Adobe GoLive CS, Part I
Software Review by Rip Yarnall
After nearly twenty years of fooling around with personal computers and never venturing into the world of web sites (except to visit) I decided to look into web-site creation. Naturally, being a devoted user of many Adobe products, I thought Adobe GoLive would be a good way to get started building a web site. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!GoLive is not for the novice. It is an extremely complex (seven pages of keyboard shortcuts in the manual—and they can be customized) and comprehensive compilation of tools for creating and managing heavy-duty, commercial-quality web cites of great depth and complexity. Certainly not the thing one needs for one’s first project.
I finally resorted to purchasing a book “for absolute beginners” in web design. Here we find presented the fundamentals of HTML and XHTML with examples and little projects to demonstrate their usage. Even here, though, there was no discussion of FTP, the File Transfer Protocol required to upload one’s page to one’s reserved space on one’s ISP’s server. That’s not in the DOS books either. So I located a free program called WS_FTP which allows for some dragging and dropping (instead of strict command-line syntax) in transferring files to and from another computer.
After activating allocated web space from my ISP, I actually managed to upload an old piece of text and even some unrelated photos and, what do you know, now I have a web page on the Internet. Nothing worth visiting, but at least we know the mechanics of getting it out there really do work as advertised.
GoLive installed readily enough, but the welcome screen offered only two choices: “New Site; click to open the wizard for making new sites” and “Open; click to open a web page or site project file (with the filename extension ‘.site’). There was no way to start a new web page and no way to get past the welcome screen without making an unwanted choice and ending up where I didn’t want to be.
It seems I somehow installed GoLive from the wrong CD, the one that includes an application named Co Author. Once that was uninstalled and GoLive , sans Co Author, was installed the third choice magically appeared on the welcome screen.
That takes us to the GoLive work area, which includes: Toolbar, Objects palette, Document window, Inspector, Library palette and Site window. Chapter One in the User Guide in entitled “Looking at the Work Area” and encompasses seventeen pages of text and screen shots. Looks like a long learning curve ahead, but we’ll keep taking notes and try to report back as we gain facility with Adobe’s website creation application. Part II will follow in good time.
Some of the new features in GoLive CS:
Comprehensive PDF support
Smart Objects that allow you to work with native Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat files directly in GoLiveSharing the color engine used by Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat so that one set of controls achieves consistent color across Adobe applications
A user interface similar to that in other Adobe applications for instant familiarity and efficient productivity
Streamlined color workflow
Pre-built design elements
Co-author sections allowing easy and direct editing of sections with a simple form-like interface
Queries and Collections
The term “CS” after GoLive and Adobe’s current line of products stands for Creative Suite; indicating an interrelationship offering streamlined overlapping of Adobe applications for increased efficiency and productivity in working with Adobe products.
System Requirements:
Intel Pentium III or 4 Processor
Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 or Win XP
125 MB of RAM (192 MB recommended)
200 MB hard-disk space
CD ROM Drive
QuickTime Pro 6.3 with the QuickTime 3GPP component
Required for multimedia features.Adobe Systems Inc.
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, CA 95110-2704
$399.00