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Build Your Own Website With Serif WebPlus X6

For many businesses and individuals alike, the question of whether to blog, keep a traditional website, or maintain any of a number of social media accounts is a common quandary. Blogging sites have ways of incorporating traditional content, but do you want to reinvent your Web presence around a blogging site? Social media is great for feedback, but why be tied to the site of the moment? And traditional websites with static content are so 2004. Now you don't have to choose, because with Serif's $100 WebPlus X6 you can incorporate blogging and social media access with an easy WYSIWYG website development tool, and manage it all from Serif's site.

In addition to Quick Build and Asset tools, WebPlus includes a How To toolbar that resides on the desktop with links to tutorials and the complete Help menu.WebPlus X6 can import HTML files from a local source or URL. It also comes loaded with about 30 theme layouts, a handful of X6 Pro templates, and a link to free content packs on Serif's Website. Each template and layout includes a few different color themes—colors that have specifically been chosen to complement the layout style, so you don't end up with pink body text on a purple background—but you can use any of the color themes for any layout.

Each layout also comes in two general sizes: one for a regular website, and one for mobile devices. Unfortunately it's up to you to cut and paste the content. But WebPlus X6 offers you some options for creating a smooth Internet-to-mobile-experience. You can include mobile-ready (and -sized) pages within your site, or link to a separate site. In addition, WebPlus allows you to automatically redirect depending on device accessing the page and set a time delay for the redirect. Redirecting based on user device is one of the features not available in WebPlus Starter Edition, the free version of WebPlus.

WebPlus X6 includes a good balance of professional-looking business sites, and more relaxed, playful ideas. They include almost everything you'd expect from a website template: Home page, contact us, product/image showcase, etc. Unfortunately, some of the WebPlus X6's templates are a little busy, and the fake Latin text (not the usual lorem ipsum) can be a distraction ): you may find yourself trying to read it to discover what the page was really intended for. Fortunately any element you don't like can be relatively easy to change, delete, or you can start from scratch.

Drawing from scratch is not as easy with WebPlus as with Xara Web Designer MX (a $50 WYSIWYG Web design program with equally adaptable templates). Unlike the full scope of excellent drawing tools available in Xara, WebPlus includes quickshapes, line drawing, and artistic text, plus a generic image editor. It's a little tricky to master. However, WebPlus X6 is really easy to use even if you are not a designer or Web designer. You can use it even if you have no experience whatsoever with desktop publishing.

When you opt to create a new web page from scratch rather than from a template, you are given some size options: 320 pixels (typical smartphone width), 640 pixels (iPhone 4/4S protrait native width, 750 (for smaller monitors), 960 pixels (recommended), 1200 pixels (for widescreen monitors only), or a custom width. You are then asked choose a navbar style and Assets, which essentially are the elements from the various templates and content packs. WebPlus X6 includes a lot of content—graphics (icons, buttons, etc), stock images, panels, buttons, picture frames, content, backgrounds—fortunately you can add Assets any time, and it makes it a lot easy to work on your design when you have a few ideas in front of you (rather than the entire content pack).

Smart Content, such as blogs, forums, and hit counters, are hosted on Serif's servers. For that, you'll need to create a Serif Web Resources User account, regardless of whether you plan to host your site with Serif. The user account is free for up to 512MB per month of bandwidth, and is separate from your Serif account. The good news, however, is that you can create a blog built right into your website, and use your Serif Web Resources User account as a very simple content management system. This is definitely one-up on Xara Web Designer MX and many other WYSIWYG web design tools, which rely exclusively on RSS feeds, document frames, and linking to blogging sites for content.

Out of all of Serif's products, WebPlus is the one that has really hit the mark for me. It's simple to use, yet has all the tools a business or individual might need to keep a current online presence. WebPlus X6 has its quirks, but it's a great tool and well worth the money if you need to build an basic site—and maintain it with current content. If you need ecommerce or other very advanced features, you may need a more advanced program like $45 WYSIWYG Web Builder, but for most folk, WebPlus is the web … plus.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you must pay to download the latest version of the software.

