I have
been a user of Softpress flagship product Freeway
Pro since its previous release version 4, now
version 5 is out I was keen to see what
improvements they have made to an already
successful product.
The application still maintains its main features, and its main attraction is that it is a simple drag and drop operation in a desktop publishing environment, this is a big plus for most users because we are all used to that system whether we use Windows or Mac. As before each web project is split into three separate stages, Design Build and Publish. obviously you can use the preset template suggestions, but to possess a copy of this software is a bit wasted, because it is designed for those with a bit of imagination, the beauty of this is that I can purchase from iStock graphics the right images for my intended website and then drag and drop them and position them exactly where they need to go to enhance my web presentation, I can use text in a variety of ways, I can import a variety of files that include video, flash, audio to enhance the look of my website. if you cannot write html or have advanced knowledge there are plenty of resources on the Softpress website that contain snippets of code and actions that can assist you in importing other features that will give you the results you desire.
One point I would like to make and this always impresses me is how the support team are very quick in answering questions, if you cannot find on their website what you are looking for, I spent quite some time updating my knowledge of various topics through the forum and support centre which is excellently presented, this is a big plus when considering to buy a software product.
I must admit I am not the best web designer in the world, but that’s not their fault, but I feel quite comfortable in recommending their product even to a beginner. On that subject you may not realise but they also have an Express version for the user that does not demand the advanced features that a more experienced user needs. However the Express version still contains all the main tools to get a beginner or novice user up and running in no time.
So let me outline what the new features are in Softpress Freeway Pro 5:
New Features:
Google Integration - Adsense / Maps / Analytics
Blogger Templates - Blogger is a free blog hosting service provided by Google. It is well known and respected—but designing a template with your own content can be tricky and time consuming. Freeway’s Blogger Actions makes creating templates for this popular blog platform simple and fast. Within minutes you can have your blog looking just how you want it!
RSS Content - Freeway 5.1 features an RSS Feed Action that can be used to generate valid RSS 2.0 feeds. Also included is a helper Action that allows you to create a link in the browser address bar to one of your feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) helps keep your site visitors up to date with your news and other site content using a news reader. These Actions help you build and maintain an RSS feed for your site without the need to use a separate application or to hand code the necessary XML from scratch.
iPhoto Importing - Import your iPhoto albums directly into Freeway
Scriptaculous Actions - Freeway 5 Pro includes Actions which use the Scriptaculous JavaScript library to create JavaScript effects.
These Actions allow you to apply effects Blind Up and Down, Slide Up and Down, Fade In and Fade Out, Pulsate, Shake and Highlight to items on your page. You can set these effects to run when the page loads or when triggered by clicking or rolling over the item the Action is applied to.
REAL CSS CONTROL
Freeway 5 Pro can be used to create CSS (table-less) page layouts using absolute positioning, and exposes the real power of CSS through relative positioning, percentage scaling of all elements, partial styles, and more, and all with the legendary Freeway WYSIWYG design view.
HTML Box Background Effects
Freeway 5 can apply background effects to HTML items. This allows you to set graphic effects on HTML items that are similar to those that can be applied to graphic items (see Graphic Effects.) You can use this feature to create HTML boxes with translucent backgrounds, borders, glows, and shadows.
Sliced Background Images
Freeway 5 has an option for slicing background images so that they can be used to apply a border or effect to an HTML item. This allows you to create HTML boxes with decorative borders, or shadows, or translucent backgrounds etc.
To create a sliced background image, you will normally want to use an image that has a framed border and a uniform central area, which may be transparent or semi-transparent. Freeway 5 also provides customizable background effects which will automatically generate a sliced background image.
Graphic Box Effects
Freeway 5 adds two new graphic effects (Inner Shadow and Inner Glow), and has an improved interface for applying effects to graphic items. This is similar to the interface for applying background effects to HTML items.
There are five effects to choose from: Outer Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Inner Glow, and Foreground.
