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Is Expression Web Designer good for designing asp.net 2.0 applications?

by Miha Markič 8. April 2007 23:39

Expression Web Designer (EWD) is supposed to be a designer's tool for designing asp.net 2.0 applications. It has other roles but working on asp.net 2.0 applications is what interests me currently. So I tried running EWD on a real asp.net 2.0 project. EWD looks nice, seems nice but I immediately stumbled upon a serious limitation.

EWD won't show 3rd party controls at design time nor it will provide intellisense help for them. At first I thought I was missing something. But no - support for 3rd party controls is really missing. Imagine Visual Studio without showing 3rd party controls at design time. It would cripple its designer very much and the same is true for EWD. Seems like [MS] forgot to eat its own dogfood on this and they also never used EWD on a real asp.net 2.0 project, not just a demo that uses out of the box controls. Or it was a deadline that forced them not to provide this support. Whatever the reason is it makes EWD much less usable on asp.net 2.0 projects.

There is a partial workaround though. Seems like installing 3rd party controls in GAC helps with intellisense support.

If you consider this feature important, then do vote for it at [MS] Connect:

https://connect.microsoft.com/ExpressionWeb/feedba...

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Miha Markic

INETA Country Leader for Slovenia

Miha currently works as a free lance consultant and software developer specialized in .net area.
He graduated in Computer and information science at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He has accumulated experience in various programming languages such as Java, Visual Basic 3-6 (MCP), Visual C++, Delphi, C# and VB.Net through years.
He has experience in practically all (technical) stages of project development, including planning, framework development, user interface, business processes, as well as testing and documenting. He has worked on big and small projects in Slovenia and abroad (e.g. participated in completing level 3 IS for the Nucor steel plant, Hertford, USA).
Currently he enjoys programming in .net environment using C#. Since 2000 he has been active in Developer Express' DX Squad and has been ECDL trainer and tester. He also gives lectures on conferences and other events in Slovenia.