Freeway Review

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The "Diamond Lane" of HTML editors...
For great web pages, take the Freeway.
by Steve Shelden
With so much media attention given to Adobe's GoLive and Macromedia's Dreamweaver, you might think there wasn't another serious contender in the professional web page creation field. But there is another web design application that is gaining ground against the competition. Created by England's SoftPress Systems, Freeway 3.0 has gotten rave magazine reviews from MacWorld, MacUser, Internet Works and Computer Arts.
At Shelden Graphics, we have tried many WYSIWYG web design applications and have found Freeway 3.0 to be one of the easiest to learn. More powerful than lower-end programs such as Adobe PageMill and Claris HomePage, Freeway is still easier to learn and use than its better-known competitors on the high end. The manual is well written and has a tutorial to get users up and running quickly. SoftPress has also done an excellent job presenting their software, while their website contains many useful tips. You can download a 30 day demo from their site at http://www.softpress.com. Or better yet, you can purchase Freeway at a special MacValley member price; look for details at the end of this article.

Xpress yourself.
If you're familiar with desktop publishing, especially QuarkXPress, you will feel right at home with Freeway's interface. There are so many similarities between the two software applications that the learning curve has been reduced drastically. You can easily place images and text boxes anywhere you want by drawing boxes and then importing images and text. Freeway allows you to import Photoshop TIFF files which can then be converted to both JPEG's and GIF's while retaining full control. Another cool feature is the ability to create headlines with any font you have in your system. You can convert type to a GIF image within Freeway without having to go to another application. You can also set up master pages, making it a breeze to duplicate layouts for other pages in a website design. Other useful features include:

Style sheets

Guides

Grids

Viewing pages in different magnifications

DTP style typographic control
We know what we like.
The new MacValley website, designed by Shelden Graphics, is almost completely constructed using Freeway 3.0 from beginning to end. After laying out the site, we published it for viewing in our browser. Freeway had created all the necessary tables without adding nearly as many troublesome spacers as other WYSIWYG web design applications. When we want to make changes or add new material, we simply go back to our master Freeway file, revise it, and publish a new set of html files.
SoftPress has done a good job with frames, supplying 16 preset frame choices to make page layout easier. Anyone who has ever tackled the job of creating frames knows how frustrating this can be; any improvement in frame handling is always welcome.
Freeway comes with a set of Actions for creating simple JavaScript rollovers. Other Actions include QuickTime controls, Database connectivity, Shockwave Director and Flash controls. You will soon be able to download new Actions from the SoftPress website.
To see some great examples of web sites built with Freeway 3, visit the following websites:
http://www.rovernet.de (Site serving Rover car dealers in Germany)
http://www.novo.dk/finance/ar97 (Novo Nordisk annual report)
http://www.valhalla11.com (Designed by web designer Toke Nygaard)
http://www.concussion.net (Multimedia site by Andre Yanez)

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			The "Diamond Lane" of HTML editors... For great web pages, take the Freeway. by Steve Shelden With so much media attention given to Adobe's GoLive and Macromedia's Dreamweaver, you might think there wasn't another serious contender in the professional web page creation field. But there is another web design application that is gaining ground against the competition. Created by England's SoftPress Systems, Freeway 3.0 has gotten rave magazine reviews from MacWorld, MacUser, Internet Works and Computer Arts. At Shelden Graphics, we have tried many WYSIWYG web design applications and have found Freeway 3.0 to be one of the easiest to learn. More powerful than lower-end programs such as Adobe PageMill and Claris HomePage, Freeway is still easier to learn and use than its better-known competitors on the high end. The manual is well written and has a tutorial to get users up and running quickly. SoftPress has also done an excellent job presenting their software, while their website contains many useful tips. You can download a 30 day demo from their site at http://www.softpress.com. Or better yet, you can purchase Freeway at a special MacValley member price; look for details at the end of this article. Xpress yourself. If you're familiar with desktop publishing, especially QuarkXPress, you will feel right at home with Freeway's interface. There are so many similarities between the two software applications that the learning curve has been reduced drastically. You can easily place images and text boxes anywhere you want by drawing boxes and then importing images and text. Freeway allows you to import Photoshop TIFF files which can then be converted to both JPEG's and GIF's while retaining full control. Another cool feature is the ability to create headlines with any font you have in your system. You can convert type to a GIF image within Freeway without having to go to another application. You can also set up master pages, making it a breeze to duplicate layouts for other pages in a website design. Other useful features include: Style sheets Guides Grids Viewing pages in different magnifications DTP style typographic control We know what we like. The new MacValley website, designed by Shelden Graphics, is almost completely constructed using Freeway 3.0 from beginning to end. After laying out the site, we published it for viewing in our browser. Freeway had created all the necessary tables without adding nearly as many troublesome spacers as other WYSIWYG web design applications. When we want to make changes or add new material, we simply go back to our master Freeway file, revise it, and publish a new set of html files. SoftPress has done a good job with frames, supplying 16 preset frame choices to make page layout easier. Anyone who has ever tackled the job of creating frames knows how frustrating this can be; any improvement in frame handling is always welcome. Freeway comes with a set of Actions for creating simple JavaScript rollovers. Other Actions include QuickTime controls, Database connectivity, Shockwave Director and Flash controls. You will soon be able to download new Actions from the SoftPress website. To see some great examples of web sites built with Freeway 3, visit the following websites: http://www.rovernet.de (Site serving Rover car dealers in Germany) http://www.novo.dk/finance/ar97 (Novo Nordisk annual report) http://www.valhalla11.com (Designed by web designer Toke Nygaard) http://www.concussion.net (Multimedia site by Andre Yanez) Beginner Tips Intermedicate Tips Power User Tips Tips Main Page