—Clare Brandt

From PC World. Shop computer and accessories from Amazon here

Surf Now, Read Later With Local Website Archive Lite

Local Website Archive is a useful utility that allows you to download web pages to your local hard drive. While this can be accomplished via the "save page" option in most browsers, Local Website Archive Lite (free) offers enough additional features and functionality that it's well worth installing.

Local Website Archive Lite offers more functionality than the usual "save as" function in your browser.While it's possible to use Local Website Archive Lite without browser integration (by entering an URL directly), it's really most useful when it's part of the browsing experience. Depending on the browser, this will be a right-click option, a button, or both. If you see a page you will want to save (for example, recipes, a list of cheat codes for a game, or a long article you'd rather read offline), you activate Local Website Archive Lite and go through a three-step wizard to save it. This latter bit can be sometimes annoying and is one of the program's few, albeit minor, flaws, in that using it can break the 'flow' of your work slightly.

The advantages of using Local Website Archive Lite over just "saving a page" are that it places all of your saved information in a single, easily accessible place, and allows you to categorize the saved pages in folders. Saving pages one-by-one can lead to a clutter of images, html, CSS, and so on. Further, Local Website Archive allows you to save PDF documents, and thus can aid in creating an organized library of them—useful for things like documentation, in my experience.

Further, Local Website Archive has search feature, which can make it easy to extract or locate data within a collection of saved pages, on the level of a single file, a folder, or a hierarchy of folders. Unfortunately, it lacks some refinements such as case sensitivity or searching for a whole word only.. looking for "die" will return documents containing "diet" or "diecast," for example.

The Lite edition of Local Website Archive is functional enough that I've used it for a long time without feeling limited. The 30€ Pro version offers features such as queuing pages for saving, among other things.

At a price of nothing, I strongly recommend Local Website Archive Lite if you save Web pages even occasionally.

—Ian Harac

Local Website Archive offers a fast and easy way to store websites from your browser permanently for future reference. Local Website Archive works with all browsers and also with other online tools (Email, Newsreader, etc.)

From PC World. Shop computer and accessories from Amazon here

Create a Website Easily With Wix (Even the Free Version)

With the first Beta version of its original service released in 2008, Wix is no newcomer to the website creation arena. But Wix (free, Premium plans start at $5 per month) has just reinvented itself: Its previous offering was entirely based on Flash, and this current release leaves Flash behind for the power and ubiquity of HTML5. With the new Wix, you can create beautiful, modern-looking personal, portfolio, and business websites, without writing a single line of code and without running Flash.

Wix features dramatic, beautiful templates that make it easy to get started making a website.To start you off, Wix offers dozens of ready-made HTML5 templates, subdivided into categories such as Kids, Music, Fashion, Food & Drink, and more. There are also single-page personal profile templates, competing directly against services like about.me and flavors.me. The templates are beautiful, and don't look anything like Wordpress or other content management systems. Like Weebly, Wix uses Web fonts, so it's not all Arial and Times New Roman: Titles are sometimes rendered in playful script fonts, and some themes use with thin, all-caps sans serif fonts for dramatic impact. The templates avoid Lorem Ipsum, opting instead for placeholder text that's in plain English and more closely resembles actual copy. In the rare event that no template catches your fancy, you can always start with a blank slate and create your website from scratch.

Wix lets you customize individual components, such as image galleries.The Wix editor is a joy to use. Click an element, and you can drag it around, change its text, or edit its appearance. You can customize just about anything: A template I was editing used ribbon elements that appeared to "fold" across the left side of images. With the editor, I was able to change their direction and color scheme so that they folded onto the image from the right. Since everything is based on CSS, I only had to change one ribbon, and Wix applied the change across all of the others. For many elements, the editor offers presets you can pick from, but also lets you create your own settings from scratch for your own unique look.

Wix also makes it easy to create new pages and arrange them in the menu, as well as customize the menu itself. Pages are arranged by types, such as a gallery, text pages, a Services page, and so on. Unlike Weebly, Wix does not let you create a blog as part of your site, nor bring in other editors to help you author content and maintain the site.

