Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 51
 Excellent for the pop-web culture January 3, 2009
Mark R. Bannister (London, England)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
If you need to create websites that are as eye-catching as the cover of your favourite pop album, then look no further and buy WebPlus X2! It really does what it says on the packet, it provides a fully-functional and easy-to-use interface and the websites you create with X2 will look professional. While it integrates many of the features that will be familiar to users of other Serif software, those who are not familiar with the way Serif layout and organise their tools may be a little lost and will want to spend many hours playing with the tutorials. The tutorials themselves are generally very helpful, although at times I must admit it took me a while to figure out which icon or button or toolbar they were referring to (more screenshots would be useful). Avoid this product if you are impatient and want to create a website with 3 clicks.
WebPlus X2 creates a class of website that I would term "pop-web". It's a look that is classy and is more than adequate for many needs, but which cries out "production line". While you can mark your websites with your own individuality of course, by selecting graphics and deciding upon layout, one restriction - the width of the web page - is fixed. If you can't fit your design into 800 pixels wide, then you need to look at buying a different product. However, on the flip side, if you want your website to have this look, then there is no better product on the market and you should get out your wallet now because you have found an excellent bargain! This is leagues apart from infant products such as WebSite X5 Evolution.
WebPlus allows you to import existing websites, and while this is generally quite good, be aware that no import can be perfect. For example, X2 has trouble getting table formatting correct, doesn't seem to know what to do with frames, doesn't import anchors and ignores pre-format tags. However, this product has such an array of useful and creative tools for formatting text and graphics, and optimising download speeds, that you probably don't want to import websites that were created by another product, as they will not take advantage of these features.
In conclusion, an excellent product for creating a particular type of website, as long as you are willing to invest the time to learn how to use the tools properly. Superb value for money. The other products in the Serif range are also well worth investigating.
WebPlus X2 no need for anything else October 12, 2008
D. Russell (East Kilbride, Scotland)
38 out of 40 found this review helpful
I run my own part time Web Design company called Urweb. I have always been a Dreamweaver Macromedia (now Adobe) fan due to the ability to build professional looking sites, with very little HTML. However I had many issues with Dreamweaver that I could never get around, so tried a few other programs, netobjects and the likes. However I could never get the results I was after. I decided to give Webplus X2 a chance and after a few hours getting to know my new companion, I must say I am blown away.
Yes it does produce some long winded HTML and yes it is difficult to amend your sites in other programs, but why would you want to use anything else.
This has it all from its own Database manager, to ecommerce, to fancy slideshows, all built in. And whats more if I want my picture in the middle of my website I can do it, no frames no problem. You want to make the picture 3D, there is a button does that too. You can add writing where you want, put in navigation bars, and when you update, add or takeaway a page, the whole site is updated automatically. I have now converted 4 sites to this program, including one which is over 100 pages. The great thing is that for £37, my clients can now update their own.
Dreamweaver is currently around the £1000 mark, Webplus a mere £37, there is no contest here. Well done Serif, now ANYONE really can design their own website. Hopefully not putting me out of business.
Incredibly easy to use, flexible and intuitive. December 3, 2008
L. Hennessy (Twickenham)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I bought this software specifically to create a family website that we can all access, load photos onto and generally keep in touch with each other.
The construction and layout of the pagees really couldn't be any easier - there's no need to learn html for a start, as the software does all the coding for you.
If you have familiarity with Word or other word processing packages, the main pages will look very familiar to you; all it takes is practise... I had a rudimentary and basic site ready in a couple of hours. It still needs some tidying up in terms of presentation, but I'm more than happy with the results so far.
I'm pleasantly suprised :)
Great piece of software for a small business February 13, 2009
Adam S (Derby, UK)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I brought this software with the key point of setting up a web site for my small business.
I have found it to be a really good package that enabled me to get my own website up and running in under 2 days from buying it. I spent a day going through the tutorial disk, the tutorials take you through the whole process and I found them a real asset and kept referring back to them whilst building my site. The templates are a good starting point if you aren't design orientated but its so easy to build your own site from scratch in webplus.
The page interface for webplus is very straight forward and if you have used any kind of DTP and graphics editing software before it won't take you long to get used to it.
I'm not into coding at all and found the WYSWYG system of building a site very user friendly.
I have heard that the coding of the sites built in this can be long winded but have not found this to be an issue with my site at all.
I feel you can achieve a very high standard of website with not to much trouble.
Once you have your site up and running, updating the site is so easy using the publish to web feature you can make really quick and easy updates.
The use of the flash galleries that are supplied can add a real slick look to pictures that you can put on your site.
Any small business that wants to have a web presence but doesn't want to spend loads on getting a web site built I feel you can't go wrong with software and that is why I would strongly recommend it.
My friends were so impressed by my site that I'm building sites for them now!
An excellent package for those who want to make a website but have no idea how! March 29, 2009
Mr Ghostface (United Kingdom)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I think the title of my review sums it up! Professionally, I'm a graphics artist and editor. I'm technically minded, but I've never had a clue about HTML or any of the other jargon associated with the internet. But, I've always wanted to put some of my work online, and this package has been ideal.
If, like me, you need to start right at the beginning, then you probably will like this package. It allows you to create visually stylish pages with a classy look, helped immensely by the nice array of templates provided. I notice one reviewer says you are limited by a maximum page width of 800 pixels, but this isn't true; you can change the width setting on the master page to a higher setting. I needed to do this to display large graphic art, and seeing as my screen is almost 2000 pixels across, a limit of 800 wouldn't have been any good.
I was a little niggled by the registration process. The current insistence on registering your product (yes, I know it helps counter priacy) irks me a bit, and having to phone in this registration felt rather unnecessary. It's free, but as pointed out by others, they will try to sell you a product extension. As the kids from Grange Hill told you, just say no. Or, you can just cope with the registration window reminding you it's there every time you use the software.
The major drawback for me in the actual software, and this I discovered when trying to take a big shortcut and use the template of a very nice artist's website, was that the import function doesn't work very well. You can import simpler pages without much of a problem, but if you try a complex one with frames and lots of complicated HTML features it doesn't seem to be able to cope with them. Nevertheless, this product has sufficient creative features and is easy enough to use that you really are better of just doing it yourself and not borrowing. I ended up starting from scratch, borrowing a few style ideas instead, and have come up with a very nice website for my work.
I might seem to be doing this package a disservice, but trust me when I tell you it's the best web design software I've used. I once leapt into Dreamweaver, custodian of my aforementioned lacking website technical know-how, and gave up after a few days of trying to use it. With this, apart from a few changes and the odd limitation, I didn't have a single problem.
Don't be put off by how complicated some websites might seem, and don't think you can't do as good a job. Sure, there are more complex programmes out there for professional web builders and companies that want the very top end sites, but unless you're one of them, I really think you'll find this software can make you a very nice site. I did, and I had zero knowledge of how to do it before.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 51
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