FrontPage vs Quartz Web Designer: Clearing the air

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A number of people have asked me some searching questions since Quartz Web Designer (QWD) was aired at the PDC last week. For example:

  • Is QWD replacing FrontPage?
  • Why would I need FrontPage if I have QWD? Alternatively, why would I need QWD if I have FrontPage?
  • Which product group is QWD a part of? And ditto for FrontPage? And therefore which group in Microsoft owns these products?
  • etc

So I thought a blog entry might help to clear the air. So here are a few thoughts to chew over:

1) QWD derives it's rendering engine from FrontPage heritage - ie the products have some similarity at their root. But QWD adds a whole bundle of tooling that will have robust professional designer features, including Atlas support in subsequent releases

2) FrontPage in O12 is ideal for targeting Sharepoint ie building Sharepoint web parts. And it's still an easy way to build a website.

3) QWD is part of the Expressions range and is owned by the developer group in Microsoft; FrontPage is part of the Office group of products and is owned by the Information Worker (IW) group at Microsoft.

So the two products exist for different reasons: QWD is about building great websites in the new world of Vista and WinFX; FrontPage is great for creating web parts for Sharepoint and building quick websites.

Final comment: This isn't the official position - and take this entire post as IMHO - but look out for some messaging and information coming out of the Expressions team in the near future to clarify things further.

 

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.