I got hold of the expression web 2 beta and to be honest i really like it but i've also got visual studio web developer 2008. my question is pretty simple really which is the best program to use for developing asp.net /css based websites? im pretty new to asp.net so wouldnt mind some templates/ajax templates to work with too. so for me which would be the best application?
Visual Studio (and its components) are aimed at programmers and so the tools in it will be much better for programming complex sites. Expressions is aimed at designers who want to add some functionality to their sites. It depends which you are going to be doing as a priority, design or development
i would say go with visual studio web developer 2008. i have not tried the new expression web, and i still use the first one alongside my VS2005. to me expression web is like a new MS frontpage with more support for asp.net.
umm okay so most are saying visual web developer can someone please take a look at the new features in expression web 2 (beta) can all of this be done in web developer 2008 (mostly the ajax stuff)
The comments have already summed it up well.... one is made for programmers and the other for designers. Both can ultimately create the same websites but it depends which angle you are approaching it from.
In many cases you need both. The CSS support is good in Expression Web and there isn't really much support for CSS in VWD. On the other hand you can develop and debug code more easily in VWD than Expression Web.
free download? how? where? I don't like in VS that you can't select control and "jump" to its HTML code like Dreamweaver does. If I want to rewrite HTML code of some control or any element on the page, I have to look for it in HTML code...