Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)WebPlus X2 is an amazingly powerful, if eccentric, site-building program, and an incredible bargain at Amazon's current price.
I've been using it for a few weeks now, and I'm constantly being pleasantly surprised by the ease of use and the depth of the options. The individual features are way too elaborate to address here; one can download a full manual from Serif's site to get a sense of the full scope of the program.
If you're a raw beginner, prepare to put in a lot of work before you can take full advantage of the software. But if you give it time, you'll be rewarded. The combination of the enclosed printed manual and the help files are very well-produced, and don't make any unwarranted assumptions about the skill levels of the user.
About that eccentricity: An important thing to understand about WebPlus is that in many respects it's more like a desktop publishing program than a traditional WYSIWYG web page creation program. You specify a page width and depth, and build within that canvas. It relies on a lot of absolute positioning of graphic elements, which means you need to make a good assumption about the screen resolution and and browser window size your viewers will be using. And there are a lot of type effects inherited from the program's cousin, PagePlus, which result in creation of graphics files that are placed within the page. Attractive, but at the price of compatibility with web standards. (I've been using different incarnations of PagePlus for years, so I started out being familiar with Serif's tools and tactics.)
The skilled web programmers who offered rotten reviews, comparing with the likes of Dreamweaver, are missing the point. Dreamweaver (which I've used) is a muscle program that costs about 10 times what you'd pay for WebPlus. Different products, different markets.
I was surprised and delighted when I opened the package from Amazon and found not just a program CD and a jam-packed resource CD, but also a printed manual and two template packages, one with sample business sites and the other for home and hobby use. Those last three items are a la carte products elsewhere. Also, there's a thriving user forum that offers great tips and quick advice.
This latest incarnation of WebPlus was marketed strongly on the abundance of Smart Objects, which rely on a Serif host server to make response forms, forums, blogs, analytics tools, etc., a drag and drop process, rather than items that require scripting on a full hosting service. Giving credit, these are free with the software, with only modest limits on total data volume (you can buy extra). But in the past few weeks that server has been plagued with large chunks of downtime, which can cause a whole site to hang. The user community has been up in arms, and Serif recently responded that the problems came in their expansion to a bank of multiple servers, and said they believe the worst is over. The service has been stable for several days, but I'd say the jury is still out on whether these tools are reliable in a commercial setting.
Bottom line: If you're starting out with a modest understanding of computers and the web, you should be able to use WebPlus X2 and its templates to produce professional-looking sites rapidly, at invitingly low cost.
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WebPlus X2 makes it quick and painless to produce professional-looking sites featuring interactive forums and blogs, polished animated photo galleries, podcasts and cool YouTube videos, Flash animations, secure password-protected pages, easy e-commerce sites with partners including PayPal, and much more, with handy on-screen help to guide you every step of the way.Whether a novice or a seasoned designer, a hobbyist or commercial manager, WebPlus has something to offer everyone, resulting in amazing websites without the headaches - and without breaking the bank.
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