EDITABLE GRAPHIC TEXT
Use any font installed on your Mac to create graphic headlines or other decorative elements. All of the effects above can be applied to the text—even on a character by character basis. Use advanced kerning, tracking, baseline shift, and more to refine your typographical message. Use any color or combination of colors you like. When you publish, a graphic will be created out of the text. The text remains editable within Freeway.
TRANSPARENCY
Freeway 5 takes the idea of a fully transparent graphic compositing engine to the next level. Any object on the page, even characters of type, can have transparency or variable opacity.
When you overlap two transparent objects, Freeway will either composite them together, or maintain them as separate layered objects in the final layout. Anti-aliasing to blend overlapping colors is automatically calculated.
Freeway 5 Pro supports transparent images from Photoshop, Illustrator and Freehand, Fireworks, and many other applications.
Internet Explorer Compatibility
Microsoft Internet Explorer is the most commonly used browser on Windows computers, but it has a number of limitations in its support for web standards. Freeway 5 provides three levels of Internet Explorer compatibility. Internet Explorer 7 has greatly improved support for web standards in comparison with Internet Explorer 6, which is used by a shrinking number of people.
NEW INTERFACE
Carefully designed to make it easier to focus on your design, while
keeping everything you need close at hand. The redesigned Inspector dynamically resizes itself to present just the tools you need for the current selection. The Site panel makes it easy to create pages or folders, and to
organize your site quickly. It even supports Finder like colour
labelling to help you flag pages for action or to signify functionality.
The configurable toolbar allows you to personalize Freeway to your
own working style. Contextual pop-up menus come to life with a Control-click (or right click on a multi-button mouse) and present the most-used options
for the current selection. Scroll wheel support allows you to blaze through large documents. Dynamic Site Panel allows site arrangement, drag & drop, object selection and more. Page Preview using the same rendering engine as Apple Safari check a page in a genuine browser view without publishing your
entire site
As you can see there are quite a few new features, believe or not there are
still more that I haven’t mentioned, you will be able to discover the others by
clicking the links to their website. However not to be side-tracked are the
many features that have been the key ingredients to make this application a
worldwide success, here are some of them :
MULTIPLE MASTER PAGES
Designing a Web site using master pages is one of the keys to the amazing level of productivity that can be achieved with Freeway. Master pages are used for repeating features such as layout, navigation bars, page backgrounds and graphic elements. Use as many different master pages as required
LAYOUT TOOLS
Including transformation, zoom, guide and ruler features, all with both graphical and numeric controls for accurate positioning. Content can be placed in overlapping boxes, text on graphic, text on text, graphic on graphic, even text on animated GIFs! Drag and drop directly into Freeway from most applications (for example iPhoto, iTunes, Extensis Portfolio, iView Media Pro, and so on).
LINK MAP
Provides a complete overview of the hyperlinks that connect each page in a site. Hyperlinks made within the site are automatically tracked and are impossible to break accidentally. Although not reflected in the Link Map, Freeway also allows you to edit the hyperlinks and change backgrounds in Flash movies directly in the layout.
LINK STYLES
Freeway 5 has an improved user interface for setting link styles, and Freeway 5 Pro allows you to set link styles on CSS items as well as pages.
Select a page or CSS item Change to the Appearance pane of the Inspector palette. In the Links section, choose link colors from the color popup menus and/or select the underline state you would like.
In Conclusion
Softpress Freeway Pro 5 is a web application with its emphasis on design and simplicity it is packed with features that will not only attract the experienced user but also has made it possible for desktop publishers to design websites to.
Freeway Pro 5 has many advanced features, although it still has disappointments; the lack of multiple levels of undo, and the inability to apply Actions or formatting features to more than one item at a time is still yet to be included. I am sure though these issues will be addressed in the next release. A big plus is that with the purchased application you have a full support package which includes a continous updated support centre on the Softpress website that will answer your questions, a forum that provides experienced users the opportunity of helping others and a resource section that provides templates, code snippets and actions that can be installed into the application.
We urge you to give it a try we did that with the version 4 review, if you didn’t do it then, be sure to try version 5 which is bigger and better, you can download a free trial and see for yourself.
