I saw a short demo of HiTMeLive
at the last Internet show in Sydney. The sales person who was
demonstrating apologised for a few 'Beta' hiccups, but its
novel side by side, HTML text and Internet Explorer Browser
views, made a further investigation in order. That and the
fact that it was an Australian produced program, keen to
position itself against the successful of HotDog. I requested
a review copy which arrived promptly, and there was a
follow-up call from the marketing department a few days later
asking how I liked it and did I need further information.
From the attractive logo and package design and the
professional sales support I was looking forward to testing
it.
Now it's hard for me to get excited again over an HTML
editor. I've tried and used a lot of them over the last two
years, and when the programs like FrontPage came out, when I
only had to resort to editing tags because the program tried
to be too clever, it was a relief. I'm grateful for having
learnt the basics the hard way but I couldn't recommend it as
a path for beginners to follow.
So, I found it hard to get around to this review. It wasn't
until I had to do some changes on a commercial site that I'd
done in FrontPage and needed to transfer over to another
server without the FrontPage extensions, that instead of
firing up HotDog 32, I loaded HiTMeLive.
Opening the attractive box revealed the usual excessive
padding, a plastic bag with the CD-ROM, a piece of paper
pointing out that after using the program you'll need to
change all the backslash DOS like tags to forward ones if you
want the site to work, a 90 day warranty (with a nonsensical
message), and a registration card.
It started to go downhill from there. The installation
program almost tricked me by switching the usual next message
that after a few screens switched positions with a cancel
button, but I already had IE3 installed so it went quickly.
Tearing open the label that sealed the plastic bag I hadn't
noticed that in small type it had the Serial number I needed
to install the program but luckily it wasn't shredded
totally.
I didn't look for long at the Help files, I nosed around the
CD and opened a few pages that looked more confusing than
helpful so I started straight in to edit my pages. Or I would
have if the program had let me. After searching the Help,
looking again at the tutorial and wasting too much time, I
realised that you can't edit pages unless you have created a
'site' in HiTMeLive first. The program is apparently oriented
not as an editor but as a simple way to create a site of
linked pages, looking after the housekeeping of Images, HTML
and Private folders. I went back to HotDog and finished the
job, resolving to look at HiTMeLive later.
It's later, and I'm writing this
review in the program's text window. It has basic drag and
drop word processing and all the formatting shows up in the
browser window. I quickly inserted a picture, changed Font
size and began to type. Unfortunately there's a considerable
delay as the browser updates and after a few paragraphs the
type ahead delay on screen is a few words (and I'm a slow
typist). Minimizing or closing the window makes no
difference. So don't try and write in HiTMeLive, import a
text file and use it for formatting only. (There's no spell
checker so you should do that anyway). That part of the
program seems to work fine, the drop down menu's Tag boxes,
Forms and Tables help is adequate once you know what you are
doing. The interface is cleaner and less funky than HotDog,
and I don't mind that.
HiTMeLive is being positioned and promoted as a low-cost
beginner's program. If you are creating pages for Internet
Explorer viewing, it has all the tags and commands a beginner
would you'd need until you get to heavy ActiveX and
JavaScript. Unfortunately what it doesn't have is a
beginner's tutorial to show you how to do it.
The CD-ROM is a cobbled together mess. There is a tutorial
from RMIT that will teach you HTML but it doesn't relate to
the program at all, some bits being way out of date and
there's a confusing edit someone has done so that while some
of the links lead to other pages on the CD-ROM, others on the
same page want to take you to the Web document it came from.
There are some awful amateurish example pages with
excruciating spelling from some kid called Jack Pockley that
I'm sure we weren't supposed to see, a version of (probably
Jack's father) Simon Pockley's award winning Flight of
Ducks site (based on his father's Central Australian
travel journal) but again the links do strange things. A
whacked off web site of freeware graphic images provides the
usual arrows and button GIFs but none of it is well
organised.
That amateurish feel extends from the CD-ROM to
the whole program. On a piece of web software that can be
updated, small mistakes in releases can be changed, but once
burnt onto a CD-ROM you're stuck with it. There are
misspellings on the button help (coloumn?) drop down menus
(Striked?) and it all lowers the impression of a quality
program. Worse it confuses the beginner.
Finally there's a slab of text on the package you might be
able to help me understand.
"Each time a new HiTMeLive
document is created, it consists of a new site with a single
page within that stack giving authors a greater control over
the look and feel of their entire site, since all the pages
of a small site can live within a single site." Errr
.... yeah.
Verdict? Sloppy. Which is a pity, since the
HiTMeLive side by side display, is clever (and cheap) way to
do a WYSIWYG display. Having the browser always open and
responding immediately to your new tag or editing is a
terrific way to learn HTML.
Requirements: 486 IBM compatible or better,
8MB of RAM, running Win 95, Windows NT. 10 MB of disk space,
5MB if you already have Microsoft Internet Explorer
installed.
I think that GreenRose should add that with anything less
than an 800 x 600 screen, the best bits of the program (its
two window display) will be useless.
FH
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