Netscape's Composer - Simple & Free

When building my first website I personally found typing in HTML very cumbersome & time-consuming. Tables are my favourite means of organizing information on a webpage. However, when entering information in a table I expect a table to; well, look like a table, not a line of code. Chalk it up to my word processing background, but I like things to be visually presented to me. So began my search for a graphical web page editor. My search led me to all the commercial products that ranged in price from $49.95 US to $299.00 US. I was unwilling to shell out a lot of money for these software packages on my first website.

Fortunately, a friend introduced me to Composer, a free web page editor that is bundled with the Netscape Browser. The first thing I noticed about Composer was its simple layout. Within minutes I had created a table, added links, images, & I still had the option of editing within HTML. Inserting a table couldn't be more simple. Simply click on the table icon on the menu bar & select the number of rows, columns, table alignment, caption, & even a color for the table cells. Composer offers several options for formatting including all six heading levels, various paragraph & list settings, & page colours. Unfortunately, forms cannot be created graphically in Composer.

The three problems I found with Composer are:

First, the publish feature will not support sub-directories. Files must be kept in a single directory. Second, Composer is limited to the size of HTML file it will edit. Several times, I tried to call up a file that was over 500 KB & Composer 'crashed' each time. Third, attempting to edit a webpage that had frames became very tricky because Composer does not always read the frame & may give the error message that the browser does not support frames. I don't recommend creating a framed site using Composer.

Providing a user's website consists of tables, text, images, & links, the site will be readable in all the popular browsers including Netscape, Explorer, Opera, & NeoPlanet. I have personally 'tested' my site in some of the lesser known browsers & it was readable. A user who wants to build a framed, graphically interactive site you may want to check into some of the commercial applications available, such as Microsoft's Frontpage, Adobe GoLive, or Macromedia's Dreamweaver. Please note that these programs have not been reviewed by this contributing editor.

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