You should read our review of NetObjects Fusion 2 for additional detail about features of this program

   Oh, gosh!
   I was impressed with NetObjects Fusion 2. I cannot say enough about NetObjects Fusion 3. Impressed would be too weak a word.
   There is an old adage in the software business that version 3 of any program is where it all comes together. I thought version 2 of this program was pretty together. That is, until I saw version 3. Let me just tell you that it does so many things so well NetObjects Fusion has become, at least to my mind, the foremost WYSIWYG web authoring tool on the market today.
   First. Foremost. Tops. You can now insert graphics into text boxes. And then you can wrap the text around the graphics. In a heavily-graphics site such as this one, with all the screen shots, this one feature alone is an hours-saver. Just pop a picture (or pictures) into a text box, choose the way you want the picture to relate to the text and you're done. Excellent!
   Want a bonus? The picture can be a TIF or other format file. NetObjects Fusion converts the picture into the right format for the web. (Indeed, you lose the compression capabilities other programs give you, but if you happen to be in a hurry . . . )
   There are so many things that NetObjects Fusion 3 does that it is almost impossible to list them all. While, obviously, the ability to insert things inside text boxes is an major time-saver, consider this (long) list of improvements:

• Rulers: You now can have rulers that show page sizes and you can use the rulers to size pages, a situation which could be very tedious in version 2.
   
• Layer Control: You gain the ability to position objects on top of one another and to hide objects behind one another. Using actions, you can unhide them and move them around!
   
• Picture Tool: A greatly enhanced picture tool that allows you to open pictures in the image editor of your choice, to maintain the proper aspect ration when resizing and to place borders around pictures.
   
• Better Use of HTML: It was frankly a pain to incorporate your own HTML into pages in version 2. Now it is a cinch. In fact, version 3 includes the Home Site HTML editor to make using the language easier.
   
• Improved Integration: All the nifty stuff like Java, VMRL, FlashPix, Headspace, Live Picture, Real Server, Shockwave and Flash, QuickTime and ActiveX are much easier to incorporate into your site.
   
• Forms: Much better forms generation (and you can place more than one form on a page) along with non-CGI forms for those of you who either do not have access to CGI scripts or don't want to deal with it. Responses to your forms are emailed to you.
   
• Table Tool Improvements: It is easier to construct tables and its possible to embed text, objects (or both) into table cells.
   
• A Better Horizontal Line Tool: Now it has settings for thickness and shading.
   
• Dockable Toolbars: The interface itself has come a long way. It is more simple and easier to use and does things better. You can see this toolbar to the right is much cleaner than the previous version. The special components (which add a "picture rollover" option), now have their own separate toolbar.
  
• Site Navigation: There is a little button at the bottom of the screen which pops up a tree-style list of the entire site. You find the page you want to go to and then double-click and you're there. This is a whole lot better than navigating with arrows or going back to the site view and then selecting a page.
   
• Asset Editing: You can now edit the assets your site uses from the asset view. You can open any image, sound or HTML file in your own applications and make the edits there. A real bonus when you want to compress pictures, for example.
   
• Better Uploads: It isn't documented as a change, but the option to upload "only changed assets" works far, far better in version 3. This obviously saves you a bunch of time when you are uploading your site to the 'net because if you have an asset which has not changed, you do not have to re-upload it.
  
  For that matter, you can also determine the structure of your web site when you upload. You can place the entire site in one directory on the server or spread things out, depending what your server lets you do and what works best. This is a nice bonus.
   
• Named Assets: I always forget to give an alternate name tag to assets. Version 3 now assigns the file name as the alt tag. That is a lot better than "picture," which was the case with version 2.
   
• Object Tree: There is now an object tree window which makes it much, much easier to find, manipulate and format different objects on each of your pages. I have not used this feature a great deal yet, but its potential is tremendous and it is certainly a major improvement to the ease of use of the interface.
  
  As you can see on the left, the tree begins with the site itself and then works its way down to the page which you are on, showing each object on that page. It uses the familiar pluses and minuses to expand or contract the tree. This is extremely useful when you are trying to find something and make some changes in what it does.
  
• Actions: I love them. You can move objects, make them appear and disappear, flip them around and all of this is really pretty simple through an "actions" tab on the properties window. This is a vast improvement to the program for those who want interactive events built into the site.
   
• Documentation: Vastly, vastly improved!

   We almost need a whole web site just to talk about this outstanding program. It is so fine. All the little things are incorporated to make life easier for you. As an example, it compresses the entire web site you are working on when you close the program down! Saves you disk space. We are really impressed.

   All in all, you cannot go wrong with NetObjects Fusion. The previous version was terrific and the extra options, components, flexibility and power built into version 3 mean you can build any kind of web site you want with ease. NetObjects Fusion earns our highest recommendation, and it deserves it!

   Link to the NetObjects Fusion web site.