Software Review:
NetObjects Fusion 3 (beta)
By David Fiedler
One thing that impressed me about Fusion 3.0 is that it demonstrates NetObjects' responsiveness to customers. I believe they've addressed every concern I've heard about the product, from improved code to control over the entire process.
For instance, Fusion stores sites in a single database file, as opposed to keeping all files separate. This means that integration between the different parts of Fusion (the site editor, styles, and page editor, for instance) can be much tighter than, say, in Microsoft FrontPage, where they're all separate programs (dependent on running a specially-configured server, no less). The disadvantage with this design that if the program crashes, you could potentially lose a great deal of work.
So Fusion 3.0 now gives you the option to save the site automatically, and keep a number of backups (you choose the number). The improved site import means that even if your primo Fusion database is lost, you could theoretically re-import the HTML pages and assets and be back up to speed. But extra backups are always nice too!
The quality and quantity of Fusion-generated code is another concern, and Fusion 3.0 now has an HTML button on every single object: just click it and it will show you (more or less) what's being generated. As I mentioned in Part 1, you can still use Fusion to add its "Everywhere HTML" and Dynamic Action features to current sites, without recoding or worry that Fusion will mess up your code (try that with FrontPage!).
One thing that impressed me about Fusion 3.0 is that it demonstrates NetObjects' responsiveness to customers.
NetObjects styles have always been high quality, and there are 55 new ones in Fusion 3.0, with a total of 150 for you to goggle over (decisions, decisions!). And while I have the attention of the designers in the audience, I have two words for you: pixel rulers.
Publishing to servers has also been vastly improved, with support for multiple Web servers, publishing of changed assets only, and control over the final directory structure (i.e. you can put all the files in one directory, separate them by asset type (sounds, images, HTML, etc.) or mimic the site design structure). I wasn't able to test these features in the beta version, though.
The Bottom Line
NetObjects
plans to have Fusion 3.0 released by the end of March for Windows 95 and NT, with a Macintosh version following by the end of June. The street price is expected to be $295, with customers who bought Version 2 after January 1, 1998 getting free upgrades (and older customers upgrading for $99).
Especially if you're approaching professional Web design/development from the design side, where you really do care where all your objects fall on the page, and where you don't have time to continually write JavaScript kludge code to detect different browsers, but you want full control over animation and dynamic elements and your code, as well as managing your site's assets without having to worry about proprietary server extensions...there may be nothing else for you but NetObjects Fusion 3.0.
-- David Fiedler
This article first appeared in February, 1998.
Jump to
Part 1 of this article.
Web Developer® Site Feedback
Web Developer®
Copyright © 2000 internet.com Corporation. All rights reserved.
