Adobe
GoLive 5.0, now packed with many powerful enhancements, is an
impressive upgrade. Despite the bevy of new features, this Web-authoring
and site-management tool is still very easy to use. And buying
the upgrade makes a lot of sense when you consider what you
get: 360Code, which protects your code from accidental reformatting;
the new WebDAV tool for workgroup collaboration; and Dynamic
Link, which automatically writes the code for Active Server
Pages. You'll also find enhanced table handling; an on-board
Interactive Editor; support for W3C standards and other emerging
technologies; integration with other Adobe products through
Smart Objects and Smart Links; Photoshop's Save for Web image
optimization, Tracing Image and Layers options; site-management
and planning tools; and the Site Report controller. The price
for the full-featured version is $299. Registered owners of
GoLive 4.0, GoLive (CyberStudio) 3.x and Adobe PageMill, however,
can purchase the upgrade for as little as $95.
Installation
is quick and painless. The setup utility gives you the option
to install GoLive 5.0, as well as Acrobat Reader and QuickTime.
When you select the GoLive 5.0 option, you're prompted to select
the familiar typical, compact or custom installation. The utility
quickly copies all the required files. Upon restarting your
system, you're ready to go.
The toolbar in GoLive 5
Adobe GoLive
5.0 features the familiar, intuitive interface found in the
company's other products. Upon opening the program, you'll find
the Inspector, Objects Palette, and other palettes on the right
side of your screen. The Inspector displays settings and info
for selected objects. The Document window and Site window are
to the left of the Inspector and the palettes. The Document
window gives you several views of the page, including Layout,
Frame, Source, Outline and Preview. The Site window is where
you store your files, images, folders, custom colors, fonts
and server information. Above the Document and Site windows
is a context-sensitive toolbar of settings and options that
changes depending on the object selected. To add components
to the Document window, just drag and drop icons for tables,
Flash and other components from the Object palette where you
want them to appear on your Web page. Once the component is
on the page, you can select it and apply settings using the
Inspector. The program also supports multiple undos, so you
can undo changes at any point in the process. Use the History
palette to undo previously made adjustments. Certain features,
such as floating boxes and QuickTime file editing, let you place
components on timelines for visual effects and animation.
GoLive 5's site files view
shows the local directory on the left, the remote on the right.
Go Interactive
Web-site designers will love the tool's new interactive
Web graphics, visual effects and animation features. I used
the enhanced On-Board Interactive Editor to create a brief interactive
movie for Tech Books' test site; It was a snap. After I imported
a QuickTime file and played the movie until it advanced to where
the next component would be added, I dragged and dropped a Flash
file onto the timeline from the Objects palette's QuickTime
tab. Adding an audio file to the timeline was just as easy.
(You have to be careful, however, not to adjust the blue track
boxes for the audio file in the timeline. If you do, the audio
file will play too slowly or too fast.) I could then take my
creation and easily export it as a streaming movie.
There's
no need to exit GoLive to optimize Web graphics. Photoshop's
Save for Web Optimization options are now an easily accessible
part of GoLive 5.0. You can also import tracing images to pre-layout
your Web pages as well as edit and save the images as Web graphics.
The software's Import Photoshop as HTML option also lets you
add animation by importing a PSD file with each layer you saved
with Photoshop's Save for Web Optimization options. Once imported,
each layer becomes a floating box where you can access the HTML
Timeline Editor to produce interesting visual effects and animations.
Similarly, you can import Photoshop layers and edit them as
individual QuickTime sprites.
Using Smart
Objects and Smart Links, you can now edit Photoshop, LiveMotion,
and Illustrator objects on the fly from within GoLive. This
will save you a lot of time. When I double-clicked on a LiveMotion
file that was added to the Tech Books test site, the program
brought the file automatically to LiveMotion for modifications.
I did have a little trouble, however. At one point, the software
responded with an error message and would not launch one of
my Photoshop files. Adobe tech support was not sure why this
happened.
The Objects palette in GoLive
5
GoLive 5.0
comes loaded with objects that you can add to your Web creations.
