Download/HomepageIf you're aiming to set up an electronic storefront for your small
business -- and fast -- QuickSite 3.0 hits a bullseye. This popular web authoring toolkit
is packed with essential web-commerce tools that'll organize your entire website and give
you product cataloging, web advertising/promotion, online order-entry, and reporting
features that make sales and site management a snap. While there are templates and
features great for personal web site creation, QuickSite's web-sales and promotion aspects
hone it down to be a lean, mean commerce machine. And if you're looking for the ease of
WYSIWYG editing, QuickSite's got it --just check out the alternatives, such as FrontPage
98, and you'll see that QuickSite offers more management, editing, and development
features at a fraction of the price. And you don't have to be a web guru to use it.
The moment you launch QuickSite, it starts you with the Site Architect. What's an
effective site without good web page organization? The Architect allows you to select from
existing site layout plans, or lay out something custom to suit your needs. Organize web
pages into one or several "projects," or site plans -- and whichever project you
actively select will appear on the Active Project View, a very slick tree-style viewer
that displays page hierarchy and information about each existing page nested in the
project.
To accommodate various user levels and work styles, QuickSite offers two editors: the
WYSIWYG++ Layout Editor (which is like using a paint program) and the HTML Editor for
working directly with code. You can import text and documents from external programs, and
I found it worked beautifully with Office 97 files (I used Word with Internet Assistant
and Excel), plus imports from several other HTML editors. You can select either QuickSite
editor as your default, or work certain files in one, others in the second. Just keep in
mind these editors function independently so, for instance, if you create a page in the
Layout Editor, it'll reopen in that editor in subsequent work sessions.
QuickSite's new Reporting System gives you an at-a-glance view of all your site/page
components, which is a must if your site is growing or often revised. A full project
listing helps you locate resources, with cross-referencing, so you can reuse rather than
re-do page components, such as images; determine creation dates, table cell contents,
orphans, file sizes, HTML sources, number of pages under construction, and overall site
statistics tracked by component-type.
Commerce tools include a Catalog Builder, which allows import of your existing product
database (like from Excel or Visual dBase) plus easy creation of your online catalog and
setup of your electronic ordering system (without complicated CGI scripts or anything).
You can launch a site and be handling web orders in no time, without a huge support staff
-- a real plus for small businesses. The Site Promotion Wizard ensures you get listed with
the top 10 search engines -- just enter the information requested by the Wizard, a few
clicks, and you're done. And why not generate a little income right on your site with
AdStream Rotating Banners? This feature lets you run up to 5 rotating ads in the frame, in
your selected sequence and time.
Resident QuickSite Libraries give you a head-start on page development, with forms,
tables, templates, pages, and graphics there for the using; you can use Add-In Libraries
to bring in and manage externally created web components too.
QuickSite's development support includes URL checker, spell checker, "HyperSite"
FTP uploader, "Dueling Browser" tester for simultaneous Netscape/Explorer
validating (if you have both browsers installed), Cascading Style Sheets,
LiveX/ActiveX/Java support, easy insertion of multimedia, radio buttons, design elements,
and more.
There are so many more neat features of QuickSite, that if you've read this far, just
download the fully functional 30-day trial and see for yourself. Maybe if your sales
volumes were in the multi-millions, or you want super advanced HTML features, you'd want
to look at a higher-end product, but let's be honest. If you're just starting out or
within your first year of online business, you'd be hard pressed to outgrow QuickSite
before you'd long recovered your investment. And I know, I'm not talking much about home
users, and QuickSite is perfectly suitable for personal sites -- but its commerce and site
organization features really make it a Top Pick for the small business. Especially for
this price. Support is offered to registered users, and the resident Help files and
Wizards make QuickSite very pleasant to use. I sure had fun with it.
Return to SharewareJunkies.com
