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Software Review: NetObjects Fusion |
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I have a confession to make. I hate HTML. That’s right. I’ve had it up to here with angle brackets, using impossible-to-decipher table commands to lay out Web pages, and the endless editor-browser-reload page cycle necessary to get things to look even slightly like the way I intended them in the first place. It’s too reminiscent of the bad old days of doing my own typesetting in troff years ago (where I’d write obscure “dot commands” along with ordinary text, send it to the typesetting service, and wait 3 days for the results to come back, usually wrong). And I also hate cutting and pasting URLs, lines of code, and file names of images...especially when I get them wrong, even after using them 50 times already. That’s why I like NetObjects Fusion. Instead of making you write HTML or even “Web pages”, it concentrates on letting you simply design Web sites...which is presumably what you wanted to do in the first place. Just the Facts Let’s start by reciting some of the basics. Fusion (the current version I’m reviewing is 2.01G for Windows 95) is a product of NetObjects Inc. (2055 Woodside Road, Redwood City, CA 94061, phone 415.482.3200, fax 415.562.0288, email info@netobjects.com). The company was founded by some very sharp people, including famed Web designer Clement Mok, and is funded by some of the top venture capital firms in the business, plus IBM. Their current product line includes Fusion 2.0 for both the Windows 95 and Macintosh platforms. While Fusion began selling at a list price of $695, the price came down to $495 and again to $295 this August. At press time, Fusion is available as a competitive upgrade for $195, if you own any of a number of competing products. While NetObjects says that the price cuts are aggressive for the purpose of building market share, it’s also true that this is a very competitive arena, with Microsoft as the biggest threat with FrontPage. Features and Benefits Web site design tends to be a very left-brain/right-brain activity. There’s the creative aspect as well as the coding aspect; gestalt vs. details. OK, you get the point. Possibly because so many of its founders came from Apple, Fusion tends to appeal more to your creative side. If that side happens to be listening, I might just say “buy it, it’s wonderful” and that would be it. For the rest of you, it’s good to know the details: Jump to the next part of this article. |
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Web Developer® |
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