Wix supports Web fonts, which means your website can break out of the familiar Arial and Times New Roman.The other side of the coin for Wix's ease of use is that you can't get at the actual CSS and HTML that drive your website. Even if you know what you're doing and want to customize things by coding, Wix will not let you do that: Everything is locked behind the editor. This also means that when you design you website with Wix, you are effectively married to the service. Wix does not support exporting your content, and monthly plans are relatively expensive for a simple web hosting service.

Wix does have a free option, but it displays a Wix banner at the bottom of your website and will not let you use your own domain name. Even the Connect Domain premium plan that costs $5 per month leaves the banner intact-to get rid of it, you must upgrade at least to the Combo plan, which is $10 per month. If you don't mind the rates (or the banner and Wix branding), Wix's new HTML5 version offers some of the best visual website creation tools I have seen to date.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use the latest version of this Web-based software.

--Erez Zukerman

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here

MojoMotor: Easy-to-Use Website Content Management System

Here is a problem both website designers and owners share: Once a website is created, who has to update its content over time? And how should they do it? The traditional solution for this problem is a CMS, or content management system, such as WordPress (aimed mainly at blogs) or Weebly. MojoMotor is one such content management system, but it prides itself on "doing less" and providing a lightweight interface both for developers and content editors.

MojoMotor's installation interface is stylish, but requires familiarity with database configuration settings.For a content editor, MojoMotor can't be much simpler to use: There is no administrative backend to log in to, or a complex workflow with multiple page states and drafts. You do need to log in so that MojoMotor knows you're allowed to edit, but once that's done, the only special bit of interface you see is a toolbar on top of the screen. The rest of your browser window contains your website just like everyone sees it, but with one important difference: You can edit the text and images.

MojoMotor features an easy WYSIWYG editor for website text.While you're viewing the website in MojoMotor's administration interface, certain parts of the page (such as its main content area, usually) are marked as editable and highlighted in color. To edit, just click anywhere in the highlighted area, and it morphs into a WYSIWYG editor with a simple toolbar for formatting text, creating links, and uploading images. You don't need to know HTML, Markdown, or any other special syntax. You do need to make sure that any images you upload are in the correct size for the website.

The default theme provided with MojoMotor looks a bit like a basic WordPress installation.MojoMotor is easy to use for designers, too. To design a website in MojoMotor, you don't have to know PHP: MojoMotor websites are created as static HTML files with special MojoMotor tags that the system uses to make certain areas user editable. This makes MojoMotor an ideal tool for front-end designers who can create great layouts, HTML, and CSS, but don't know the first thing about back-end coding and working with PHP.

Behind the scenes, MojoMotor works by using special tags.MojoMotor is not a one-size-fits-all solution: It is clearly aimed at small websites containing just a handful of pages. The system doesn't even include a built-in blogging engine, but third-party website MojoAddons offers a plug-in, MojoBlog, that lets users create a blog within their MojoMotor installation. Fortunately, MojoMotor makes it very easy to migrate your project to ExpressionEngine, a CMS from the same vendor that can easily support large-scale websites.

Because MojoMotor focuses on a specific use case and doesn't try to please everyone, it succeeds in creating a truly simple way to develop and maintain small personal and business websites. Its reasonable price tag and extensibility add to its allure, as well.

--Erez Zukerman

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 Adds Tools, Color Styles, Website Creation

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 is the latest iteration of Corel's powerful graphics suite, and adds several compelling features to its keystone component, the CorelDRAW vector graphics editor (a.k.a. "not Adobe Illustrator"). But CorelDRAW is not the only component improved for this release: The suite's raster editor, Photo-Paint, also received several interesting new features.

CorelDRAW's new morphing tools make it easy to stretch and distort vector shapes in organic ways.The entire CorelDRAW X6 suite includes Bitstream Font Navigator for managing fonts, Corel CAPTURE for taking screenshots, Corel CONNECT for managing digital assets (like Adobe Bridge), Corel Photo-Paint for creating and editing raster graphics, and now Corel Website Creator (as an optional download). But for most people, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite basically means just one program: CorelDRAW. New and improved CorelDRAW features in X6 include a better Object Properties bar, a new styles engine and docker, color styles and harmonies, and improved OpenType and layout features.

