Internet/Intranet Design Shop Gold

Richard Price

I have always been suspicious of software that comes in large colourful boxes emblazoned with words like ultimate, comprehensive and all-in-one program. Internet/Intranet Design Shop Gold is one such program.

It differentiates itself from the pack by including personal publishing tools for creating greeting cards, calendars, posters, banners and business cards. The box boasts a 'Best of the Best" PC Expo 1998 award.

Installing the programs is fine, if you choose the defaults. Choose another drive, and the programs get dumped into the root directory without warning. It's annoying.

You also need Internet Explorer 3. A warning message suggests you can't access online help with out it. I chose not to install it and could still access online help.

Design Shop lets you set up other browsers for previewing and testing your page, and the CD includes versions of both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

The package also includes MGI Photosuite SE a photo editing program, a GIF animator, an image cataloger, and over 50,000 web-ready images as well as FTP software to upload you finished pages. You also get a CGI script generator that creates PERL scripts for any forms you create.

Design Shop also supports ODBC and SQL drivers, so you could create database driven sites using something like Microsoft Access.

Starting the program is easy enough. Click on File > New and you are given the choice of creating a Web Site, Banner, Poser, Greeting Card Calendar, or Business Card.

Clicking any one of the tabs brings up a selection some of the ugliest graphic thumbnails I have ever seen. There are only 5 unimpressive templates for web pages.

The program comes with a Quick Start guide to get you up and running. The manual is easy enough to understand, but be gentle. Pages are already falling out of mine.

You can start your page from scratch, or import existing pages. I imported a few pages and discovered Design Shop has mind of its own. Tables did not line up as in the original, graphics did not import, and I was unimpressed with Design Shop's failure to interpret basic HTML text tags. Javascript did not display at all.

I imported the Boomerang web site. Their frames did not display correctly and text was all over the place.

Design Shop lets you create web pages with out any HTML code. The code is only created at the end when you "generate" the site. Until then you can't view it except through Design Shop.

There is an option for previewing the HTML code. I am not sure why. It is difficult to read and you cannot change or edit it. To change the code you need to use the Insert HTML feature in Design Shop.

If you are serious about web design, you can't afford to be scared of a bit of HTML. It is hardly rocket science

I found the interface a little on the clumsy side, especially when it came to creating frames. A program like PageMill does it a lot easier.

Design Shop also saves your web site as one file, until you generate the HTML code. A neat trick but only worth having if you are not going to use any other program..

If you need an all-round package that creates business graphics and web pages, Design Shop is worth a look. Unfortunately, you cannot download a demo version from their web site.

I doubt Design Shop Gold has what it takes to make it into the toolbox of the intrepid web designer.

By Richard Price, Editor, EnergyME.com

For information on getting a product reviewed email richard@energyme.com