Review: Freeway 4 Pro
- Article 2 of 9
- Computer Arts, January 2006
Makes designing websites as easy as designing layouts.
With most major web design packages, it's up to you to think of ways to avoid the limitations that HTML and CSS place upon your designs. But Softpress Systems' Freeway 4 Pro is different. The software enables you to create a page using boxes, layers, fonts and all the features made available by print layout programs such as Quark. It then works out how to create a web page that looks like that design, by converting text to graphics, creating suitable CSS styles and so on.
Compared to Dreamweaver and GoLive, Freeway 4 Pro is an incredibly liberating program to use. Version 4 includes a number of new graphics capabilities, including effects and filters that make Photoshop redundant for most everyday work. Freeway 4 Pro is also suitable for even high-end activities thanks to Unicode, an improved site management system, a built-in preview function that uses Safari's web rendering engine and full support for XHTML and CSS positioning.
Unfortunately, this software is let down by its simplicity. Experienced web designers will soon become frustrated using the program – there's no real access to raw code, imported code can get mangled, and editing it can be difficult. In addition, there's no support for designing websites that need to be compatible with mobile devices – an increasingly popular platform – and creating proportional rather than fixed-width layouts is almost impossible.
As a result, Freeway 4 Pro is a great way to get your web designs up and running from scratch as quickly as possible, but you'll still need to use more powerful tools for polishing.