Labs

Namo's main screen has a simple, uncluttered design that's easy to get around, and gives you plenty of room to work in. You can work on several pages at once, and a set of tabs on the bottom of each document allow you to flick quickly between designing the page, tweaking the HTML code and checking how it will appear in Internet Explorer.

Namo's Site Wizard is the answer to every beginner's prayers. This excellent tool allows you to quickly build a site by selecting its purpose, what pages it should include and a design style from a list of dozens of preset options. You can even use things like background graphics and rollover buttons (buttons that change in some way when you move your mouse over them).

As well as the site wizard, WebEditor includes features designed to make Web design easy. There are several simple design templates and it's easy to build a site using frames or layout tables to help make well-structured Web pages. Most of the functions you'll regularly need, such as inserting a picture or previewing your work, are just a click away on the toolbar. A feature called Site Manager helps you keep

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the structure of your site in overview, and assists with tricky tasks like loading the completed site on to your ISP's server. Site Manager can also search for piece of text, a word or a phrase, and replace it everywhere it occurs in your site - a very useful trick.

HTML code can be viewed and edited at any time. The program also highlights different types of HTML code in different colours. For instance, code defining a font will be a different colour to the body text. This helps you find the code you're looking for, and reduces the risk of you accidentally changing the wrong bit of code. The preview function in Namo is also excellent, allowing you to see what your site will look like at a number of common screen sizes. A 'verify' option checks your site for code errors or features that might not work in all browsers.

Along with some other extras Namo also comes with something called an 'Image Slicer'. In the past, if you wanted to place a picture as a background to a table you'd have to cut it up manually, with the cuts in the right places for each segment to fit each cell of the table. This was a real pain. Fortunately, the image slicer does this automatically - a fantastic feature.

Support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), on the other hand, is decent but not great. You can't create your own style sheets for a whole site, but can define styles for each page using a simple dialogue box. In addition, if you have a style sheet from elsewhere Namo can use it.

Namo WebEditor is a bargain at this price. If offers the precision and flexibility of a professional Web editor while being simple and straightforward enough even for a beginner to use successfully. A clear Top 50 Best Buy.