Web authoring and publishing is a process that requires several software tools (see my article Tools of the Trade). Just as word processers, spreadsheets and so on agglomerated into "office suites," the next logical step is a Web suite. Corel's WebMaster Suite includes the following components:
WEB.DESIGNER
WEB.SiteManager
WEB.PhotoPaint
WEB.DRAW
WEB.MOVE
WEB.WORLD
WEB.DATA
The suite also comes with OReilly's WebSite 1.1 server software, Netscape Navigator 3.0, 7500 clipart images and a free 30-day Web site hosting offer.
WEB.PhotoPaint, Draw and Move will be familiar to users of the popular CorelDRAW graphics suite. WEB.DATA is for integrating databases into your site, while WEB.WORLD is a VRML creation utility. WEB.DESIGNER provides a "WYSIWYG" Web editor, and WEB.SiteManager offers various site management features, such as fixing broken links, moving files around and so forth.
Well, is that enough CAPS for a while, or what? Let's return to a more conversational tone as we take a look at each of the components of the suite.
WEB.SiteManager provides an overview of your site in two windows. On the left is File View, a standard directory listing where the usual drag and drop file management operations may be carried out. On the right is Page View, a tree showing the links to and from each page. Moving a page around automatically updates all other pages that have a link to the moved page. You can view lists of broken links, orphan files, different types of files, etc, then delete files or move them around to fix any problems. When you're ready to upload the files to your server, just go to the handy FTP window, and drag 'em and drop 'em, Tex!
WEB.Designer claims to be a WYSYWIG Web Editor. As such, it's as good as most. Let's face it, there's really no such thing as WYSYWIG where the WWW is concerned. Why, what you see in Corel WebMaster suite will not be exactly what you see in Navigator, which will be slightly different in Explorer, and it depends partly on the user's browser settings, anyway! So, what you see in WEB.Designer's edit view is pretty close to what you'll see once your page is up on the Wild and Wooly Web, but there are no guarantees. If you like to create pages this way, it works fine. Personally, I prefer a full-featured HTML editor, which the WebMaster suite doesn't really have. You can edit the HTML by going into "Source View" from either the manager or the editor, but you don't get much in the way of HTML tools or shortcuts...nada, in fact. Just the usual find & replace, cut & paste ho-hum. There is, however, a handy menu item that lets you launch the HTML editor of your choice. The HTML validator is a big disappointment. It pops up when you open a page, and tells you the line numbers of any HTML errors it has found. Alas, there is no way to look up the line numbers in "Source View," much less to click on a line and go to the error. If you wish to edit the HTML code in your documents, let's face it: You'll need a separate HTML editor like HomeSite, Nachos or FlexEd (all of which are available from our Download Page).
Corel is of course, famous for its high-end graphics software, and it is in this area that WebMaster Suite shines. WEB.DRAW and WEB.PhotoPaint make it easy to create nice-looking graphics for the Web. Getting graphics to look decent on the Web can be quite a scene, even with high-end graphics products like CorelDRAW, Illustrator and Photoshop. Transparent, interlaced GIFs with a Web-safe color pallette are the order of the day. WEB.PhotoPaint and WEB.DRAW integrate these features seamlessly, and make creating Web-ready graphics a snap.
A CD-ROM full of clip media is included. 7500 Drawings, photos, animations and whatnot cover the usual categories like Europe, Animals, Flags, Mail n Fax Icons, etc. The images are of good quality. A utility called WEB.Gallery lets you look at thumbnail images to browse through the offerings.
Some of the components of the WebMaster suite are great, and some are just okay. They are not really all that tightly integrated as a "suite." For example, the "source view" looks totally different depending on whether you go there from WEB.Designer or WEB.SiteManager. The graphics modules are available from Designer, but not from Manager...
The highlights are SiteManager (well-designed and very handy) and the graphics components. The two big disappointments are the lack of a proper HTML editor, and the tameness of the HTML validator. The fact that you can lauch an external program from within WebMaster Suite sugars the pill a bit, but it would be nice to have a full-featured editor with text search-and-replace tools built in.
All-in-all I have to give Corel WebMaster Suite a thumbs-up. There are several useful tools here, and the price is not bad. To say that it is a "complete Internet solution" is a bit of an exaggeration, but it will probably make your toolkit a bit more compact. By combining several necessary tools in one, a suite like this certainly makes a travelling Webmaster's life easier. We'll be seeing more "Web suites" coming out, and, knowing Corel, I bet that we'll see fairly frequent upgrades to Corel WebMaster Suite that will further extend its capabilities.
Web authoring and publishing is a process that requires several software tools (see my article Tools of the Trade). Just as word processers, spreadsheets and so on agglomerated into "office suites," the next logical step is a Web suite. Corel's WebMaster Suite includes the following components:
