HotMetal Pro 5.0 by SoftQuad

HotMetal Pro 5.0 is an integrated tool for web site management and authoring. HotMetal is our editor of choice. As the HTML specification steadily grows, it continues to offers control over complexity.

On the authoring side, it offers a choice of three page editing views: There is a raw HTML view for the experienced user. There is a WYSIWYG view to show pretty much how the page will look in a browser. Then there is a compromise between the two: "Tags On" view showing tags but retaining an overall impression of how the page will appear in the browser. Flipping between the views is instantaneous.

You can also preview the page in the browser of your choice, but this does take a moment. Internet Explorer 4.0 and Netscape Navigator 4.0 Standard Edition are both included on the distribution CD-ROM along with a copy of Ulead PhotoImpact SE, a suite of programs for creating and editing images.

You can tailor the workspace to suit your taste. If you have a big enough monitor, you can have up to sixteen customisable toolbars floating around your screen or you can opt for a more minimalist view. For each page you edit, a small tab appears at the bottom of the screen. This makes it particularly easy to flip between open pages.

There is support for cascading style sheets (CSS), non standard markup and HTML validation at various levels. HotMetal will also advise on whether your page design is helpful to disabled users and give tips on how you can make your site accessible to all. HotMetal itself offers a visual dynamic keyboard supporting alternative pointing devices for users unable to use traditional keyboard and mouse.

Listing a few of the toolbars gives an idea of the scope of the package: tables, frames, forms, macros, special characters, symbols, image mapping and site management.

There is a good range of tools for site management. The FTP publishing facility supports intranets as well as single servers and multiple servers. With a single click, it is possible to publish your entire site or, more usefully, just the pages you have updated. However there is no way to delelete redundant pages on the site, so you still need a separate FTP utility.

There is a rather clever graphical map of your site, showing all your pages and the links between them. Internal, external and broken links appear in different colours. As you explore a large site, no matter how complex, so the map expands to reveal the necessary detail of your spider's web.

The link view concentrates on the links to and from an individual page. The site doctor alerts you to broken links and helps you fix them on the fly or puts the pages in a "pocket" for review later. The site summary table lists all your pages with sortable columns for name, title, links to, links from, number of images, size and estimated download time. We found this table useful for checking the consistency of the titles we had assigned each page.

The asset manager keeps track of everything from your clip art to Java Scripts. You can drag and drop any asset onto your web page. The assets supplied on the distribution CD-ROM are useful, but limited in number. More can be downloaded free from hmfx.com.