Web sites for beginners: New programmes make site creation easy

This obstacle can be overcome with the aid of software designed to create Web sites on a home computer. Based on the principle of modular construction, the programs translate whatever a user creates on his or her screen into correct programming language. The software Web Studio, from SierraHome Software, for example, helps surfers build a site exactly to their specifications. Users can choose from more than 100 ready-for-use web page templates, simply filling in their own details. In addition, over 25,000 images, 2,300 background motifs, 1,600 animations, and 300 sounds are available for use. Everything works visually, using drag-and-drop, which means that even first-timers should find it easy to use.

The accompanying instructions, which give strategy advice on Web site layout, are especially interesting: "One must be clear right from the beginning about the goal of the site. This means thinking over carefully where visitors will be able to go by clicking through the site, and then building out those sections accordingly," says Jens Schaefer, a software producer at European game maker Havas Interactive. Schaefer adds, however, that top priority must go to the ideas: home page owners must be clear about what their site will be able to do and what functionality visitors will get out of it. Web Studio can be downloaded in a trial version from http://www.sierrahome.com/software/catalog/web. Another affordable all-inclusive package is WebEasy, offered by the firm IXLA. WebEasy is a personal domain and home page editing programs geared toward beginners. "Setting up a home page has never been as cheap as it is now," says IXLA's Eyla Hassenpflug. Users must also count on an additional one-time fee of around 25 dollars to cover the cost of registering the Web site name. You can download WebEasy at www.ixla.com.

Those in the know often recommend the WebSphere home page software from IBM. "For us it was important that laypeople could also use our program," says Chistopher Daerr, marketing manager at IBM. "At the same time we wanted to provide these users with a tool that could be used to build a professional quality site." To this end first-time users are offered the aid of an animated assistant to walk them through the process of building a site. At various points in the process the user can take a step back from the work in progress to gauge whether everything is right. "One click launches a browser that pulls up a real version of how the work looks," says Daerr. To insure cohesiveness of design, one single program mode is used to coordinate all of the fine detail settings at once. Search for WebSphere at www.ibm.com. One current vogue in home page construction centers on the development of ever more impressive buttons. The graphics tool ButtonFly, at www.buttonfly.com/us/home.asp, simplifies the construction of these visual controls. "One can see this trend returning to a lot of Web sites right now," says ButtonFly's Stefan Blomberg. And the functionality of buttons is not to be underestimated, he claims. "They offer a window for the user to see what's hidden beyond that next click."

With ButtonFly, buttons can be outfitted with reliefs, shadowing, textures, or blurring. Anything the user designs is automatically converted into GIF and JPEG formats - the standard for Web graphics. "One can produce an entire series of buttons with no effort at all," says Blomberg.

(dpa)