The Object Properties docker now shows all properties in one long list, subdivided into sections. Previous CorelDRAW versions arranged object properties (Fill, Outline, corner radius, etc.) as separate tabs, which sometimes made navigation cumbersome. CorelDRAW X6 maintains the tabs on top (great for muscle memory), but when you click a tab, it just scrolls down to where the properties group sits in the new, all-in-one bar. Not a huge change, but it does help usability.

Color styles and harmonies make it possible to quickly change fill and outline colors across an entire composition at once.A more major upgrade is CorelDRAW X6's introduction of color styles: These make it possible to change fill and outline colors for several objects at once, even if they are not grouped or linked in any other way. Better yet, you can group colors into harmonies, and change an entire group of colors together, while maintaining their relative contrast levels. This means you can change the color palette for an entire composition in seconds. It's my favorite new feature.

CorelDRAW X6 also introduces four creative vector tools: Smear, Twirl, Attract, and Repel. Each of these lets you morph vector shapes in interesting ways. They're built for pen tablets and respond to pen pressure. I tested them with a trackball, and they were fun and easy to use. I was able to easily create fluid, organic shapes that looked more like freeform raster creations than vector objects, but still maintained all of the properties and flexibility of the vector format. Previous CorelDRAW versions included morphing tools such as the Envelope tool, but these four new brush-based tools make object morphing faster and more intuitive.

The Smart Carver lets you remove objects from images, but doesn't always work smoothly.CorelDRAW X6 now features a native 64-bit version, which felt stable and speedy on my system running under Windows 7 x64. Corel says the new version makes better use of multi-core processors for improved copy/paste, export, and printing performance.

Moving on to Corel Photo-Paint, the most interesting new feature of this release is the new Smart Carver. This feature lets you remove unwanted objects from photos and adjust their aspect ratio using seam carving: You just paint over the object you'd like to remove and run the Smart Carver, and once it's done, the object is no longer there. The technique works best with isolated objects on a relatively uniform background such as clouds, rocks, and sea.

When Smart Carver works, it works well: It neatly removed a bag from a background of sand.I tested Smart Carver by editing an image taken at the beach, removing a bag that was lying on the sand. The result was excellent, and when I showed the image to a friend she could not see any evidence of manipulation. Another test, in which I tried to remove a signpost from an image with a background of sea and blue sky, left a visible seam and did not produce a usable result. Both tests were very slow, each taking about five minutes on my system.

CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X6 is an incremental upgrade for an already-excellent graphics suite. With the possible exception of the Smart Carver, Corel avoided gimmicky features and focused on areas that can really boost productivity, such as the new style engine, native X64 executables, and improvements in typography and document layout.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest trial version or order the boxed software.

--Erez Zukerman

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here

Fast, Friendly Wireframing Tool Balsamiq Mockups Adds Zip to Website Creation

We use software all the time, and so it only makes sense that we all have ideas about what it should look like and how it should work. Balsamiq Mockups ($79 for a single-user license; discounts available in volume packs) is a rapid wireframing tool. It lets designers, developers, and other stakeholders all take part in the design process of a new application or website.

Balsamiq comes with dozens of common UI controls for fleshing out interface ideas quickly.It is almost impossible to discuss Balsamiq (the product) without introducing Balsamiq (the company). Balsamiq was founded in March 2008 as a one-man company with a manifesto that starts with "focus, focus, focus." Its founder, Peldi Guilizzoni, made a splash with unorthodox tactics such as sharing his revenue numbers early on (even when they were very low) and not taking any outside investment. The company experienced an impressive growth spurt, made over $4.5 million in the first thirty months of business, and now lists twelve employees on its website.

The website, as well as the application, feel decidedly familial. The application's Help menu has an entry that reads "What should I make for dinner?" Clicking it takes you to a page on the company website where employees share cooking videos.

All of this serves to show that Balsamiq is an application with real character. This is important, because its basic functionality is similar to that of Java-based WireframeSketcher ($75) and Web-based tool Lumzy (free).

