Creating a good-looking web site can take time what with designing graphics, menus and so forth. Or you can use a package that helps you with all that, via templating and automatic generation of all the navigation.
NetObjects Fusion has long been a popular choice, providing as it does an array of templates, and Website X5 from Incomedia works in a similar way.
Installation is fairly straightforward but requires an activation key from the website, tying it to a single PC. The program itself works in a wizard-like fashion, with five steps to creating a website.
It starts with General settings, which asks for Title and Author details and an email address, description and keywords.
What’s not immediately apparent, unless you look at the help screen, is that it’s the title of the site you’re being asked for, so don’t enter ‘Mr’. If you enter an email address, it’ll appear on the front page as a mailto: link, which is a recipe for being spammed.
As you work through the wizard, you can choose options for navigation menus and templates from a wide selection, with colour options for each one.
You then see a map view, where you can add pages and levels – or folders – to your site; you can hide those you’ve not yet finished, and mark some as locked, so visitors need a password to access them.
When it comes to creating the pages themselves, for each one you can drag elements such as flash, video, text, slide shows, HTML code or tables onto a grid; the cells can be merged or added to, so it’s fairly easy to work out the relative positions of things on the page.
You can also add features such as a Frontpage server web counter via the HTML code option.
There are even hooks for an animated front page, or an entry page that al lows language selection, complete with a library of flags. You can also specify graphic transitions between pages, if you really want.
Take a look at our image gallery to see the website creation wizard in action.
When you choose options such as an email form or password protected pages, the code generated uses PHP, which ensures good compatibility with web servers and means you won’t be tied to a particular platform for site hosting.
This is good news for most, but not for those who want complicated script-driven sites. While you can add your own code to pages, they’ll still be saved with a '.html' extension unless they're marked as locked, when they’ll be '.php' files.
A site can be previewed at any stage with just one button click, and the results look impressive. If you decide you don’t like the template, you can go back, change it and everything will be rebuilt – it’s quite straightforward.
We say 'quite' straightforward because you can’t go straight back to every step.
To change template, for example, you must click on Step 1, click on Next twice to skip the first two screens, then choose a different template.
To edit a particular page, you need to click on Step 2, Map Creation, then
double click on the page, or click on Pages Creation and use the Back and Next
buttons to reach the page you want.
These interface niggles aside, this is a straightforward-to-use package.
Even if you’re unfamiliar with web design, you’ll be able to create a site easily thanks to Website X5's wysiwyg layout options and an interface that’s easier to get to grips with than that of, say, Netobjects Fusion.
The price alone makes Website X5 attractive. If you want to create a good-looking site without learning much in the way of web design – or indeed anything – it’s worth a look.
Also consider:
Serif Webplus 10
A solid webpage design tool with a strong publishing background
Webeasy 6 Professional
An easy-to-use web editor for a wide range of websites
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