Adobe has taken GoLive, its Web design and management tool, and improved its integration with other applications, adding a number of useful extras in the process. In addition to the design elements of the program, GoLive 6.0 includes sections devoted to Web site management and maintenance, as well as team collaboration.

The main working area of the program deliberately looks much like other Adobe applications, making it easy to move between them. The main editing windows float on the GoLive worktop, with palettes of functions controlling the tools. Users can now drag and stash palette tabs individually at the edge of the screen.

The key new features of GoLive 6.0 can be divided into three areas. Under the design-and-develop category comes greatly improved table handling, with new editing features--particularly selection--and increased control of HTML code. Adobe has also integrated GoLive more closely with Photoshop, Illustrator, and LiveMotion.

Manage functions govern how several people working on same aspect of a site handle different versions and revisions. The revision list is a good example, as it offers full details of who made certain changes to what, along with the time the changes were entered.

Finally, there's the deploy function, for when you finally launch your site. This feature offers new and improved support for WML authoring, writing for display on WAP devices, XML, QuickTime, and more of the growing family of Web standards.

Overall, GoLive is a worthwhile improvement if you're thinking about upgrading from a previous version. For newbies, make sure you're serious about Web site management, as this is a heavyweight tool. --Simon Williams

NetObjects Fusion 5.0 provides a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSWYG) interface, good for building business Web sites without HTML expertise. A great tool that makes the process quick and easy, NetObjects includes a variety of predefined styles, with graphics for banners, buttons, horizontal lines, and navigation bars. (Unfortunately, as usual with such predefined styles, most are too garish for business use.)

A warning before continuing: in testing this product, it crashed twice, the second crash resulting in a significant loss of data. Most frustrating, the company provided no option for phone support, and the online support was woefully inadequate.

But if you are new to Web publishing, NetObjects Fusion is still a very good tool to get you started. The crashes we encountered came in testing some Javascript features, which can easily be left out of simple Web sites. The program also comes with literature for a whole host of add-in products that make creating your first Web site even easier. If you are an experienced Web developer, you may want to look at Allaire's Homesite 4.0, but for beginners looking for a robust Web authoring tool, NetObjects Fusion is a strong choice for business application. --Rob Frankland

Macromedia's Director 8 Shockwave Studio is a powerful multimedia solution for creating engaging rich-media corporate presentations, e-merchandising applications, and entertainment. Director 8 combines graphics, sound, animation, text, and video to build streaming, multiuser, interactive Web content that is easy to deploy for CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, and the Web. It streamlines the authoring process with centralized, automated functions that make it easier to manage assets, edit complex animations, build graphics on the fly, and create content for low bandwidth. Director 8 Shockwave Studio has a modern, professional authoring environment that enables developers to deliver impressive results. Studio components include:

• Director: integrates, controls, and delivers media created from the studio's content creation tools
• Fireworks: creates graphics in a robust design and production environment
• Sound editor BIAS Peak LE: creates and edits sound for use in Director
• Behavior libraries: quickly and easily creates interactivity in Director
• Shockwave Multiuser Server 2: delivers multiuser experiences and multiplayer games on the Internet

There are two major complaints concerning Linux distributions: the immaturity of the productivity software and the break with the familiar Microsoft Office products (and the files they've produced). SuSE Linux Office Desktop addresses both of these.

First, it includes Sun's commercial quality StarOffice 6.0 office suite, which provides word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, Web-page editing and vector drawing applications along with remarkably complete support for MS Office file formats--which means you can continue to use your existing files. StarOffice's native file formats are all XML based for compatibility with any XML-based applications.

The second string to SuSE Linux Office Desktop's bow is Codeweaver's Crossover Office, which enables you to install and run MS Office under Linux (apart from FrontPage) along with other Windows programs. This is impressively efficient.

To further make migration easy for end users and companies SuSE includes new software assistants that make networking a breeze. Installation on either a clean PC or alongside Windows is simple. On a Windows machine you can resize partitions--including under XP--without losing data.

Internet setup via modem, ISDN, DSL, and LAN is part of the installation process along with establishing network connections, or, as with everything, you can do it at any time using Yast2. KDE 3 is the default desktop, but the Gnome implementation is also excellent.

SuSE Linux Office Desktop isn't quite as polished as Windows, but most PC users could make the swap with little trouble. If you're one of the vast majority of word-processing, Internet-accessing PC users you can do more for less with SuSE Linux Office Desktop than with a basic Windows system. --Steve Patient

LiveMotion 2.0 gives users a broad set of tools to rapidly design and develop interactive Macromedia Flash and QuickTime content for the Web and other delivery platforms. Scripting capabilities include full ActionScript support, combined with both vector and raster tools, allowing users to create dynamic, interactive content such as Web pages, online training applications, presentations, product demos, and more.

