Site Writer Pro is colorful editor to say the least, and it wins the prize for the most floating palettes. In fact, there are so many palettes in Site Writer Pro that it has a palette for the palettes. Needless to say, the palettes contain the vast majority of the functionality of the editor.
Based in HyperCard 2.2, this editor takes up most of a 14" monitor's screen. Consequently, if you have anything less than this, then Site Writer is not for you. Once up an running, it is good idea to set your preferences right away so Site Writer knows how to operate. Otherwise some of the functions won't work as expected, notably the "Test" (preview) function.
Like HTML.edit, Site Writer Pro is really a database of pages. So you first begin by creating a new document in the database. You are taken to the new document and the screen is divided into three sections: head, body, footer. Using the Edit menu's "Add All HTML Tags..." menu, you can insert the necessary tags for a valid HTML document. One unique feature of Site Writer Pro is its ability to insert background graphics and colors a la the Netscape browser. Unfortunately, the selection of colors is not done graphically and consequently you have to insert the hexadecimal color values by hand.
The next step is to begin entering your text and marking it up. Entering your text is straight-forward. Marking up your text can be done from a menu or through a one of the numerous palettes. This brings up another unique feature of this editor. Site Writer Pro has tried to anticipate the implementation of HTML 3.0 with the inclusion of may advanced HTML codes like complex headings and paragraphs, mail handler tags, subscripts and superscripts, etc. Furthermore, WWW-browser specific tags (like Netscape's BLINK) are denoted in the menus with special symbols. Site Writer Pro also supports numerous header and footers for your documents.
Site Writer Pro represents a lot of effort. It has made good use of its development platform. On the other hand, because of all the colorizing of the stack, this editor is not any speed demon. The interface takes a bit of getting used to, and while the palettes are nice, they are rather large and seem to get in the way more than anything else.
Eric last edited this page on September 26, 1995. Please feel free to send comments.