well now, first post in almost 5 years – and no, I’m not between contracts! I’ve just finished migrating the both the company site and my blog over to use Expression and Wordpress respectively. Previously, I’d hand-crafted both myself, which partly explains why I’d only ever update/blog on those rare occasions I had the time. in a previous post i complained about lack of standards compliance in tools, and that was the primary why (in 2001) I chose to do it myself. Luckily things have moved on since then, and I’m impressed by Expression which is a perfectly nice little tool that permits full control over the output. indeed it sells itself on its standards support and, as it’s available via msdn subscription, i thought I’d give it a try. Remarkably, it generates output identical to that previously, but provides simplified management via templates and master pages. i use a single .dht (dynamic html template) in which one defines static content (which applies to all pages associated with the template) and then those areas where each instance page can override template content. it works with .aspx also, meaning dynamic and static content can share the same html basis, without recourse to using master pages just for textual layout. clearly designed for non-programmers - it’s a doddle to use.
As for Wordpress, my choice was admittedly made for me by my hosting provider, who support it, but it seems perfectly adequate after a days use. It imported the rss output from my old handcrafted blog without any problem, and I’m sure I could style the output to closely match the look and feel of my old blog and current company site. if I had the time and inclination. but hopefully i’ll have time to blog, rather than write xhtml and css in future though…
