Symantec Visual Page 2.0
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Type of Product
Visual Page 2.0 is a complete tool for creating, managing, editing and publishing documents for the World Wide Web. It's a visual-based designer (WYSIWYG), source code editor, and publishing utility, together in one package. You can use Visual Page to create all types of content, from one Web page to complex Web sites containing hundreds of pages. You don't have to learn Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to use it, yet you can create sophisticated Web pages. Price: $99.95; upgrade: $49.95. It's worth viewing Symantec's Web site for tips, techniques, information on their other products, and users groups. http://www.symantec.com
User Level
Visual Page 2.0 can by used by virtually anyone, from beginning PC users with a basic knowledge of Windows to Intermediate and Advanced users. You don't have to know one piece of HTML code to use it effectively. Features that make it easy to use for a novice are: the user-friendly interface; WYSIWYG environment; and its drop and drag abilities. Intermediate and Advanced users will appreciate its support for cascading style sheets, layers, and link updating features.
Features
Intuitive User Interface--Get productive immediately; AutoImport--Easily import your existing Web site; <new> StyleStudio--Take advantage of cascading style sheets for a uniform look and feel; <new> EZLayer--Use absolute pixel positioning for ultimate control over Web page layout; <new> Project Manager--Four visual angles on your Web site simplify management; <new> Automatic Link Checking and Link Updating--Ensure Web site integrity; <new> EZDeploy--Easily publish updated Web pages; <new> Site-Wide Spell Checking--Ensure professional text presentation; <new> Site-Wide Search-and-Replace--Quickly update site content; <new> Font Group Support--Add fonts to your Web pages that work across multiple platforms; Real-Time WYSIWYG and Syntax Editing--Work in the environment that is most comfortable; Industry Standard HTML Generation--Web pages work with any Web browser and Web server; Easy Tables and Frames--Create and customize tables and frames with drag & drop ease; Java Virtual Machine Integration--Test Java Applets without leaving the environment; Multiple-Browser Preview--Verify how your pages look in any Web browser; <new> Samples--Includes over 12,000 artistic images; 15 Active Desktop background themes for Windows 98; 20 designed Web page templates; and 30 sample Web pages.
Review
Manuals and Install: Symantec always provides you with more than adequate manuals. With Visual Page 2.0 there are two manuals: (1) Getting Started, an installation and tour guide, with step-by-step instructions on creating a project; creating a plain Web page; creating a Web page with frames; importing text and graphics; adding and running Java applets; flowing text around graphics; creating and modifying a table; linking text and graphics; using image maps and anchors; and creating an e-mail form; (2) a User's Guide with an in-depth discussion of all the features. The installation is quick and easy, and you have a choice of a Typical, Compact, or Custom install. Interface: Visual Page uses a word processing type interface, thus reducing the learning curve as most individuals are familiar with this type of environment. When you open the program, you see the main editing window, with a Menu bar and a Tool Bar across the top, editing area in the middle, and Link To field on bottom. Toolbars can be hidden, docked, or moved around. You can also customize the way you want to work in the program. with global preferences and page defaults. Global preferences affect how features are implemented in Visual Page, in all pages and projects and control features such as how files are used, how multiple viewers are configured, page defaults, HTML generation, and how the view in the Source Editor is configured; page defaults apply to a single Web page and they handle the primary elements of the Web page's appearance, from text color to background images. Starting a Web Page: There are several ways that you can start a Web page; from scratch; from an existing Web page in your computer or from the World Wide Web; or from a template. Visual Page includes several ready-made templates that can be used as the basis for Web pages. When you create a page based on one of these templates, all of the text formatting, graphics, and other elements within the template page are included in your new page. AutoImport: Importing your existing Web site into Visual Page is as simple as specifying your home page and your Web server login information. Visual Page automatically follows all of your links and builds a database of the files contained in your Web site. The database includes information about your Web site's files and how they are related to each other. Once you have imported your Web site into Visual page, you can make changes to your Web pages and Visual Page will take care of maintaining your Web site's integrity. StyleStudio: With StyleStudio you can take advantage of cascading style sheets to create your web site with a uniform look and feel. Cascading style sheets automate much of the work that needs to be done to create this uniform look and feel. You create styles with a click of the button for each attribute that you want to add. After you create your styles, you simply highlight your content and select the style to use. For an instantaneous site wide change, you make a style sheet as a default for your Web site and all of your Web pages will contain a new and consistent look. "Cascading" means that any number of style sheets can be applied to a Web page or sets of Web pages, and that the Web browser will interpret and display them within a fixed order of priority: inline, local, and external. Inline styles are used to apply styles to specific tags at specific points in your Web page. A local style sheet is where the style definitions are placed directly in the Web page. A linked style sheet is a CSS document that acts as a master style sheet. EZLayer: Visual