I could create more buttons out of any object on my page, and even have different text and styles appear when the site viewer hovers his or her mouse over them. When I based a test site on a theme, the Home button was selected and a tooltip asked me to associate the button with a page in my site. Muse has no themes yet, so CoffeeCup has it beat for now in that way.Īfter choosing a template theme, or not, you can start inserting elements onto your pages. I wish a larger view of the themes was viewable in the program when you're choosing one, however, as you can in Webs Webs also has a larger choice for free. The CoffeeCup designs professional looking and well designed. Those you'll find on the free online site builder are just as well designed, but you can't move parts around and resize them as freely as you can in CoffeeCup. The program includes 10 built-in themes, but you can download more online for $9 apiece. You can, however, overlay a grid on your page design area to help align objects, though you don't get Muse's helpful guides that appear when you move an object into alignment. The CoffeeCup interface also lacks Muse's rulers, something professional designers may miss. You'll also find buttons for adding and removing pages, previewing, and publishing. Along the top you'll find large buttons to customize objects you've added with links, styles, buttons, mouseovers. The left rail offers drawing and text tools, and other objects you can insert on your page, such as Flash elements you've created in other CoffeeCup apps. CoffeeCup also doesn't use the concept of master pages to base more pages on, but it does let you add a duplicate page. The lack of a Plan view, however, means you can't build a tree view of your pages to set up navigation unless you download a separate Site Mapper program. The interface isn't broken down into major steps for planning, designing, previewing, and publishing the way Adobe Muse's is, but it's not a big hindrance to your process. The CoffeeCup app has the look of an earlier XP-style application, but large toolbar buttons across the top and left rail make getting to the functions you need pretty easy. When you first launch the app, you'll see the small Tip of the Day box, in which you can page through future and previous tips, or just dismiss it and get going. The app is only available for Windows Mac and Linux users must look elsewhere (Muse works on all thre platforms). On Windows 7, I had to reinstall the app using recommended OS settings as suggested by an OS dialog, since it was designed for earlier OS versions. You can download a full-feature trial version that expires in 21 days, and after that it's $49. Read on to see if this tried-and-true site builder meets your needs. It also lets you create a truly custom result, unlike what you get with completely template-driven site builders such as Apple iWeb ($49, 4.0 stars), Homestead, or Google Sites. CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer comes from a company that's been doing visual site design for 16 years, and, though the interface looks a bit dated, the CoffeeCup site-building software is easy to use. With the recent release of the Adobe Muse beta visual site designer, we decided to take a look at other WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) options.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |