Product Reviews

Freeway 3.5 from Softpress could be the hottest Web site software in 2002. While Dreamweaver and GoLive fight for the position of best Web site programming tool, Freeway has won over some creatives as an excellent design-focused Web site tool.

The latest version, Freeway 3.5, runs natively in Mac OS X, is a free update for Freeway 3 users and adds useful new features. It has also lost the reliance on the old GX Graphics extension, which worried potential users. OS X support is a key part of the upgrade, and the Carbonized version handles well. Mac OS 9 users aren't left out, though, as there are exciting feature enhancements. Those with OS 8 must use Freeway 3.1, but at least that version is included on the CD.

For those unfamiliar with Freeway, layouts are created in an interface that wholeheartedly applies the most useful features in QuarkXPress page layout to online production. Graphic and HTML text boxes are placed on pages and handled as you'd expect, while master pages and automatic style sheet creation streamlines production tremendously.

Style guru

Styling up text automatically produces and updates style sheet entries in the Styles palette. These can be edited, renamed and, of course, applied to other text. Graphic text can use any typeface available and is published as Web-ready graphic content. HTML text styles are generated as font tags and, where appropriate, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) code on export: all the user does is set text in the normal way.

Freeway has always handled graphics well, scaling and cropping images on the page, and accepting common DTP file formats, such as TIFF and even native Photoshop and Illustrator files. Freeway 3.5 now also supports Illustrator 10 and Photoshop 7 files, complete with full layer effects rendering.

Another new feature is bilinear image scaling, which gives smoother results for graphics scaled in the layout, and is on by default. Equally useful is support for importing transparent PNG and masked TIFF files. These file formats, which include native Macromedia Fireworks documents and TIFF files with alpha channels, will show background images and underlying elements through transparent areas. This brings Photoshop Layers-like abilities to the layout environment.

Overlapping graphics items are merged on output by default, but making perfectly sliced Web graphics is just a matter of turning off the Combine Graphics option for

Page turner

Sites and individual pages can be produced as plain HTML 3.2 code, HTML 4.0, or the useful HTML 3.2 + CSS hybrid, which provides the best of both worlds. Changing the page setting at any time doesn't affect the look, just the way the underlying code will be built.

Links are managed for you so renaming pages or moving them into different folders in the site won't break anything. Even links in Flash movies can be managed: use simple placeholder links in the Flash movie, apply the Flash Action and map links to your pages, and it's managed like the rest. Site management is equally automatic, with outdated elements dealt with automatically during the publish and upload process.

Freeway's weakness is in dealing with sites created elsewhere. HTML import is pretty poor so it's almost always better to recreate layouts from scratch rather than try to swallow existing pages. And, of course, you'll never get optimal HTML from any visual design tool. If that is a problem for you, you'll need to invest in a good text editor.

For those keen on extending the code produced by Freeway, Actions take away much of the donkey work. These are plug-ins written in a mixture of JavaScript and XML that modify and extend the code. The Actions API includes AppleScript calls for controlling other applications, which can further automate the production process.

The power of Actions can be difficult to grasp, but they provide tremendous flexibility for serious code production. Writing an Action to put the right custom code into a page correctly takes longer than typing it in directly but, from then on, repeating it is a matter of picking it from a list.

Customising the code involves using simple pop-up menus, text fields and buttons in the Actions palette window. This reduces the possibility of error and insulates the code's functionality from changes in the page design.

Get in on the Action

Actions can also help divide up Web design jobs in a meaningful way. A designer doesn't have to become a database engineer to be able to collaborate with one on the creation of a data-driven Web site. By encapsulating hard code elements within Actions, the engineer can focus on improving back-end functionality while the designer is busy moving elements of the page to improve usability and appearance. Both can remain secure that the code will still work. What's more, that same code becomes part of a 'toolbox' that can be applied to new projects, further improving the return on their investment.

Designing Web sites needn't mean swallowing a code dictionary and learning to speak geek. Freeway 3.5 does something no other Web package has managed: it makes Web site design as accessible and as flexible as regular DTP, but without making life difficult for serious code users.