Web Page Authoring Tools: Comparison and Trends. PUB DATE 1996-00-00 NOTE 7P.; In: Online Information 96
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 411 867 IR 056 694 AUTHOR Craney, Linda TITLE Web Page Authoring Tools: Comparison and Trends. PUB DATE 1996-00-00 NOTE 7p.; In: Online Information 96. Proceedings of the International Online Information Meeting (20th, Olympia 2, London, England, United Kingdom, December 3-5, 1996); see IR 056 631. PUB TYPE Reports Evaluative (142) Speeches/Meeting Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Authoring Aids (Programming); Computer Software; Computer Software Evaluation; *Computer Software Reviews; Corporations; Foreign Countries; Information Dissemination; *Online Systems; Programming Languages; User Friendly Interface; *World Wide Web IDENTIFIERS Home Pages; *HTML; United Kingdom ABSTRACT Initially available from universities and individual enthusiasts, software tools to author World Wide Web pages are maturing into very feature-rich applications and are now offered by large corporations. These applications are enabling more companies to create and maintain pages themselves on the Web or on corporate Intranets. The market continues to grow quickly as the Web matures. Looking at trends evolving amongst the products may assist purchasers to choose tools that fit their environment. This paper reviews five authoring tools that have received a great deal of media attention, awards, and endorsements. The manufacturers of these products have remained current with new HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) tag extensions and seem committed to continuing product development. The paper provides individual product reviews for: Hotdog Professional from Sausage Software; HoTMetal PRO from SoftQuad; PageMill from Adobe; FrontPage from Microsoft; and Navigator Gold from Netscape. The main trend evolving throughout HTML editors is that they are becoming WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get), which hides the HTML tags from the user. Other trends include: increasing value of the authoring software, with dropping prices and increased functionality; incorporation of programming functions; site management tools; similar basic look and functionality; context sensitive controls; larger and more memory consuming applications; and more applications are being developed for the PC platform. (SWC) ******************************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ******************************************************************************** U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Web page authoring tools: Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. comparison and trends Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS official OERI position or policy. MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Linda Craney B.P. Jeapes Prometheus, UK TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." Abstract: Software tools to author World Wide Web pages have evolved rapidly over the past year. Initially available from universities and individual enthusiasts, they are maturing into very feature rich applications and are now offered by large corporations. These applications are enabling more companies to create and maintain pages themselves on the Web or on corporate Intranets. The market continues to grow quickly as the Web matures. Looking at trends evolving amongst the products may assist purchasers to choose tools that fit their environment. Keywords: HTML editors, Web authoring tools 1.Introduction World Wide Web pages are composed in a language called Hypertext Markup Language or HTML. Actually, HTML is not a programming language at all. It consists of codes or tags which are placed in an ASCII text file. Software applications called browsers request these files from computers on the Web known as Web servers. The browser displays these text files as formatted Web pages according to HTML tags it reads. Tags instruct the browser how to highlight or align text, where to insert graphics, etc. For example, words to be displayed in bold lettering would be written in an HTML file as such: <B>some important words</B> As the browser reads the <B> tag, it displays text in bold lettering until it reaches the closing tag </B>. The words would be displayed on a Web page like this: some important words Using standard ASCII text files enables the World Wide Web to support a heterogeneous population of computer platforms. Because the format is not proprietary to one type of computer, both Web servers hosting these HTML files and user computers, or clients, requesting Web pages may be Unix workstations, PCs, Macintoshes, etc. A browser such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Explorer adjusts the display for a Web page according to the type of computer and screen resolution on which it is running. Web sites have been increasing at an exponential rate since 1993. A fast growing percentage of sites were published by companies during 1995. A survey by Matthew Gray at MIT shows that 18% of sites on the Web were commercial ones in December 1994. By January 1996, this percentage increased to 50%.1 As companies used the Web to market their products and sell online services, the emphasis on Web page design and functionality increased. Netscape introduced HTML tag extensions to the HTML standard. Microsoft also intro- duced a browser and its own HTML tag extensions. Text editors such as Notepad or Simple Text were among the few alternatives available for creating HTML files until 1995. Web page authoring tools or HTML editors began to appear from universities and individual enthu- siasts. Copies were initially available to download for no charge. They looked and worked like simple word processors. Instead of typing HTML tags such as <B> into a text file, writers could select a tag by clicking on a button from a toolbar. Initial benefits from early HTML editors were that they provided basic editing functions and writers no longer had to refer to growing lists of tags. Throughout 1995, these HTML editing tools grew in number and functionality. The market began to attract large corporations including Microsoft and Adobe. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get') interfaces appeared. Graphics editors began to be included into the applications. As Web sites grew in size and complexity, site management tools were also developed to assist authors in tracking page links and images. It is difficult to estimate the number of applications available for authoring Web pages. A search in Yahoo yields 120 matches. This paper reviews five authoring tools that have received a great deal of media attention, awards and endorsements over the past year. Moreover, these products have remained current with new HTML tag extensions and their manufacturers seem committed to continuing product development. BEST COPY AVAILABLE Online Information 96 Proceedings Page 447 This paper identifies and discusses trends that are evolving in the development of these authoring tools. It then reviews each of the tools and producing companies individually. Because the Web is evolving so rapidly these products are also being frequently upgraded. It would be misleading to provide a feature-by-feature comparison in a paper five months before publication. Some of these products have new releases pending in the next few months. Instead, this paper focuses on the products' overall design, ease of use and market position. (Note A table comparing individual features and example screen shots will be prepared from current software versions available in November and distributed at the conference.) 2.Authoring tools reviewed Five software packages were reviewed here: Hotdog Professional from Sausage Software; HoTMetaL PRO from Soft Quad; Page Mill from Adobe; Front Page from Microsoft; Navigator Gold from Netscape. 3.Trends The main trend evolving throughout HTML editors is that they are becoming WYSIWYG. This style hides the HTML tags from a user. Page layout is simulated to look like it was displayed by a browser. Users typically find this an easier way to author Web pages, although experienced authors often prefer working with text based HTML files. Hotdog is the only software reviewed that is not WYSIWYG. HoTMetaL continues to display files in a text based HTML format in its latest version. However, it incorporates some WYSIWYG features. Text is shown to reflect font size and styles and images are displayed. Their value is increasing. Prices are dropping and more functionality is being added for little, or no price increases. Most dramatically, Front Page price dropped from £463 2 in December 1995 to £99 and £73 for Office 95 users in June 1996 when it was released by Microsoft. This offer is available until March 1997. Overall these editors range in price from £53 to £106. Navigator Gold can be purchased for the least amount of £53 which includes the popular Navigator browser. However, the price increases up to £66 if someone also purchases a handbook and £33 more for a year's subscription to upgrades. Page Mill and Hotdog cost £66. HoTMetaL version 3.0 costs £106, up from £99 for version 2.0. Increased functionality in the products includes easy colour selection and image manipulation. Until recently, working with images was cumbersome. Different tools or software applications were required to make backgrounds transparent or change the image format