Review: Web Creator

Can't get your Web designs to look exactly how you want them to? Then read on, suggests Dave Cook

Product	Web Creator
Company	LMSOFT
Web	www.guildsoft.co.uk
Price	£29.99
We like	Drag and drop interface
We don't like	Range of templates could be better
Rating	8/10
Requirements

Building a Web site using a tool such as Macromedia DreamWeaver is all very well if you're a professional Web designer. For home user, though, such a powerful solution is not only overkill - it's generally a waste of money.

AOL, for example, provides its own free Web editors, 1-2-3 Publish and Easy Designer, both of which are available at the keyword: Hometown. That said, sometimes it's a good idea to broaden your knowledge a tad, especially if you wish to delve a little deeper into the fascinating world of Web site design.

Surprisingly, many Web design tools are quite inexpensive. Take Web Creator from LMSOFT, for example. Web Creator lets you create neat-looking Web sites the easy way - with no programming skills or previous technical know-how required.

Three Steps To Heaven

Using Web Creator, you can create a personalised Web site in three simple steps:

1. Select from a page template (or create your own)
2. Add content to your pages
3. Publish your site on the Web using the FTP wizard

And just because Web Creator is keenly priced, by no means do you have to settle for second best in the goodies department - far from it. To help bring your site to life, Web Creator includes 8,500 clip art images, 5,000 animations, and 1,500 royalty-free photos.

When installing Web Creator you have the option to install everything to your hard drive or just the program itself, with the templates accessible from the CD. The latter option is handy if you're running out of free disk space, for example.

Quick Time 4.0 is also included with the software. In our instance, though, we had to give Quick Time a miss since there was no sign of a serial number.

Up And Running

Whether you open a new page or a page from a template, the simple startup screen and 'what you see is what you get' (WYSIWYG) interface helps to make site creation a breeze.

Web Creator is different in that, unlike many other Web design tools, multimedia objects such as text, buttons, banners, images, sound, animation and video clips are simply dropped on the page. If you're not happy with the position of an object, you simply drag it around the page until you are happy. It's as easy as that!

And it doesn't end there. The Rollover button feature is impressive and comparable to what you might find in software costing ten times as much. Transition effects are also useful for creating interest. In Web Creator, transitions can be made up of fades, dissolves, wipes, movements, and delays.

Having finished designing your site, it's then a matter of uploading your creation to the host site using the Distribution Wizard. Just remember to ensure that any external applications required by the host are also included in your site's local directory.

Verdict

Web Creator's easy-to-use, drag and drop interface makes it the perfect tool for Web design newbies.

 

Dave Cook