LiveMotion provides a solution that simplifies the manual process of developing interactive and animated content. Create Java-based automation scripts that fully control the LiveMotion authoring environment, which allows you to automate repetitive or time-consuming aspects of the design process. Plus, users without coding experience can easily apply automation scripts through Live Tabs. Intuitive, full-featured scripting tools support the development of both automation and player scripts.

Adobe LiveMotion streamlines design and development through tight integration with content and video creation tools, interoperability with third-party Flash authoring tools, and enhancements to the After Effects-based timeline. The object-oriented authoring environment, built with the standard Adobe user interface, provides complete control over creative development from start to finish.

User Manual for Adobe GoLive 6.0 is a powerful application for Web site design, development, and management for novices and professionals alike. The program provides easy-to-use site design tools, site-building tools, editors, and site-management features. It allows you to work seamlessly with other Adobe programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe LiveMotion. You can create rollovers and animations easily and add Macromedia Flash files and QuickTime movies. GoLive has come a long way from its conception as GoLive CyberStudio and has matured with each new version. With GoLive 6.0, we see a sophisticated program, rich in tools, and robust in abilities. It includes new and enhanced features for workgroups, wireless developers, and Photoshop and Illustrator users, and has added interface and wizard improvements that make starting out easier for Web-building neophytes. -- includes Quick reference card for MacOS

Building graphics for a Web site often involves the use of several different tools: one for building vector-based images, one for bitmapped images, and still another for incorporating these images into an HTML document. Macromedia's Fireworks 3.0 is all of these tools--and more--rolled into one.

Fireworks is designed from the ground up to be a Web graphics creation package. It is both a vector drawing tool and a bitmap graphics editor, and the different graphic types easily mix on any layer. All objects, whether shapes or text, are editable at any point of production, offering enormous design flexibility. Fireworks also supports layers for maintaining separate elements, and a history palette which can be used to undo numerous steps or to create replayable actions.

If creating art within Fireworks isn't appealing, or if you are given material from another designer, not to worry. Fireworks imports most popular formats (including layered native Photoshop files) and keeps layers intact. Fireworks also supports TWAIN-compliant scanners, making it easy to import material from the real world.

Most of the palettes and tools are similar to more popular packages, and most of the expected keyboard commands are present. But as one begins to use and explore Fireworks, the Web-specific features emerge. The slices tool is for specifying how an image will be broken down for use in building it in an HTML table matrix. The sweet feature here is that the slices can be exported automatically, and there is an option for generating the HTML code as well that assembles these slices in a table.

The software handles big features--like optimizing the file size of graphics--well. At any stage during creation, Fireworks shows dynamic previews of the original file, as well as how it will look compressed to JPEG format or dithered down to GIF format. A statistics bar at the bottom of the window lists the file size and the probable download time at a given connection speed.

Fireworks is a fast and flexible tool for creating Web graphics, and Macromedia is determined to make it the only Web graphics tool needed by any Web designer. They are certainly on the right track. --Mike Caputo

NetStudio lets business users without an art degree easily create professional-looking Web sites. NetStudio is a picture processor, a Web graphics program that's as easy to use as a word processor. With NetStudio, insert a Web button with one click, customize it with one click, and drop it into your Web site. NetStudio is easy to use, designed specifically for the Web, and integrated with Web page editors.

Animate, develop, manage, and deploy dynamic, interactive sites for the Web and wireless devices with the Adobe GoLive/LiveMotion Pack. Take advantage of LiveMotion 2.0 to create and animate interactive content for use on Web pages, in product demos, and for CD presentations. Use ActionScript to create Macromedia Flash (SWF) animations and streamline workflow with automation scripts. Develop Web sites with GoLive 6.0 software, and easily manage your assets, files, and sites with the integrated Adobe Web Workgroup Server. Built-in phone emulators help you visually create, emulate, and test content for multiple wireless devices, including WML and i-mode phones. Save time by checking code against the latest W3C code standards. With the Adobe GoLive/LiveMotion Pack, you can efficiently create a dynamic Web presence.

Macromedia Flash 5 and Macromedia Generator 2 Developer Edition together offer the complete solution for designing and automating high-impact Web site graphics. Flash is a popular choice for producing high-impact, low-bandwidth Web experiences, and Generator is the data-driven solution for automating Web site graphics. Flash provides a broad range of design, assembly, and animation tools. Within the Flash user interface, Generator authoring extensions offer predefined objects like charts, tickers, tables, and lists--enabling you to design your site easily with data-driven graphics. Generator avoids costly static-content updates that require you to go into the authoring environment, make the updates, and push the pages live. When you modify content in your data source, the new information is reflected in your Flash Web site automatically, which drastically reduces maintenance time. Generator takes content, images, sounds, behaviors, and information that are stored in data sources, and uses variables to update a Web site automatically, and without additional engineering resources. Generator makes updates to your Web page when a user visits the Web site and requests personalized information, and when a change occurs to the database of information that's shown on your Web site. The flexible nature of Generator templates gives you the ability to customize the user's experience without having to recreate your graphics multiple times.