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March 9, 2007
WebEasy 6 Professional From Avanquest
 This very inexpensive Web site solution($49.95) is a pretty good way to get started designing and uploading web pages without the long learning curve found in more extensive and expensive products. The question is, “Is it for you?”
Although WebEasy 6 Pro is available as a download there is no savings if you do that. I suggest the Physical shipment option as the best purchase choice. If you are undecided there is also a try before you buy option where you can download the product for free.
The physical shipment box contains:
• CD ROM
• Printed Manual
• 85,000 clipart, photos, objects, sounds, etc. on CD and online
• Free trial hosting
WebEasy 6 Pro has a very broad range of features. Click here to check out the list. Taken as a whole they could be daunting to the beginner. It is best to start with their tutorials and, after you get comfortable with the layout, move to the “Website Assistant” and the more than 100 available templates. Work within them until you get used to the interface and the location of the more basic functions. After that the sky is the limit as far as how you want to go.
I installed the software on the Lenovo Thinkpad loaner and, As usual, I jumped in without looking at the manual and went directly to the Website Assistant, picked a template, and redefined it. I found I needed to go to the help files frequently in order to find the right locations for the commands I wanted to use. The photo gallery as well as textures and color changes seemed fairly easy to work worth. Resizing photos on screen worked well.
It is really best to resize the photo in some sort of photo software I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0. That way you can resize photos not only to fit on screen but to be web ready by reducing the number of pixels per inch so they will load fast. That keeps site visitors from getting bored by long waits.
This is very easy for a beginner. The template I used is quite nice and comes with the basic pages of Index, Home, About Us, Gallery, and Contact Us, and Links. I easily changed colors, textures, added photos and text. I decided to change the “nature” template to be a travel site using some photos from a recent trip to Kenya with my daughters. Adding thumbnails that link to larger sized photos was the easiest I have ever worked with. I dropped the last two pages and changed the other four to deliver a short idea of the trip. Just an exercise to get a feel of the design work.
I found creating links in this product was not easy for me to grasp. Adding pages seemed hard to do if you wanted to duplicate the design of the current pages. The menus at the top and left side of the workspace were easy to understand. The browser at the bottom is more difficult to grasp.
If you have no experience with web design WebEasy Pro 6 is a good place to start. Using templates will help you get up and published quickly. If you have much experience and want to have more control I suggest you look elsewhere.
Click here to get more details.
Here are screen shots of the simple web site design I created.
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