Need help with the World-Wide-Web and HTML? Two new products from Adobe are designed to help put up your own WWW pages fast, without the need to study cumbersome HTML codes and standards. The popular PageMill product allows users to create their Web pages, including graphics, links, headings and forms, simply and easily, using an intuitive graphical display of the page. Most users will appreciate the ability to create and edit WWW pages in the same graphical & text form they will appear on WWW, rather than as HTML code like
"<HEAD> <TITLE> <BODY> <IMG ALIGN = CENTER SRC = "http://whatever" ALT = "FreddyÕs PageÓ > <H2> </H2> <P> <P>". In fact, PageMillÕs consistent interface never forces the user to even see at a single line of HTML code. Want to add a graphic, move or resize it? Simply click on it and drag, the way you would in a graphics program. Another click, and the graphic is opened for editing and other modifications. Type in text, then select it and apply formatting, to created headings, text, or whatever. Adding links is as easy as drag-and-drop. In the background PageMill automatically stores the userÕs intuitive page as the sort of complicated HTML text file demanded for actual posting, but which the user never needs to see.
Once you have created a set of linked pages using PageMill, you may need to change links, the location of graphics, the name of a page, etc. As experienced HTML users know, such changes generally create a huge mess and take hours to straighten out, due to the interlinked nature of HTML pages and the need to ferret out all the affected links from pages of code like that quoted above. And woe unto he who mis-typeth even a single character, for his Web page shall be destroyed utterly, and shall be crushed! And many are the hours he will spend in finding out where the character hideth! However, if you have purchased Adobe SiteMill, you should be able to make changes to your siteÕs links without any trouble at all, and without fiddling with HTML code. SiteMill enables you to update and modify the linked materials on your WWW site in a swift and intuitive way. And it never mis-types even one semicolon.
Perhaps the only regret that WWW users may have currently are that these products only support the fully standardized features of HTML -advanced features such as tables, for example, are not covered, though Adobe promises to add them in future versions. This aside, PageMill and SiteMill are much-needed products.
Adobe PageMill and SiteMill are currently available only for the Macintosh. PageMill sells for $99 at MCSC over-the-counter sales, and SiteMill (which includes the functions of PageMill, as well as the ability to update links) is $145. The MCSC counter can be reached at 432-6621. For more info on PageMill or SiteMill, including screen shots of their operation, peruse the Adobe WWW pages located at:
<http://www.adobe.com/Apps/PageMill/> <http://www.adobe.com/Apps/SiteMill/>