Expressive Sculptor
For those of you using Microsoft Expression Web, a free pre-release trial version of CSS Sculptor for Expression Web was announced by the WebAssist folks on Wednesday at MIX08. So now you don’t have to put up with those snooty Dreamweaver users throwing you the mëtäl hörns every chance they get—throw ‘em right back! Røck!
If you’re curious about CSS Sculptor, I posted in some detail about it when it was first released in August 2007, and there’s of course plenty of enthusiastic copy about it on the WebAssist site.
One thing that’s different about the Expression version as compared to the Dreamweaver version is that it doesn’t have an “Apply” button to apply the input CSS ito the preview window. Instead, changes are instantly reflected in the little preview. It’ll be interesting to see how users react to that, since it could mean that the previewed design shatters as the CSS is updated, and then snaps back together upon further changes. Is that good or bad tool usability? Hard to say; it could scare people into undoing the shatter-change and never pushing forward, but it could also help users more quickly gain a deeper understanding of CSS by seeing how things come apart and then go back together. I guess we’ll find out!
