netcsape.com

The name nescape may not be music to the ears of many internet users these days (sorry- last pun about music and composers I promise) but I think that this product has a lot to recommend it. The advantage of this package is that it allows users to make professional looking web pages without any knowledge of HTML. Anyone who can use a desktop publishing program can use Composer effectively and better still- this can be sone offline without running up huge costs.

What Composer offers above most of the page builders available online when you sign up to free webspace, is the flexibility it offers. Rather then just customising a ready built template with your own name and details, this offers an easy way to create genuinely unique and interesting pages.

Most frequently used tags in HTML such as inserting links, targets, images and tables are represented simply as icons on a very clear menu bar. When these are clicked upon they bring up a very easy to use screen which offers choices such as text flow around images, image location, link text etc. This makes it easy for absolute beginners who would otherwise find it hard to use these features. In addition, even experienced users will find it nice to just use the keyboard commands such as Ctrl+ B to toggle bold on and off rather than messing about with tags.

However, this brings me to my few complaints. There is an option to add HTML tags should you wish, but this is a cumbersome process as they are added one at a time. It is possible to edit the text directly but this is a nuisance.
I also found tables hard to handle in composer. I found it hard to achieve the effects of colspan (where one column runs down the side of several rows). These are not major problems though.

All in all, this is a good product. Netscape navigator may be a bit out of favour (not with me!) but composer can be reached through icons in Navigator and Messenger which is handy. Worth a look if you want a website which is NOTE worthy without getting CROTCHETy (well, promises are made to be broken!)