Synthasite Review -

[Barty]

A good friend has written a review of a new online web design solution called synthsite. the review is available in full with screenshots at:

Synthasite Review@E-fuze.com

Synthasite is a great new web 2.0 collaborative web development platform that allows users without programming experience to easily create attractive, professional and efficient websites. The GUI is good, simple and resembles that of Microsoft products, which is good because it?s simple. However, you cannot add items to the toolbar nor move buttons around. Using Synthasite, you can tell right off the bat it?s simple yet effective. However, there were some things I didn?t like about it which I discuss throughout the review.

Using it

Starting off, you are introduced to a simple wizard giving you the option of starting from scratch with code or with an existing preconfigured template.

Existing Templates

Synthasite offers 11 preconfigured templates seen blow.

After selecting the template you want to use, you then choose a template color. Each template is preconfigured with certain colors and it doesn?t appear you can change them.

Once you set the color, you can then choose which pages to include in the website. Pages available vary depending on the purpose of the website (corporate, etc). In my example, I?m using Shopping so About Us, Catalog, Contact, Index, Review and Search pages are available.

Once you finish, you can:

- Edit your web page layout and navigation

- Create new pages

- Select products

- Add pictures and text

- And use many more powerful features

Once clicking finished, you are presenting with your workspace. The main editing view looks good. You can easily switch between pages at the top and easily modify CSS styles on the right pane. You can also add various elements from the Toolbox, including form elements, images, tables, flash and more. In addition, you can easily add RSS feeds, setup you?re Google AdSense and it?s also configured with Yahoo! Services including Yahoo! Personals, and Yahoo! Product Review.

(please click for a larger view)

Adding content is extremely simple. You simply choose from the list what you want to add and drag it where you want the object to display. Once you drag it, you get a few options so you can set exactly where you want the object to appear.

Menus are simple to add, and most look great. You can add vertical, horizontal and tree menus. I won?t go into a lot of detail about the styles, but here is one horizontal (two levels) menu which I think is the best one in terms of looks:

Now, one thing I don?t really like is the style of the RSS. It?s just way too big and doesn?t use space efficiently and looks unattractive. Despite the fact you can edit the width, you cannot edit the height. However, I?m pretty sure you can go into the core code and change the style around. However, it does not appear you can edit the core source code or save it.

Advantages/Disadvantages

Disadvantages

- Can?t fully customize template color

- Can?t download source

- Can?t save locally

- Not enough variety in widgets

- Not enough templates

- Not much differentiation for the user

- Unattractive RSS widget

Advantages

- Familiar GUI

- API integration. For example, you can make your site use Yahoo! services with the new Yahoo! BBAuth

- Simple Google AdSense integration

- Good Google Sitemap integration (you can specify which pages update most often, which are important thereby better crawling efficiency)

- Preconfigured widgets

- Easily add keywords to pages (useful for search engines)

- Saves online

- Collaborative working

- No programming knowledge needed

[Virtunate]

Ths looks cool. I've been trying to find something like this for a church website I've been working on. I'm into all the PHP and stuff like that yet, so once they reopen beta testing this could be good to try out.

[jugaaru]

The link doesn't work.