Microsoft is trying to prove its point of being more and more open.  In line with these efforts, it has introduced support for PHP in Expression Web 2.  The developers can now use various PHP features while creating websites and web applications with Expression Web 2.

Some of the PHP specific features that are supported by Expression Web 2 are:

1. Ability to insert PHP snippets like Pre-defined variables, Server Side Includes and other common codes like PHP code block, Echo, Comment and if, else codes.
2. Byte Order Mark (BOM) enhancements for controlling BOM settings at a global as well as page level.
3. Design View Integration for rendering design using PHP Sever Side Includes which are reused throughout the site.  Using this feature, Expression Web 2 renders the design view as if the codes are there in one file.
4. Code Coloring support for PHP which provides a default color scheme for PHP language which can later be customized for comments, functions, variables etc.
5. Intellisense, Microsoft’s auto-completion feature, support for PHP in Expression Web 2 allows for resolving function names, superglobals etc. within a PHP code block.
6. Expression Web 2 now comes with a PHP Development Server which allows for testing the PHP pages without uploading them to the web server.

You can check out this article for more details on PHP support in Expression Web 2.

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