Website Pros netObjects Fusion 9 review

Building a website can be surprisingly difficult.

There are lots of software packages and online tools that can help you design a quick personal homepage, but if you want something that looks a bit nicer, you'll usually need professional expertise. NetObjects Fusion is an exception to this rule. It allows even a complete novice to build a website and is less than half the price of Macromedia's Dreamweaver.

Getting started couldn't be simpler. The site wizard uses three steps. First you pick a template design for your site and then you select the type of page you need, such as a list of contact details. After this, you simple enter the relevant details and Fusion will create a page for you, leaving you to customise the text and add your own pictures.

Fusion even makes it easy to add a simple online shopping page. To use it you'll need a Paypal.com account, or a subscription to 1and1.co.uk's online shopping service, but once you've set this up, you simply enter your products into a table and type in the prices. It's not really suitable for listing dozens of products, but if you just want to sell a few items using Paypal it's superb.

Unfortunately, all this simplicity comes at a cost. The templates are acceptable, but not great, and it's not a good choice if you want to design your own completely customised website. The sites it produces are built using a method that's slightly old-fashioned, and we found that they included several code errors.

Fusion 9 includes a tool to build banners that uses Macromedia's Flash technology. This works, but in most cases a simple picture would be preferable. Other new features, such as a dropper tool for selecting colours, are useful but not revolutionary. We were hoping that the page design system would have been significantly updated, but it's very similar to older versions.