Blend is a XAML editor. If you are a design person, you'll learn much about the terminology and functionality of WPF. If you're a developer, you'll learn to visualize the XAML code you're familiar with.

The second valuable extra is that Expression Studio includes a free version of Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition. If you don't have Visual Studio 2008, that alone is worth about $200.

If you are a developer interested in learning to develop new WPF and Silverlight applications, this is a full-featured toolkit. If you're a designer interested in developing rich Internet content, this is a cohesive set of design tools.

And if you are a developer with an interest in design or a designer who can dip into code, there's a lot of power available to you in Expression Studio 2.

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