NetObjects Fusion 7

The navigation bars themselves can be created automatically, based on your site's layout, so when you change the site's structure, your navigation changes to match. It's also possible to edit the structure of the navigation bar specifically to add anything from pages in other sites to external links or files. New to version 7 are JavaScript pop-out menus. You simply tick the option and your navigation bar neatly displays a tree structure when the mouse hovers over it - very cool and, again, no programming involved.

Other new bits include a really useful global spell checker, plus a site-navigation palette you can use to quickly get from one page to another while editing. Creating links within your site has also been made much easier with a completely redesigned Link tool. You're able to create all your links both inside your site and externally by browsing and picking from a list. Plus, you can now use an option to create windows that pop up in a new browser instance, or redirect the link to arrive within a specific frame.

For the digital photographer, the new Photo Gallery tools should prove a great deal of fun. Fusion just needs to know where the images are and then it creates an online album, complete with thumbnail browsing pages. You can choose from various layouts and styles, optimise images for fast downloading and select a variety of custom-designed frames.

NetObjects Fusion 7 takes the goalposts set by the likes of FrontPage and moves them much nearer to those set by Dreamweaver. You don't get built-in application development to the extent of Adobe GoLive 6, but there are full facilities for accessing data objects and inserting components to control ASP, ColdFusion and other data-driven technologies. However, Fusion 7 scores points for making powerful web design truly accessible without programming, from precise placement of objects to dialog-based management of Flash and Java applet insertion.

Developers will appreciate the way you can now save an entire site or a single page as a template on which to base another site or page, the access to HTML from within objects and seamless CSS control. Other users will like the design interface and the way you can place objects where you like on screen, as well as the fact that they display correctly in both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer just as you intended. For those who don't like to spend all day playing with HTML tags, but do want pixel-perfect design, NetObjects Fusion 7 is the state of the art.

Author: Tim Woodward