The application still maintains its main features, and its main attraction is that it is a simple drag and drop operation in a desktop publishing environment, this is a big plus for most users because we are all used to that system whether we use Windows or Mac. As before each web project is split into three separate stages, Design Build and Publish. obviously you can use the preset template suggestions, but to possess a copy of this software is a bit wasted, because it is designed for those with a bit of imagination, the beauty of this is that I can purchase from iStock graphics the right images for my intended website and then drag and drop them and position them exactly where they need to go to enhance my web presentation, I can use text in a variety of ways, I can import a variety of files that include video, flash, audio to enhance the look of my website. if you cannot write html or have advanced knowledge there are plenty of resources on the Softpress website that contain snippets of code and actions that can assist you in importing other features that will give you the results you desire.
One point I would like to make and this always impresses me is how the support team are very quick in answering questions, if you cannot find on their website what you are looking for, I spent quite some time updating my knowledge of various topics through the forum and support centre which is excellently presented, this is a big plus when considering to buy a software product.
I must admit I am not the best web designer in the world, but that’s not their fault, but I feel quite comfortable in recommending their product even to a beginner. On that subject you may not realise but they also have an Express version for the user that does not demand the advanced features that a more experienced user needs. However the Express version still contains all the main tools to get a beginner or novice user up and running in no time.
So let me outline what the new features are in Softpress Freeway Pro 5:
New Features:
Google Integration - Adsense / Maps / Analytics
Blogger Templates - Blogger is a free blog hosting service provided by Google. It is well known and respected—but designing a template with your own content can be tricky and time consuming. Freeway’s Blogger Actions makes creating templates for this popular blog platform simple and fast. Within minutes you can have your blog looking just how you want it!
RSS Content - Freeway 5.1 features an RSS Feed Action that can be used to generate valid RSS 2.0 feeds. Also included is a helper Action that allows you to create a link in the browser address bar to one of your feeds.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) helps keep your site visitors up to date with your news and other site content using a news reader. These Actions help you build and maintain an RSS feed for your site without the need to use a separate application or to hand code the necessary XML from scratch.
iPhoto Importing - Import your iPhoto albums directly into Freeway
Scriptaculous Actions - Freeway 5 Pro includes Actions which use the Scriptaculous JavaScript library to create JavaScript effects.
These Actions allow you to apply effects Blind Up and Down, Slide Up and Down, Fade In and Fade Out, Pulsate, Shake and Highlight to items on your page. You can set these effects to run when the page loads or when triggered by clicking or rolling over the item the Action is applied to.
REAL CSS CONTROL
Freeway 5 Pro can be used to create CSS (table-less) page layouts using absolute positioning, and exposes the real power of CSS through relative positioning, percentage scaling of all elements, partial styles, and more, and all with the legendary Freeway WYSIWYG design view.
HTML Box Background Effects
Freeway 5 can apply background effects to HTML items. This allows you to set graphic effects on HTML items that are similar to those that can be applied to graphic items (see Graphic Effects.) You can use this feature to create HTML boxes with translucent backgrounds, borders, glows, and shadows.
Sliced Background Images
Freeway 5 has an option for slicing background images so that they can be used to apply a border or effect to an HTML item. This allows you to create HTML boxes with decorative borders, or shadows, or translucent backgrounds etc.
To create a sliced background image, you will normally want to use an image that has a framed border and a uniform central area, which may be transparent or semi-transparent. Freeway 5 also provides customizable background effects which will automatically generate a sliced background image.
Graphic Box Effects
Freeway 5 adds two new graphic effects (Inner Shadow and Inner Glow), and has an improved interface for applying effects to graphic items. This is similar to the interface for applying background effects to HTML items.
There are five effects to choose from: Outer Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Inner Glow, and Foreground.
EDITABLE GRAPHIC TEXT
Use any font installed on your Mac to create graphic headlines or other decorative elements. All of the effects above can be applied to the text—even on a character by character basis. Use advanced kerning, tracking, baseline shift, and more to refine your typographical message. Use any color or combination of colors you like. When you publish, a graphic will be created out of the text. The text remains editable within Freeway.
