NetObjects Fusion 7.5
Software Guide

CuteFTP Guide

DriveImage Guide

Easy Recovery Guide

FineReader Guide

NortonGhost Guide

OmniPage Guide

PaperPort Guide

Partition Magic Guide

Partition Manager Guide

Procomm Guide

System Mechanic Guide

VMWare Guide

Create Business Web Sites

Create, manage and update effective sites quickly and efficiently in a WYSIWYG environment.

NetObjects Fusion 7.5 English
NetObjects Fusion 7.5 Deutsch

NetObjects Fusion 7.5
Product description

Building on the advanced features and functionality that Website Pros introduced with NetObjects Fusion 7, the 7.5 release of the award-winning authoring software provides the tools and services that make Web site building easier and more efficient than ever.

NetObjects Fusion 7.5 includes built-in e-commerce solutions for launching an online catalog and shopping cart, enhanced Photo Gallery options for importing and displaying digital images, and integrated Web services for effectively managing and promoting Web sites. By incorporating additional SiteStyles and Photo Gallery frames, a simplified process for inserting HTML or META tags, and a sophisticated new version of the Style view for organizing and managing the SiteStyles library, we've enhanced the process of building and upgrading professional-quality Web sites quickly and easily.

With the 7.5 update, users can expect the same innovative technology and unprecedented ease of use that scored the winning results with NetObjects Fusion 7. Site builders will continue to benefit from WYSIWYG page layouts, pixel-accurate design, sophisticated navigational structures, and e-business tools that help their Web sites work hard for their business.

Integrated E-commerce catalog builder
With a sophisticated new catalog building capability that lets you conduct e-commerce on the Web easily and effectively, NetObjects Fusion 7.5 maintains the legendary ease of use that developers have come to expect from the NetObjects Fusion product line.

With leading e-commerce engines integrated in the application, you can launch your catalog online in minutes, and it will work seamlessly with the look and feel of your NetObjects Fusion Web site. And because the catalog building solutions in NetObjects Fusion 7.5 work independently from the e-commerce store engines, you can easily migrate from one solution to another without having to rebuild your catalogs.

Whether you are selling one product or hundreds, NetObjects Fusion 7.5 offers simplified and robust solutions that provide comprehensive e-business services for any online storefront. The e-commerce functionality includes an extensive number of product SKUs, real-time credit card processing, integration with QuickBooks\'ae, custom e-store reporting, and more. And the open architecture in NetObjects Fusion 7.5 accommodates advanced Web developers who want to build and integrate their own e-commerce shopping cart engine.

With the new e-commerce system, you can manage your sales and inventory from a single location, adjust the images and descriptions for your products with just a few clicks of the mouse, customize the attributes for each of your products, and set up the tax and shipping options for your orders. And to meet the needs of the global e-commerce community, NetObjects Fusion 7.5 supports the addition of international payment processing.

Choose the solution in NetObjects Fusion 7.5 that meets the needs of your online storefront

QuickCommerce
The QuickCommerce shopping cart solution provides the tools you need to meet the ever-changing demands of the online marketplace. This user-friendly solution is perfect for a business that does not require real-time credit card processing. And because there is no scripting or hosting required, setting up your online storefront is as easy as installing any of the other NetObjects Fusion components. Based on the simplified concept of form submission, the QuickCommerce Standard package lets you receive your order information via any e-mailbox for your business. The QuickCommerce Pro option adds even more protection to your online transactions by including a secure e-mail account that safeguards your order information from submission to retrieval.

PayPal
The PayPal shopping cart solution helps you launch an online storefront quickly and easily. You can accept credit card transactions instantly and securely without having to set up a merchant account with a financial institution. With the PayPal storefront, customers can purchase multiple items with a single payment, browse the entire catalog, and view their shopping cart selections before purchasing. This easy-to-implement solution\emdash which does not require any scripting or hosting\emdash provides your customers with the full convenience of online shopping.

Kurant StoreSense
StoreSense'99 from Kurant offers a full range of e-business functionality from an online catalog, shopping cart, and credit card processing to sophisticated merchandising and back-office management tools. Featuring direct integration with QuickBooks, StoreSense lets you manage your online and offline business in a single, efficient system. This full-featured e-store management solution meets the needs of any e-business environment.

