Microsoft Expression Web 4 Service Pack 1 (SP1) contains significant fixes and improvements in publishing, in the SuperPreview feature, in file management, extensibility, and in other areas of the program. Visit this site for more information/download


Issues that are resolved in this service pack:

  • Fixed several issues to improve product stability.
  • PHP include statements now update when included filename is changed in Web.
  • PHP pages now correctly start the development server when they are previewed.
  • Improved Insert Silverlight video.
  • Improved performance of Team Foundation Source Control with large sites.
  • Improved UI behavior of the Publishing pane.
  • User-selected character encoding for a page is now correctly recognized, resolving problems with extended characters.
  • Linking to a bookmark at a remote URL now works correctly.
  • The Bookmark dialog box now displays the correct hyperlink.
  • CSS IntelliSense no longer reports errors for valid values.
  • Replacing text in table cells now functions correctly.


Improvements that are provided by this service pack:


HTML 5

Expression Web 4 SP1 provides support for all HTML5 tags (for pages authored using the HTML 5 doctype) via IntelliSense within the code editor, and as block or inline entities in the Design view. There is no preview for <canvas> or <svg> elements, and no specific IntelliSense for SVG entities.

CSS3

Expression Web provides support for the draft CSS 3 specification. To enable CSS 3 error checking, you must choose CSS 3 draft from the Schemaversion drop-down under the Authoring tab in the Page Editor Options dialog.
The IntelliSense and error-checking in the code editor is fairly complete, and supports checking multiple comma-separated property values (e.g. multiple backgrounds). This support extends to the CSSProperties pane, as well.
SP1 also provides support for selected CSS 3 properties in the New Style and Modify Style dialog boxes, including "border-radius" and "box-shadow."
Note: There is no support in the Design view for previewing CSS 3 properties.
SuperPreview Access to Pages Protected by Authentication Forms

SuperPreview now supports cookie-based logon authentication. You can click on the "Page Interaction Mode" icon, browse to the page of interest, enter your login credentials, and view the rendered page. Because of the wide variety of different authentication methods used on the Internet, some sites may not be compatible with this feature.
PHP IntelliSense
IntelliSense now includes an expanded number of function groups that improve PHP coverage and utility.
Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9 Beta

Internet Explorer 9 beta is now supported as a local browser for both SuperPreview and the Expression Web Snapshot feature. Internet Explorer 8 is now built into SuperPreview. If you have Internet Explorer 9 beta installed, you can view page renderings in Internet Explorer 6, 7, 8, and 9 beta.
Additional updates and features:>

  • The PHP function list has hundreds of new methods, including PHP5 functions.
  • The new Open as PHP option allows Expression Web to recognize PHP files even if they don't have a PHP extension. Right-click on a file in the folder list, and choose Open as PHP.
  • Expression Web and SuperPreview automatically check for Chrome, Safari, and Opera and add them to the list of browsers you can use to preview.
  • JavaScript (.js) files now display IntelliSense for methods associated with the document object (for example, document.getElementById()).
  • When you click New in the File menu, the list of available file types now includes JavaScript.
  • New IntelliSense is included for extended characters—so, as soon as you type an ampersand (“&”), you’ll get a list of the HTML character entities that is filtered as you continue to type.
  • The Copy Full Path command is now available when you right-click on a file in the folder list. This command copies the file path to the clipboard.
  • The Open Folder in Windows Explorer command is now available when you right-click on a file in the folder list. This command opens a Windows Explorer window.
  • Expression Web 4 now works substantially faster with sites stored in Team Foundation Server.