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 Siteseeing
In this business, being a "pioneer" means you were on the Web before 1994. Web pioneers (such as myself) will be able to tell our grandchildren that we
designed Web sites when all the backgrounds were gray (no!), there were no tables (gasp!), and you had to do all the HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) coding by hand!
The first time I saw NetObjects Fusion, I thought, "Wow, these people really get it." They weren't just hawking another product to make Web pages (Lord knows I've tried them all).
They had a new concept. They were offering me a program designed by designers to build and manage entire sites. The Web is revolutionary, and so is NetObjects Fusion.
After years of manually building and managing sites, seeing NetObjects Fusion was like waking up and learning that chocolate chip cookies eliminate cellulite. (Well, almost.)
In a computerized world where we still end up doing much manually, NetObjects Fusion automates everything a computer can automate and frees you to design (rather than program). I know, it sounds like sales hype, but I'm not a
salesperson, I'm a fan—because NetObjects Fusion works. I only recommend a product if 1) I use it myself, and 2) I'd recommend it to friends (whose tech support calls I will inevitably have to answer myself). In this case, I use
NetObjects Fusion myself, and I've recommended it to every friend I have—from professional Web designers to small business people who just need a fast, professional-looking site, to friends with conservative-enough-looking hair to somehow
manage to get real jobs in real companies building Intranet sites. Unlike other Web page editors that only handle a fraction of what's necessary to build and maintain a site, NetObjects
Fusion supplies everything you need to organize a site ( Site View
), design the pages (Page View), and create an overall
graphic style (SiteStyles). Different, And Better Like most revolutionary products, NetObjects Fusion works
differently than "traditional" (a.k.a. "antiquated") programs. In this case, "different" means that unlike virtually all other programs that start with the page, NetObjects Fusion starts with the site itself.
If you've created a site before, you know that creating individual pages is the least of it. Frankly, you can create a simple Web page in a word processor these days, or with the free HTML editors that come with Navigator or Explorer. It
seems like virtually every program now claims to export to HTML. Big deal. In reality, Web sites are as different from single Web pages as forests are from trees. Building a site with a Web page or
HTML editor is like growing a forest from seeds (you need a lot of time, patience, experience, and luck). Building a site with NetObjects Fusion is like starting with Muir Woods (instant gratification).
Web sites are more like "places" than traditional publications, and before you build a well-organized place, you need a blueprint or map. That's exactly how NetObjects Fusion starts, with a "Site" view that lets you build a map of your site
structure simply by dragging page icons around an org chart. 
As you build this org chart, NetObjects Fusion's Site View automatically builds pages and navigation bars, complete with buttons that change color to show the site visitor what section
they're in. The page comes complete with the background you've chosen for the site, and all the navigation you want on the top, bottom, left, and right of the page. In other words, you
don't have to start from scratch every time you create a new page. If you rearrange the site (by simply dragging the pages around the map), the navigation on each page is updated and
regenerated—automatically and instantly. If you rename a page, the navigation buttons change all necessary pages—automatically. Delete a page, and the page is, of course, removed from the navigation bars. You concentrate on content;
NetObjects Fusion does the rest.
This means that even complex sites can be managed and updated visually. Add new sections and new navigation buttons can be generated by NetObjects Fusion and automatically placed on every page. Remove a section—those buttons
disappear. Move a page and the highlighted section buttons automatically change. If you've ever spent countless hours with other programs trying to manage a large site, you'll realize that this is, well, way cool. Click here for more information about working in SiteView.
(As an especially bitter art director acquaintance of mine whose hair color changes weekly would say, "It's so easy a monkey could do it." So it's somewhat surprising that NetObjects doesn't recommend NetObjects Fusion be used by
primates without human supervision.) If you've never done all this before, you may think, "Yeah, so, isn't this how it's supposed to work?" Well, yes, it is how it's supposed to work, but NetObjects Fusion is the
only program to work this way (once again proving that it's hard to make software simple). In other programs, you have to create each page, individually. You have to name and save the page. You have to set up the
page with the navigation elements you want. If you're technically savvy, you can figure out how to make a template and use it for new pages, but you still have to create links to the page from the pages that lead to it, and hope you don't
have to move or rename the page later, because then you have to manually update the links. It can be a confusing mess. But in NetObjects Fusion—it's always easy. Really, it is. NetObjects Fusion encourages good Web design (meaning
every page has clear navigation), but as smart as the program is, it doesn't try to outsmart you. If you want to remove the automatic navigation, you can. If you want to design your own
navigation buttons, you can. Even if you want to design your own navigation system, you can. Fusion's flexible. NetObjects Fusion seems different because it is: It is more efficient, more automatic, and, yes, smarter. It's a Wrap I can write until my wrists fall off, but you're really not going to
appreciate NetObjects Fusion until you use it. One of the ways you can tell if software is truly good is that the more you use it, the more you appreciate it, and that's how I feel about
NetObjects Fusion. Once you've used it to actually build a site, you'll feel that way, too (and shudder at the thought of going back to an old-fashioned Web page program).
Click here to download a trial copy.
For an interactive tour of NetObjects Fusion, click here.
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