Sophisticated SiteStyles library
NetObjects Fusion 7.5 includes more than 60 new SiteStyles and introduces a sophisticated new version of the Style view that makes it easier than ever to build, organize, and manage your SiteStyles library. This enhanced feature lets you store your SiteStyles in multiple locations (such as in local, network, and online locations), and it gives you instant access to the SiteStyles libraries offered by other providers, such as the gotFusion community, FuseDocs, and NOF-Club Deutschland. With this new file structure and storage system, you can build your library with drag-and-drop simplicity and preview, add, or delete SiteStyles from a centralized location.

Enhanced photo gallery functionality
With more options for importing and displaying your digital images online, the enhancements to the Photo Gallery builder in NetObjects Fusion 7.5 are sure to make this tool even more popular. The improved functionality includes new thumbnail and image frames, options for defining the output settings of images, an easy process for publishing new assets, the ability to assign ALT tags to each thumbnail and image, and the ability to save your profile settings for future use. This enhanced version of the Photo Gallery tool gives you all the flexibility you need when you\rquote re building a custom photo gallery for your Web site.

Incremental publishing capability
Because publishing changes to a Web site should be a simple task, we\rquote ve added an incremental publishing feature that expedites the process. When you add new text or images to your Web site, just those changed assets need to be published\emdash not the entire collection of assets for your site. This streamlined process helps you view your Web site changes online quickly and easily.

Powerful meta tag manager
The new Properties palette in NetObjects Fusion 7.5 helps to simplify the process of adding META tags to your Web site. You can apply a set of META tags to every page on your site, select specific pages that will inherit the META tags from parent pages, or assign certain META tags to individual pages.

Robust spell-checking capabilities
To streamline the process of developing accurate and consistent copy for your Web site, the enhanced Spell Check feature in NetObjects Fusion 7.5 provides autocorrect capabilities as you write the copy for your Web site, and it highlights the words in your copy that the program has flagged for checking. In addition, the new version lets you enable or disable the report that summarizes the changes you have made to your Web site.

Interactive online view
To help you easily and effectively build and manage your NetObjects Fusion Web sites, the Online view has been redesigned with four easy-to-navigate sections: Home, Support, Web Tools, and Control Panel.
The Home section includes the basics for getting started, tips and tricks from seasoned NetObjects Fusion users, and details about the services from Website Pros that can help you maximize your presence on the Web.
With the Support section\rquote s access to user guides, tutorials, and links to support professionals throughout the NetObjects Fusion community, it\rquote s the one-stop resource center for NetObjects Fusion.
The Web Tools section is packed with items that can enhance the features and functionality of your NetObjects Fusion projects. You\rquote ll find professional-quality graphics and animations, a sampling of SiteStyles and templates, and a selection of scripts and other leading-edge components that work seamlessly with your NetObjects Fusion software.
The user-friendly Control Panel in NetObjects Fusion 7.5 gives registered users instant access to giveaways, discounts, downloads, and other featured tools and services-such as new templates, SiteStyles, movies, and tutorials. From a centralized location, you can monitor your QuickTools services, register a domain name, manage your hosting account, and check out the monthly specials and resources from Website Pros. And because of its Web-based functionality, the Control Panel can be launched from within your NetObjects Fusion application or from any computer with Internet access.

Customizable Site projects list
With the new Site Projects preferences in NetObjects Fusion 7.5, you can display and arrange your NetObjects Fusion projects according to your critical tasks at hand. You can place the Site Projects list at the top of the Online view, adjust the number of recent sites to display, sort the list in ascending or descending order, lock your high-profile projects to display them permanently, and then remove projects from your list when they are no longer a priority.

Advanced scripting support
To accommodate Web developers who want to integrate PHP or Perl scripts, for example, with their NetObjects Fusion code, we\rquote ve incorporated a new feature that supports variable prefixes and suffixes. Users can avoid any incompatibility with predefined variables by using the new dialog to edit data types when they are creating or pasting scripts within the NetObjects Fusion development environment.

New HTML insertion points
To help users develop and edit Web site content with precision and flexibility, additional HTML insertion points have been incorporated in the latest version of NetObjects Fusion. Users can add HTML syntax or text by selecting any of the three new tabs in the Page HTML dialog: Start of Page (before the HTML tag), End of Page (following the HTML tag), and End of Body (before the BODY tag).

Streamlined autoupdate manager
With the new autoupdate process in NetObjects Fusion 7.5, users can select and install each update immediately, download an update and then install it at a later time, and choose from a number of online sources that function as mirror download sites.

