Creating your own web site - five software packages - Evaluation

Nation's Business, Nov, 1996

The newest medium for desktop publishing is the Internet. Professionals and novices alike are rushing to establish a presence there for themselves or their firms.

The most popular way to do that is to create a "home page" on the World Wide Web, the most user-friendly area of the Internet. These Internet sites frequently consist not only of text but also of graphics, pictures, and sound. You don't have to be a computer programmer to design a respectable page, however. A number of programs can help you design multimedia pages. Here's a sampling:

Claris Home Page, Claris Corp.,1-800-544-8554: A new Web-authoring program Claris Home Page is an excellent choice for novices who want to set up full-featured pages. Home Page lets users build their pages as they would like them to appear.

Then, Home Page automatically writes the HTML--hypertext markup language, the standard Web coding--that enables users to tie text and graphics files to their home pages and link these pages to other home pages on the Web. Home Page also allows users to enhance their pages with tables and customer order forms and to format them so that they simultaneously display multiple windows called "frames.

It is available for the Windows 95, Windows NT, and Macintosh operating systems, and it comes with an offer to provide a host computer on the Internet for customer Web sites free of charge for up to six months. The retail price is $99.

FrontPage, Microsoft Corp., 1-800-426-9400: Microsoft's FrontPage allows users to both design and manage their Web sites. As a design tool, FrontPage resembles the Microsoft Word word processor, and the familiar interface makes designing a Web page easy

Like Word, FrontPage includes "wizards" that guide users through the design process, plus a library of Web-page templates. Items such as forms and tables can be dragged with a mouse into Web pages or pasted in from other Microsoft Office programs such as the Excel spreadsheet and Access database.

FrontPage also has automated tools for adding complex features that will allow visitors to search for information and enable them to participate in discussion groups with other visitors.

FrontPage is available for Windows 95 and Windows NT at a retail price of $129. For a limited time a prerelease version can be downloaded free from Microsoft's Web site at http://www.microsof.com/frontpage/

HotDog Professional, Sausage Software, 1-800-711-6030: This popular Web editor, marketed in the U.S. by Anawave Software, has been upgraded to make it easier for novice users to design home pages. With the use of a mouse, elements such as images, text, and links to other Web pages can be dropped into pages from the Window 3.1 File Manager or from HotDog's internal file manager.

The program makes it simple for users to design complex pages with forms and tables, and numerous tutorials can help users get up to speed on HTML authoring. It can be downloaded at http://www.sausage.com/for $79.95.

HotMetal Pro, SoftQuad International,1-800-387-2777: One of the first commercial Web-authoring programs, HotMetal Pro lets users create professional-looking Web pages complete with multimedia features such as sound and video. HotMetal's new interface makes it easy for users to find and deploy design elements, and it allows them to see their pages as they will appear on the Web.

The program can open and convert into Web format files created in Windows word processors such as Corel WordPerfect, Lotus WordPro, and Microsoft Word The retail price is $159.

InContext Spider, InContext Systems Corp. 1 -800-263-0127 This Windows tool is suitable for novices and professionals alike. InContext Spider provides 28 templates and 200 stock images to help beginners create pages without having to learn HTML code. With its built-in browser, users can preview pages before putting them on the Internet, and they can use a mouse to drop Web links into their pages.

Spider supports new page enhancements such as forms, frames, and tables. It is also compatible with the popular Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers.

Spider can be purchased from retail stores or downloaded from InContext's Web site at http://www.incontext.com/for $49.99.