Net Objects Fusion was one of the first website design and creation packages to offer professional-class what-you-see-is-what-you-get editing (in as much as you can predict how a page is going to display on a variety of platforms). But it has focused increasingly on helping inexperienced users to create sites.

This trend has continued with version 8.0 to the extent that the profusion of help features tends to obscure the power of the package, which contains everything you need to set up shop on the web.

When first installed it presents you with a screen offering to take you through a selection of tasks, from setting up a complete site to adding a page to an existing one.

One option is a wizard that guides you through setting up a site in just three steps. It opens with a screen of 16 sample sites, each with a choice of styles for small businesses, clubs and individuals.

The sample pages even include boilerplate text, so in theory all you would need to do to set up a company site is add pictures and change contact and product details.

In practice you're unlikely to find it that simple, but the examples will serve at least to make you think about what you need to put into a site, and playing with them will help you understand how to build one from scratch.

Net Objects makes this quite straightforward. A site view allows you to add, name and link pages easily to create your broad structure. You can also choose from a selection of styles to create a common look for features such as buttons; there are over 150 new styles in version 8.0 and more are available online.

To edit any page, you simply double-click its icon. You create a layout much as you do with a desktop publishing package, dragging out boxes to contain text or an image, and context-sensitive dialogue boxes allow you to control all aspects of each item. A new feature is that this control extends to pictures, with the aid of a built-in image editor.

This is too clumsy, as it stands, for anything but reducing resolutions for the web. Resizing selection frames is slow, and an action prompt keeps popping up before you are ready. The most common need is to crop a picture and then adjust its pixel dimensions to those of the container box. You can do this within Net Objects, but the editor behaves so capriciously that you are likely find it easier to use a dedicated third-party editor.

Another floating box gives a Windows Explorer-style tree view of the site, allowing you to switch easily between different pages. A new Component Manager box allows you to use more advanced features, such as a ticker-tape, on your site.

There are also links to third-party plug-in facilities and services. One plug-in, costing about £12, lets you create on-screen forms to capture details of customers and other users. The results can be written to a text file for further processing, or sent as an email, or you can process the data using a cgi script.

There are powerful features for populating a page with information from ODBC- and ADODB-compliant databases, though you will need plug-ins to access more advanced features.

An HTML view lets you tweak page code directly, and you can import HTML, or reference an external HTML file, or use ActiveX controls and Java applets. But you don't need to know about any of this technology to be able to use Net Objects Fusion effectively, any more than you need to know Postscript to use a desktop publishing package. You design your site and the software does all the coding for you.

An asset manager allows you to keep track of your site's use of pictures, links and form-field variables. Sites, and updates to sites, can be published directly from within Net Objects using ftp, sftp, or Webdav.

A final new feature of version 8.0 is links to a choice of e-commerce engines, including Paypal, that allow you to sell directly from your site. You can switch product catalogues from one service to another, so Net Objects does not lock you into a particular provider.

RRP: £149.99 (£127.55 ex VAT)

Best price: www.pcw.co.uk/bestprices

Contact: Avanquest 020 7221 1611
www.avanquest.co.uk

System requirements:

• 166MHz processor
• Windows 98 or later
• 280MB disk space
• 800 x 600 resolution screen with 256 colours
• 128MB Ram
• 32bit ODBC drivers for database links