XSitePro Editor Review

After trying to learn HTML and building web pages with various free editors, I decided to invest in a tool that looked like it would be easy to use, but flexible. That tool was NetObjects Fusion.Yeah, I know, this review is titled “XsitePro“, but bear with me.

At the time I bought NetObjects Fusion, I really thought I was going to get into web design and construct a lot of web sites. So, I figured an all-around tool that had a high level of automationwould be the way to go. They even have a “client module” where you can allow parties to edit their website without fear of destroying the structure you’ve built. (It’s kind of similar to blog software, there a places you edit and places you can’t.) That’s what their sales pages said and that’s why I picked them as my first solution.

I learned three valuable lessons with my first “big buck” purchase …

• first, don’t believe everything you read in the sales pages
• second, do not confuse automated with easy
• third, do in-depth research by conversing with existing users.

I still have NetObjects Fusion somewhere, but I haven’t updated the license since version 8 and I never was able to build a complete site with it. Call me a dummy, but I never got the hang of their menuing system. Everytime I tried to create a cascading menu, it looked goood, worked once, and then broke. I know a number of other folks who like and use NOF, but not me.

I’m sure it was the way I was coding it or something. By the time I had a couple of web pages built, my frustration level was high enough that I decided this was NOT the tool I wanted to use for long-term development. They have a loyal following, but I’m not a follower.

Enter Coffe-Cup and the mini-development environment.

Coffee-Cup was really my wife’s discovery. She wanted a light-weight editor with WYSIWYG that she could use on her laptop. I gave Coffee-Cup a spin since they had a try-before-buy product model.

Coffee-Cup is a OK as an editor. It has some quirks and the WYSIWYG display isn’t always how the HTML page looks, but it’s not bad if you’re only creating a small web site. I found it somewhat cumbersome, but capable. What I disliked the most was there was NO efficient means for handling the menu system and adding or re-arranging content. That has to be done manually, and it’s a pain! (I think they have a separate menu generator program available for additional cost.)

After reading some glowing comments from users on the Warrior Forum and other web sites, I decided to give XsitePro a whirl. That was probably my best decision of the month.

First, XsitePro delivers on the feature list from their web site. I don’t think the web site is really hypey, but there’s a lot of sales razamataz that makes you wonder if all those capabilities are really in the software. Let me assure you, they are.

Second, it’s priced about half-way between free and Dreamweaver 8, which means for $200 you get a development environment that approaches Dreamweaver’s depth for less than half the cost. Not to mention that XsitePro does a lot of things that the guys at Macromedia (makers of Dreamweaver) never thought of.  (That’s not to say Dreamweaver is a poor product – I think it’s great and I use it every day.  But, for fast, easy to maintain web sites, I always start with XsitePro.)

Third, XsitePro is built from the ground up as a “marketer’s platform”. It’s shamelessly easy to create a web site that’s good looking, readable, with all working links and all the “accoutrements” of a professional web layout. That includes colors or backgrounds in margins that are user selected, main window, header or footer backgrounds. You can see many of these capabilities in XSitePro’s video tutorials.

Fourth, XsitePro’s menuing system is automatic and always “spot on”. If you decide to create a new page, XsitePro automatically updates all the menus on every existing page. If you decide to change the menu order, XSitePro will automatically change the menu order on every page. With this menuing setup, there is NO such thing as a missed or broken link. Note, XSitePro puts an actual menu on each web page. You have four choices on where the menu will be placed. It uses java script for roll-over color changes if you select it. With the menu links on each HTML page, there’s less chance of link breakage. If you view the source code of your web page, you can see how XsitePro creates the HTML. And, if you choose, menus are automatically added to the bottom of each web page.

On a side note, I ran an informal test to see how fast I could create a 10-page site, drop existing content on each page (pre-written text and articles) and publish it on the web. Total time from selecting the header graphics to entering the FTP information was 8 minutes. (I did this “test” to impress my wife with the advantages of using XSitePro, so I made sure I went as fast as possible.) She tried creating 10 pages in Coffee-Cup and couldn’t get it done in less than 30 minutes and that was with poor text and object positioning on many of the pages.

Then, I freaked her out and changed the graphic header and footer and told her to do the same. It took me 30 seconds, but it took her over 20 minutes. At one point she remarked that the test wasn’t fair since she had to upload her images via FTP, while XSitePro handled all of mine.

With XsitePro you’ll spend more time developing content and a lot less time fooling with HTML programs.  It has built-in features for handling;

• page headers and footers
• background colors and images
• navigation menus
• footer menus
• bread crumb trails
• image placement and scaling
• table insertion and setup
• length of page/multi-page creation
•  image box creation
• HTML code insertion
• Adsense code and tracking

Fifth, FTP capability is built into the software. I didn’t think this would be a big deal and was very comfortable working with FTP programs like CuteFTP and Filezilla. But, once you get used to clicking a single button to handle all uploads, it feels like a pain going back to regular FTP for my Non-XsitePro sites. You still will need an FTP program to set up portions of your server and change permissions, but when you’re creating a site, there’s nothing sweeter than correcting an error or making an addition and then hitting the “Publish” button.

Sixth, XSitePro does an excellent job handling Adsense ads and codes. It has a whole environment to track and place your ads.

Seventh, XsitePro does a pretty good job of handling tables and makes adding pictures a breeze. The text wrapping functions work well, but take some getting used to.

Eighth, there’s a whole SEO backend that analyzes your site and highlights any weaknesses in optimization. You can define what should be checked and what criteria should be used. It also tracks whether pages are completed and optimized. The reports it generates are pretty impressive.

There are a ton of additional features I didn’t cover (like automatic box creation, easy linking methods, easy graphic symbol insertion and full code editing capability.)

Like all software, there are also a few quirks to work around or at least be aware of.

• Table handling is good, but sometimes editting a table can be difficult. You may, on occasion, have to edit the source code to get a table configured the way you want it.
• There are a limited set of fonts available, although you can cut and paste already formated text and tables into an XSitePro page and then do a little tweaking to the code.

Overall, it was a solid investment and I would recommend it to anyone interested in building a web site where the emphasis will be on content versus fancy graphics.

XsitePro is hard to beat!