But time moves quickly on the Web, and even PageMill enthusiasts were soon clamoring for more power from the program. Adobe PageMill 2.0, recently released for the Mac and due soon for Windows 95, provides that power, and then some—the upgrade supplies virtually all of the ingredients that were missing from the first version, along with some important new capabilities, and it remains the clear category leader in several key areas. Even so, PageMill's leadership is being challenged anew as Web design tools continue to evolve.

(Editor's Note: PageMill has reached the end of the line, and so has the entry-level HTML editor in general. Apart from some shareware titles, today's editors are aimed at coding and/or design professionals. The visually oriented programs—Dreamweaver, GoLive—cost considerably more than PageMill did.)

PageMill is open to challenge on three fronts: page-layout precision, as exemplified by NetObjects Fusion, site management controls (Fusion and Microsoft FrontPage), and database integration (again, Fusion and FrontPage). Both Fusion and FrontPage attempt a kind of Swiss-army-knife approach to Web site building and maintenance. In addition, Fusion attempts to bring genuine page-layout capabilities to HTML coding (we're currently reviewing the program and will cover it more fully in a future column). Given the present state of the art, however, both programs come up short—using dedicated tools to handle the wide array of functions associated with contemporary site-building is still the way to go.

As a tool for quickly creating Web pages, the new version of PageMill ranks near the top. It now has outstanding tables support—the best we've seen. It is equally facile with frames, and retains the drag-and-drop simplicity that made the original a favorite for prototype work. The program now incorporates direct HTML editing, along with support for Netscape plug-ins, spell checking, a search-and-replace function and, on the Mac, tight integration with Adobe Photoshop, BBEdit, Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. It is still not a complete solution; no single tool is or is likely to be, in our opinion. But PageMill has solidified its place in the professional's tool set.

As for its tough new competitors? Microsoft FrontPage (just released as FrontPage 97 on Windows 95 and Windows NT, and available in beta for Power Mac) is an excellent program with wide-ranging functionality that will appeal to people who are looking for a cost-effective, all-in-one solution. But PageMill has a superior interface and superior tables support, Adobe SiteMill (version 2.0 is now in beta for Power Mac) offers easier-to-use and more comprehensive site-management capabilities, and any number of tools on both the Macintosh and Windows platforms offer stronger database integration.

NetObjects Fusion is rather a special case, since no other program currently offers its degree of page-layout control (although the forthcoming GoLive CyberStudio promises to provide a similar degree of precision). Fusion is more analogous to Adobe PageMaker or QuarkXPress than to the word processor model used by PageMill and other WYSIWYG editors, and this is indeed revolutionary. But Fusion's 1.0 implementation (on both Windows and Mac) has a fatal flaw: the program cannot import existing sites, and it imports existing pages with difficulty, deforming them in the process. So, although version 2.0 will supposedly rectify this, Fusion's vaunted "pixel-level control" is virtually useless for work on current sites.

The bottom line: PageMill remains the best graphical page-creation tool you can buy.

(Reviewed February 5, 1997)