That is not to say it's not good: Balsamiq is very good at what it does, which is letting you jot out interface ideas quickly and with minimum fuss. The application feels polished, and usually stays out of your way. It comes with dozens of widgets such as a search box, tabs, a browser window, and more. If you can't find a widget you need, Balsamiq also offers Mockups To Go, a simple website with over a hundred widgets which you can download and use freely. There's no search function, though, so prepare to rummage through the site category by category.

You can add widgets to the canvas using a quick-add tool: Just start typing "button," and the tool instantly pops up several suggestions. Now just pick the one you want, hit Enter, and it appears on the canvas. You can either drag it into place, or add several widgets in rapid succession and then move them around to build the interface you need. Widgets that contain text support a simple Markdown-like syntax, so it's easy to simulate hyperlinks and make text bold or italic.

When moving widgets around, smart guides appear, much like those used in Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW and other drawing applications. You can use these to align widgets effortlessly. Like many other wireframing tools, Balsamiq purposely uses a hand-drawn look, for a result that "no one is afraid to criticize" (because it doesn't look like a polished mockup that took hours to make).

While Balsamiq doesn't offer real-time collaboration, it does support change detection: You can share a Balsamiq file with a remote user using Dropbox, and the application will detect when the file changes and offer to reload it. This way you can both have the file open while you're on the phone or Skype, and each can make changes in turn. Beware of conflicts, though: Make sure only one of you is editing at any given time.

If you are just starting out with wireframing tools, $75 may be a bit steep (especially given free alternatives such as Lumzy). But if you are already drawing interfaces and are looking for something with more oomph, you should at least take Balsamiq for a 7-day trial spin.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

--Erez Zukerman

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here

Designing a Website? Start Wireframing With Free Lumzy

When thinking up ideas for new software or websites, wireframes often come in handy because they let us iterate through ideas quickly, focusing on substance rather than style (which comes later). Lumzy is a Web-based wireframing tool that is offered for free, and can be used as a gentle introduction to the art of wireframing.

Lumzy offers a basic collection of UI controls for showing interface ideas, but lacks the polish of its commercial competitors.Lumzy's layout is typical of wireframing tools with a Controls toolbar lining the left edge of the window, and a canvas. To create your mockup, drag interface elements from the toolbar onto the canvas, and then resize them and fill them with content. Much like commercial competitor Balsamiq, Lumzy includes a quick-search function letting you find the control you need without having to scroll through dozens of controls manually.

Beyond its attractive price, Lumzy distinguishes itself by emphasizing interactivity. Many wireframing tools let you link screens (so that clicking a sketched "button" leads to another screen), but that's usually as far as they go. Balsamiq embraces this limitation on purpose, but Lumzy bucks the trend, offering more sophisticated interactivity features. For example, you can specify what happens when the user clicks a line in a list control: Lumzy can pop up an alert, show a page as a pop up, go to another page of the mock-up, etc.

Other parts of the application do not feel as well developed. Unlike Balsamiq, Lumzy does not offer "live guides" that elements snap to for easy alignment (it does include toolbar buttons for alignment, though). There is also no way to nudge elements around using the keyboard. Graphics are very basic, but that's to be expected with a wireframing tool.

Offering a limited or focused feature set is fine, especially when it comes to a free product. But Lumzy also behaved unexpectedly at times, which is less understandable. When I clicked the Duplicate button to create a copy of an element, it worked right in the first time, creating a duplicate that was slightly offset from the original (so I could see it's a copy). Further clicks duplicated the object without changing its position, making it seem like duplication isn't working and creating a stack of identical objects. When testing Lumzy's real-time collaborating capabilities, my colleague could see the initial view of the screen, and chat worked, but any changes they made were not reflected on my side (and vice versa).

Despite these technical glitches and shortcomings, Lumzy is serviceable for basic wireframing work. If you are still trying to decide if wireframing is for you, or if you have a specific and small-scale mockup you'd like to communicate, try Lumzy out. It won't cost you anything, and if your design isn't complex, it can get the job done.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can use this software in your Flash-enabled Web browser.

--Erez Zukerman

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here