WEBSITE CREATION SOFTWARE

  XSitePro2

There are two main approaches to web design: on the one hand, there are professional-level applications that provide complex tools for generating dynamic, database-driven sites. Meanwhile, website creation software programs aimed at novices generate static sites quickly and easily. XSitePro 2.0 falls somewhere between the two, generating content dynamically from a user's input that is then output as a HTML pages.

The starting point for XSitePro 2.0 is a Project, a means of organising any number of individual websites. Creating a basic website structure, the next step, takes only a few moments using one of the many templates provided. These templates are generally of a high quality: there is always a slight danger that such designs can look rather too similar to others across the web, but XSitePro 2.0 also makes customising each section extremely easy.

Changing the look and feel of your site is simple with XSitePro 2.0's stylesheets. There's a slick interface and you don't need to code directly (although the opportunity is there if you dig around a little). This is certainly much easier to use than in applications such as Dreamweaver, although someone with a more advanced knowledge of web programming may find this a little restrictive.

After creating the site, individual pages can be modified via XSitePro 2.0's what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) page editor that also provides an HTML option. Publishing itself is generally straightforward via FTP, although the complete novice will probably require a little help in setting this up. Getting a good-looking site up and running within minutes is very simple.

So far, so standard, although this is one of the most pleasant to use interfaces for web design that we've encountered. Where XSitePro 2.0 really stands out, however, is by applying this ease of use to a wide range of additional features which, if coded by hand or created using Dreamweaver would be considerably more complex. XSite Pro handle such things as creating a version of your site for mobile users, navigation menus and search engine sitemaps, as well as multimedia, search engine optimisation and PayPal buttons.

With power to create as many websites as you could possibly want to manage you may find, wiythout realising, that you have built up quite a large collection - they can become a bit of a disorganised mess (for want of a better word). 

Fortunately XSite Pro comes with a real neat management feature. This feature allows you to quickly and very easily organise your assorted websites with ease and in a matter of seconds. The attached  video tutorial you wii see just how easy it is to vert quickly organise your assorted websites in a matter of seconds.

System requirements 1GHz processor; 1GB RAM; Windows XP /Vista; 300MB hard-disk space, Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher.

For aiding  in the creation of professional-looking websites this is not a program for professionals alone. Although it can create such things as scripts for search pages, XSitePro 2.0 handles page generation for you rather than being a tool for complex dynamic sites.

 Mr Site Takeaway Website 

Details: www.mrsite.com.au 

Mr Site Takeaway Website is a hosting service that gives you your own .com domain name for a year plus 20 email addresses. It's included it here with the web-design applications because it comes in a box with a complete user manual for the online web-design package. Compared with the web-design tools of other hosting companies, Mr Site’s are good. Designing a simple site takes only a few minutes. Simply choose a template from one of the many on offer, decide on your colour scheme and fill the content frames with text and images. 

Simplicity comes at a price, however. Although there are many templates on offer, they all follow a very similar basic layout: a header, a footer and left-hand navigation. As a result, no matter what stylistic quirks and odd fonts you apply, your design choices are limited, and the different templates all have a similar look and feel.

This web-design package imposes far more restrictions on your choices than the other packages here. It’s ideal for anyone who wants to put a good-looking site online quickly without the need for design flair or HTML knowledge.

Serif WebPlus X2 

Details: www.serif.com 

You can design and publish your website, complete with embedded podcasts, RSS feeds, photoblogs and even a convincing online shop.

The   

              The 326-page manual is certainly welcome, but it’s hardly a sign that the process is going to be straightforward. Even experienced designers will have difficulty getting to grips with the proliferation of menus, tabs and buttons on the screen. Some of the best features, such as the ability to add a podcast or RSS feed, look as if they’re going to be easy and then turn out to be anything but. A wizard-based approach to these tasks would have been far better.

              Editing components is sometimes fiddly, especially those found in the ready-made templates. Smart Objects enable you to get forums or blogs up and running in moments. If you don’t want to spend time configuring such things, the fact that these are hosted on Serif’s own servers will be a blessing.

I              In fact, WebPlus X2 ‘s biggest problem is that its huge array of features and cluttered interface could easily alienate casual users. If this describes you, you’re better off with something more limited, such as Mr Site. Another minor reservation is that the program does rather lock you in. The HTML code it generates isn’t the worst we’ve seen, but only the bravest web programmers are likely to want to edit it by hand.