TRANSPARENCY
Freeway 5 takes the idea of a fully transparent graphic compositing engine to the next level. Any object on the page, even characters of type, can have transparency or variable opacity.
When you overlap two transparent objects, Freeway will either composite them together, or maintain them as separate layered objects in the final layout. Anti-aliasing to blend overlapping colors is automatically calculated.
Freeway 5 Pro supports transparent images from Photoshop, Illustrator and Freehand, Fireworks, and many other applications.
Internet Explorer Compatibility
Microsoft Internet Explorer is the most commonly used browser on Windows computers, but it has a number of limitations in its support for web standards. Freeway 5 provides three levels of Internet Explorer compatibility. Internet Explorer 7 has greatly improved support for web standards in comparison with Internet Explorer 6, which is used by a shrinking number of people.
NEW INTERFACE
Carefully designed to make it easier to focus on your design, while
keeping everything you need close at hand. The redesigned Inspector dynamically resizes itself to present just the tools you need for the current selection. The Site panel makes it easy to create pages or folders, and to
organize your site quickly. It even supports Finder like colour
labelling to help you flag pages for action or to signify functionality.
The configurable toolbar allows you to personalize Freeway to your
own working style. Contextual pop-up menus come to life with a Control-click (or right click on a multi-button mouse) and present the most-used options
for the current selection. Scroll wheel support allows you to blaze through large documents. Dynamic Site Panel allows site arrangement, drag & drop, object selection and more. Page Preview using the same rendering engine as Apple Safari check a page in a genuine browser view without publishing your
entire site
As you can see there are quite a few new features, believe or not there are
still more that I haven’t mentioned, you will be able to discover the others by
clicking the links to their website. However not to be side-tracked are the
many features that have been the key ingredients to make this application a
worldwide success, here are some of them :
MULTIPLE MASTER PAGES
Designing a Web site using master pages is one of the keys to the amazing level of productivity that can be achieved with Freeway. Master pages are used for repeating features such as layout, navigation bars, page backgrounds and graphic elements. Use as many different master pages as required
LAYOUT TOOLS
Including transformation, zoom, guide and ruler features, all with both graphical and numeric controls for accurate positioning. Content can be placed in overlapping boxes, text on graphic, text on text, graphic on graphic, even text on animated GIFs! Drag and drop directly into Freeway from most applications (for example iPhoto, iTunes, Extensis Portfolio, iView Media Pro, and so on).
LINK MAP
Provides a complete overview of the hyperlinks that connect each page in a site. Hyperlinks made within the site are automatically tracked and are impossible to break accidentally. Although not reflected in the Link Map, Freeway also allows you to edit the hyperlinks and change backgrounds in Flash movies directly in the layout.
LINK STYLES
Freeway 5 has an improved user interface for setting link styles, and Freeway 5 Pro allows you to set link styles on CSS items as well as pages.
Select a page or CSS item Change to the Appearance pane of the Inspector palette. In the Links section, choose link colors from the color popup menus and/or select the underline state you would like.
In Conclusion
Softpress Freeway Pro 5 is a web application with its emphasis on design and simplicity it is packed with features that will not only attract the experienced user but also has made it possible for desktop publishers to design websites to.
Freeway Pro 5 has many advanced features, although it still has disappointments; the lack of multiple levels of undo, and the inability to apply Actions or formatting features to more than one item at a time is still yet to be included. I am sure though these issues will be addressed in the next release. A big plus is that with the purchased application you have a full support package which includes a continous updated support centre on the Softpress website that will answer your questions, a forum that provides experienced users the opportunity of helping others and a resource section that provides templates, code snippets and actions that can be installed into the application.
We urge you to give it a try we did that with the version 4 review, if you didn’t do it then, be sure to try version 5 which is bigger and better, you can download a free trial and see for yourself.
Softpress Freeway Pro 5 Review For Mac