Build great websites painlessly

Freeway 4 Pro lets you design for the web the same way you layout for your printer

by Gary Clites

Originally published in the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund’s Adviser Update, Fall 2006

Everyone in journalism knows how to design a page in WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get, a computer term meaning that the way you see a document displayed on the screen is the way it will turn out) in programs like In Design and Quark.  You import text and photos, put them where you want them, create headlines and graphics, and when the page is printed, everything comes out pretty much the way you planned.  Designing for the Web has always been more of a mystery.  You had to write pages of HTML code which, once they were loaded onto a server, miraculously produced a Web page.

A new program, Freeway 4 Pro, produced by the British company Softpress Systems, allows Mac users to create exciting websites the same way student journalists build print pages, using drag and drop technology and importing and placing items exactly as they will appear on the Web.  

Other programs have offered WYSIWYG design in the past, but have only been able to build very rudimentary pages.  Freeway 4 allows users to design complex websites with all the visual and technological bells and whistles demanded in a modern site, all without having to learn a line of HTML code.  The program does this by incorporating two of the latest developments in Web creation, CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, which allows you to set up web designs that can be shared across multiple pages; and XHTML, the newest version of Web creation language which guarantees that elements on web pages will display exactly as intended on all computers and across all different Web browsers.

Put simply, Freeway allows you to create master pages for your site with menus, photos, graphics, etc. that will display on every page you choose.  Then, the program allows you to design pages exactly the way you do in desktop publishing.  You import photos, text, graphics, etc. and drag them to the places you want them to display and there they are.  The program writes all the underlying code to make this happen on the Web, and you build your site just as you do print pages, making designing for the Web super user-friendly for those of us trained in digital page design.  

Better, the program offers Action menus which allow you to build the kind of Java-style elements into your pages that set a really cool site apart.  Using simple instructions provided in the manuals, you can build rollover buttons, dynamic menus, and other elements that will make your site look hot.  You can link slave images to any element on the page so that when the cursor passes over one image or piece of text, another appears.  You can add pop-up windows and design your own simple animations using artwork your students have created.

The programs helps you design using the standard set of fonts available on the Web, but allows you to use your whole font palette to create graphic versions of text when appropriate (like when you want to move your print title exactly as it appears on the page onto the web).  It also offers advanced tools that allow you to include tables of information in your site and incorporate simple forms to help you to gather data from visitors.

Image handling is also taken over entirely by the program.  You can prepare images using Photoshop, Illustrator or other common programs, or import them directly from your digital camera.  Once they enter  Freeway, the program reformats them for optimal display on the web and takes care of all the code needed to make sure they display just the way you intend.  The program will even allow you to incorporate digital video into your site.

It also makes managing your website user-friendly.  While you are working on pages, the Site panel on the left of the screen shows your pages in relationship to one another.  Better, the program has it’s own FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client built in, allowing you to upload your pages to the server without having to open another program.  And, since Freeway treats your whole website as a single document of multiple pages, it creates a new paradigm for website management that print designers can easily understand.

Not that the program is without challenges.  Like any new tool, there is a pretty significant learning curve to getting started.  It could easily take a half hour to learn to build a rollover button, for example.  The designers have tried to work with you, however, including a “Getting Started” guided that offers three built-in tutorials to walk the new user through key skills; and the program’s manual is remarkably easy to work with, breaking its components down into clear, well-explained elements.

Unfortunately for Windows users, Freeway 4 Pro is currently a Mac-only program, but many of us in educational journalism use Macs, so good for us.  The program is priced at $279 for the Pro version, with an Express version available for $99.  Express probably wouldn’t be useful for users building a full-service newspaper site and does not include all of the features discussed here.

Many of us have signed onto ASNE’s MyHighSchoolJournalism.org site which allows us to have a Web presence without any of the fuss of actually creating and running a website.  Freeway 4 Pro offers publications the chance to give their students web-management experience while applying the skills they’ve gained in print to the job.  As educators training future journalists to join the profession, it may offer just the right tool for helping our students understand how the Web is being integrated into every facet of modern communications.

© Gary Clites, 2006