Page 2.0 supports two ways for control over the positioning of objects in a Web page: (1) the word processor type control; and (2) the desktop/layering type control. Web pages that are created using HTML usually use a word processor metaphor for the layout. This means that the position of objects on the Web page are affected by the position of other objects. For example, if a paragraph of text is inserted into a page and then an image is inserted in the middle of the text, the text will wrap around the image. If a table is then inserted above the text and image, everything will move downward after the table is inserted. By default, objects that are placed on the Web page can only be positioned using alignment tags such as left, right, or center align, or by using table cells for more positioning freedom. Both of these object control types can be used within a single Web page. For example, one section can be set aside for word processing style layout while another section is set aside for desktop publishing layout. Each separate section can even contain nested areas that are set aside for either of the types of layout metaphors. The result is complete control over the Web page layout and how it will appear in the Web browser. Project Manager: Once a Web site has been created or imported, Visual Page's Project Manager provides four distinct views: File View--enables easy management of the Web site using a browsable view of local Web site directories and files. Server View--provides a complete understanding of how the Web site appears on its Web server. Link View--delivers a graphical view of the Web site for quick comprehension of the overall site structure. Status View--presents a list of the links that are invalid or missing, providing the means to quickly establish site integrity. Automatic Link Checking and Link Updating--Visual Page makes it easy to maintain your Web site's integrity by automatically checking your links for you and updating links when file names are changed. As soon as you import your Web site into Visual Page, check out the status view for a list of the links that are missing or invalid. Double click on any bad links and a dialogue window opens asking you for the correct link. And if you change file names or move them to another directory, Visual Page automatically updates all links that are made to them with the correct information. EZDeploy--This feature makes updating your Web site a cinch. After making changes to your Web site, EZDeploy uploads the Web pages that have changed to your Web server with a click of a button. Text Editing Features--You can spell check your whole site with the spell check option. Also, you can do a site-wide search-and-replace to update content across the entire site in a consistent manner. Font groups such as an Arial font group that consists of the Arial and Helvetica fonts can be created and applied so that you can have text that will be the same across platforms. Real-Time WYSIWYG and Syntax Editing--You can work in a WYSIWYG environment or with a syntax editor view. The syntax editor represents HTML using colors to differentiate text, tags, attributes, values, and comments. Any changes made in the syntax editor immediately appear in the visual editor and vice-versa. Industry Standard HTML Generation--The program generates well-formatted industry standard HTML that is easy to understand and maintain. Since Visual Page doesn't generate any proprietary code, Web pages created with it can be used with any Web server and viewed with any Web browser. Easy Tables and Frames--You can create a set of frames or insert a table with the click of a button. Resizing the table's cells or frames is as easy as dragging the border to reflect the new size. Visual Page's table support includes automated table cell resizing and text wrapping. Insert text into a table's cell and the cell resizes itself to fit the text. Drag the cell's border to increase or decrease the size and the text automatically adjusts how it wraps within the cell. Java Virtual Machine Integration--Visual Page is integrated with the Java Virtual Machine so that Java Applets can be run and previewed within its environment. This saves you time by removing the need to load your Web pages into a Web browser in order to test your Java Applets. Multiple-Browser Preview--There is multiple-browser previewing in the program so you can verify that your Web pages will look good in any browser. Upon installation, Visual Page automatically searches for Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer and adds them to the browser preview menu.
Personal Comments
Symantec has included a number of long-overdue features in this upgrade. I have been using Visual Page for the reviews for PC Cafe for over a year. The site is fairly large with a massive amount of graphics, yet I have had no problems. But I keep the pages simple, using a table format, no layers or JavaScript. One of the features I would like to see added is built-in support for Dynamic HTML. Visual Page is excellent for Cascading Style Sheet editing and visual editing, but somewhat weak in HTML editing. Also if the program does not understand your code, it rewrites it, instead of just leaving it alone. For Web designers or scripting gurus who want to tweak every little parcel of code, it might not provide them with every tool they desire. Nowadays, with the field of Web design and code changing so rapidly, no one program is going to have every feature or be perfect for everyone. Graphic designers usually use a variety of programs, depending on the job. I think the same applies for Web design. It doesn't hurt to use different programs for different objectives. Visual Page 2.0 is great for someone who needs a basic and easy to use WYSIWYG Web site builder.
System Requirements
Processor: 486 66Mhz or faster Operating System: Windows 95/NT4.0 Memory: 8 MB RAM (12 MB for Windows NT) minimum Hard Disk Space: 20 MB free disk space Hardware: 256 color VGA card ( Super VGA recommended) CD-ROM
Graphics: DeMorgan WebSpice 1,000,000 Page Design Edition Web Page Editor: Symantec Visual Page