It took seconds for me to drag and drop a Modified Date object,
which required no additional modifications, to several pages
of the Tech Books test site. Other additions include URL pop-up
menus, browser switches and rollovers.
It also
took me only a few seconds to add a nicely formatted table to
the Tech Books test site. After I dragged the table icon from
the Objects palette to the Web page Document window, I imported
a text file with tabbed content by selecting the file with the
Inspector's Browse/Select File option. I then quickly applied
a style by selecting the Styles Tab and choosing a look from
the list of predefined styles. GoLive displays a preview of
each style.
The page inspector
One minor,
though annoying, glitch occurred when I tried to apply multiple
styles to a table. If a table has black text and you apply a
style with white text, and then a style with black text, the
text remains white. To make the black text stick, you have to
select the Clear button before applying the new style. You can
modify styles or add your own by clicking on the Capture button
and assigning your style a name. You can also apply settings,
such as vertical or horizontal alignment, to multiple selected
cells and apply the Table Sort command to rows or columns if
you want to list items in alphabetical order.
The HTML view includes pull-down
tabs for viewing tag content.
Go Manage,
Go Code
Site management is greatly improved in version 5.0. Creating
a hierarchy diagram for your site involves a few steps but is
relatively easy. To create a new blank site, you click on the
Designs tab and choose Design menu's New Site Design option.
A new design appears where you can modify its name. To create
the hierarchy, drag index.html from the Files tab to the Design
View window. You can then right-click on the file name to select
New Pages. This brings up a dialogue box where you can enter
the number of pages that you want to name and to which you want
to link settings. You can also add external style sheets for
multiple documents quickly and easily. For live sites, the Site
Report Controller collects and analyzes data for further improvements
on site structure. You can find site files by file characteristic
(file size, download time and date), errors, site objects and
links.
GoLive 5's layout view
Developers
who work with code will appreciate GoLive 5.0's enhanced code
handling. Not only does GoLive protect code from accidental
reformatting with its new 360Code feature, but Adobe has added
more code control and code views overall. For example, you can
now highlight and find certain tags, such as URLs and media
links, at the click of a button while in the HTML Source Editor
view. You can also display tag hierarchy by selecting the HTML
Outline Editor's tab. Here, you can see settings for each tag
on the page. The new Find by Element search tool lets you find
and replace tags. Advanced Web-site developers will appreciate
the Markup tree palette, which lets you view the hierarchical
tree structure and find code-controlling selected text or objects.
These same developers will also applaud the ability to add their
own special tweaks to the software with the Extend Script API
and SDK for third-party developers. The WebDAV tool lets Web
professionals working as a team access a WebDAV server and preview
sites before upload to the server, preventing files from being
accidentally edited at the same time.
Those of
you who don't know code can use the Dynamic Link for ASP feature
to add database content. GoLive generates only Active Server
Pages code, though, so the database will only work on an ASP-compliant
server. Adobe says that future versions may provide other options,
such as JHP or PHP support.
The system
requirements for the Windows version of Adobe GoLive 5.0 are
an Intel Pentium 200 MHz processor running Microsoft Windows
98, Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 4). For Macintosh
systems, you'll need a PowerPC processor running Mac OS software
version 8.6 or 9.0. Both PC and Mac versions require 48 MB of
RAM (64 MB recommended); 50 MB of available hard-disk space;
a color monitor resolution of 1,024 x 768 or greater; and a
CD-ROM drive. The software supports W3C Standards as well as
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), XHTML, DHTML, WebObjects, Scalable
Vector Graphics (SVG), Flash, QuickTime movies and Real Video.
Documentation
and Support
GoLive 5.0's documentation, like that of many other Adobe
products, is outstanding and detailed. The manual includes step-by-step
guides on how to use program options, as well as a handy "Quick
Reference Card." Adobe offers limited complimentary support
for registered users. There's also a pay-as-you-go program.
Free technical information is available by phone and e-mail.
Adobe's Web site provides patches, plug-ins, tutorials and user
forums, and a bunch of other useful resources.
GoLive 5.0's
superb performance enhancements easily stand up to its competition
in the Web-authoring market. The addition of all the advanced
features has not compromised its ease of use one bit.
