HTML Editor Reviews

Corel Web.Designer

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Corel Web.Designer Ver:1.1

Found at: http://www.corel.com/

Overview:

• MS-Windows 95/NT
• Stand alone program
• Graphical Editor
• Forces users to enter correct tags
• Very Stable - performance was slow
• Cost: $149 USD
• Screen shot
• User Comments

Nice features found in this package include:

Clean Graphical editor

Graphical editors can be trying to use when you know what's going on behind the scenes. However, Corel's package has a much more intuitive feel and does a good job of keeping elements consistent and hiding the complexities of tags. I did not feel the urge to go into the HTML tags to get something "right".

Graphical Tables and Forms

As expected, tables and forms can be created and manipulated graphically. Form editing simple and intuitive (double click to see the dialog for select options, for example).

Strong support for HTML 2.0 and clean interface

Except for tables and alignment attributes, Web.Designer only handles basic HTML 2.0 elements. This is a bonus, in some ways, because the interface is clean and simple pages can be easily created.

Tracks NAME anchors automatically

I mention this because few editors actually do this! Corel Web.Designer will keep track of all the anchor tags in a file which define a named location (bookmark). When you load a file, it scans for all these tags and allows you to define links based on them.

Other features

Corel includes a spelling checker with the application. Web.Designer is part of a three package suite which includes a Word Processor to HTML conversion and a large clipart collection.

Missing/Poorly Implemented Features:

Slow on my DX4/100 with 16Megs of RAM

The application performed somewhat slowly on my systems. Often, I was way ahead of the editor when typing in text (I type at ~50 words per minute).

Table support needs improvement

Although you can change and work with tables graphically, the application does not handle the COLSPAN and ROWSPAN attributes. This limits tables to simple matrices and is a definite minus when compared to AOLpress and Frontpage.

HTML support is dated

You will not find the latest tags from HTML 3.2, Netscape, and Explorer here.

Conclusion:

Corel's entry in the design market is a solid graphical editor, but lacks some important capabilities. I expected much more based on the price. However, if you (or users you support) are uncomfortable with too much complexity, Web.Designer could be a good choice.

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