NetObjects Fusion 7.5 Platforms

• Win95 / Win98 / WinME / WinNT / Win2000 / WinXP
• 166 MHz or faster x86-based PC (Pentium/AMD)
• Before installation: 250 MB of available hard disk space; after installation: 60 MB of available hard disk space as virtual memory
• 64 MB RAM minimum; 128 MB RAM recommended

NetObjects Fusion 7.5 includes built-in e-commerce solutions for launching an online catalog and shopping cart, enhanced Photo Gallery options for importing and displaying digital images, and integrated Web services for effectively managing and promoting Web sites.

With the 7.5 update, users can expect the same innovative technology and unprecedented ease of use that scored the winning results with NetObjects Fusion 7. Site builders will continue to benefit from WYSIWYG page layouts, pixel-accurate design, sophisticated navigational structures, and e-business tools that help their Web sites work hard for their business.

(REVIEW By Nigel Whitfield 10-12-2003 VNunet.com)

Pros
Integrated shopping system builds stores rapidly.

Cons
Overly structured design approach may not appeal to everyone.

Verdict
Great for structured sites. The ecommerce options make it amazingly simple to sell online. The rigid approach, however, may put off hardcore web coders and creative minds.

Review
Netobjects Fusion is a long-established website-creation package. The new release, version 7.5, adds some useful features that will be appreciated by both newcomers and experienced users alike.
Compared with, say, Dreamweaver, Fusion takes a different approach to constructing websites. With a traditional web editor, you can pop in your links willy nilly. And while there's some automatic updating if you move pages around, the general outline of the site is up to you.

Fusion has always taken a more structured approach. It's based on a sort of family tree, which is initially set up by a simple wizard, depending on whether you want a personal or business website. You can add or remove pages at will, and drag them around to a different branch of the tree.

Fusion has always created all the buttons and banners you need, based on page titles, automatically. Just pick a style from an extensive gallery, which offers instant downloads from elsewhere on the net, and your site's look and feel changes almost instantly. It's a neat trick that Frontpage now offers too, but not as well, in our opinion. Click to publish or preview and you'll see a site with professional-looking graphics, which can be a boon for anyone who isn't naturally creative.

As well as the improved styles gallery, the new version has a better photo gallery editor that lets you add images to your site easily - though fine-tuning the positioning of individual images is a bit fiddly. Drag an image on one sub page and you'll find you've moved the ones on other pages too.

Nevertheless, it's a quick and easy way to add large numbers of photos and thumbnails to your website. You can also add objects such as Quicktime, Windows Media and Flash to your site easily by drawing a container for them and picking the object to be included. Additional script can also be inserted and it's best to do that in the graphical view. While there is an HTML view of your page, it shows a hierarchical tree that novices will find confusing, and the Netobjects tags, which are part of the automatic page generation, make it hard to see what should go where. It's simple enough to add, for instance, PHP code fragments, but Fusion lacks the full integration with such systems that's offered by Dreamweaver or Go Live. If you want to do a hardcore coding task, you'd be better off with one of those solutions.

For small businesses, Fusion integrates options such as signing up with web hosting, but one of the most important new features is the integration with ecommerce solutions. There have, in the past, been add-ins that allow some shopping carts to be used easily with Fusion, but now there's a choice of four different ones built right in.

To create a shop, just click on the shopping cart icon at the left of the screen and draw a box with the cursor. You're then walked through a choice of systems, including an email forms-based shop, one using Paypal and options with online credit card processing.

When you've chosen your shop and filled in the necessary details for payment, you simply enter product details into a catalogue properties editor, which allows you to add pictures, specify weight and packing information, along with titles, brief and long descriptions. Click done and your shop pages are generated automatically - no programming, no fuss. You'll need to upload them to a server to test them, but setting up a publishing option for a site is simple. It took us just a few minutes to create a simple shop with two products using Paypal for a basket system. Although it's not the slickest look around - a visitor's basket will pop up in a new window from Paypal - it does show how incredibly easy Fusion makes it to sell online. It's one of the easiest ways we've seen this done.

If, like many businesses, your website is fairly well structured, and you want to sell online with minimum effort, and without spending hours creating buttons and banners, Netobjects Fusion will give you a professional-looking, ecommerce-enabled site in a very short time. It is well worth a look.

What do others say about NetObjects Fusion 7.5? Check out the results of these Search engines