NetObjects Fusion 3

Dynamic Fusion

With the new breed of browsers gaining increasing acceptance - and about to get a serious boost thanks to the IE 4-carrying Windows 98 - Fusion 3 includes lots of support for Dynamic HTML. Coding dynamic Web pages isn't as simple as it is in Dreamweaver, but it's slightly more flexible. Animations, actions, messages and behaviours can be added to any object on a page or the page itself, using the Actions Properties windows. While this approach will be of interest to non-coders, programmers can script actions instead, using JavaScript or VBScript.

In many ways, Fusion 3's single biggest failing is that it tries to be all things to all people, throwing as much effort into object positioning as into Dynamic HTML scripting. The result of this is a fairly tortuous design that hides important coding elements beneath levels of complicated window-clicking. For instance, Frameset design has been hidden beneath Fusion's own Autoframe feature.

The complicated mess of MasterBorders restricts you to a rigid five-frame design, unless you use an external script to create a custom Frameset. This is in order to facilitate the dynamic navigation buttons, which I understand, but I can't help feeling a much more elegant solution could have been arrived at.

Overall, however, Fusion 3 is a comprehensive and heavyweight package that reflects the nature of Web design in the late 1990s. Database-driven Web sites are becoming more and more popular, and Fusion reflects this, incorporating plenty of database connectivity options. People other than programmers are creating Web sites, and people other than designers are designing them, and this, too, is reflected in the package.

However, much more thought must go into how NetObjects bundles all these powerful features together, because, at the moment, getting to Fusion's intrinsic riches is a struggle. Power users will eventually unearth Fusion 3's secret weapons, but many of the novices at whom this program is aimed may struggle with its quirky design.

Author: Andy Hutchinson