wonder about the new version

I have taken a peek at the online announcements and the pdf guide to new features, one of my long awaited feature requests is in there, but I have to wonder about many other issues that plague me everyday during web design with netobjects fusion.

Do we still have to do a full paragraph carriage return to use an H1 tag?
Is there still no place for a meta description tag without having to into html view and adding it two lines down where it should be?
Is it still reccomended that you not make a site more than 100 pages?
Will it lock up and slow wayyyy down when trying to import a site made in previous versions?
Many more frustrations could be fixed in this version, but I am not gonna shell out the $200 to find out, hopefully there will be a trial version released so we can test it before buying it..
I will also be keeping track of the banter on the support forums at gotfusion.com to see if there are any details about these frustrations, any new ones, and of course to see how many feature requests have made it into the version 9..

new netobjects version

So I got an email about a new netobjects fusion version nine coming fall of 2005, Can't wait to see what they are gonna do now. Will the features requests we have been begging for be available?
Will we be able to import the sites we have spent thousands of hours on? Or will they still suggest only using the version of netobjects you originally created sites in?

Good questions, soon to be answered!

Can't wait!

S

export, update

I want to be able to edit a site, from the raod! I need multi-user access / permissions, etc.. in order to keep up with the dozens of sites that I maintain, I need to be able to edit a site easier!!!

And speaking of that - boy exporting and importing, as I have said before automatic backups should be standard..

but imagine this for a minute..

You have a site with over 1000 hand placed images and text to go along with them, and then you export it, er import - say you need to get into a backup or something - and then you realize that hundreds of the photos will not show up - they do not work, because for some reason your photos had duplicate names (use a digital camer much?) - or the names of the original photos - that workd fine in the original publishes - no longer work - because they had a trademark symbol or similar naming issue that fusion can not resolve when it renames the files when exported and zipped....

Sure say it's my fault for using the names that way - or using duplicate names - but come on - how about a warning somewhere - or have fusion rename files and update it's database to take care of the renaming when it is exported...

GEESH!!!

Thank yous to WSP, Digital River, and the fusion newgroupies

The day I actually posted the first blog here I was very upset, frustrated, and screamed for a refund from WSP. Today I have recieved a confirmation email from digital river to apply for the refund, which I belive will be completed in the next couple of days.

I would like to thank digital river, and wsp pros for making this possible, I have not had the same service provided by other companies such as ulead. (that's a whole 'nother blog)

I am still very much looking forward to the next version of fusion, which I will undoubtablly donwload the trial version and experiment with first (if available) to be sure that any import issues do not arise before using. In all fairness to WSP this software is made to do a lot of things. Really a huge amount of different things, and it is very difficult to anticipate everything that end users will try to create with it.

Also everyone that is using fusion V8 to create brand new sites (not importing from previous versions) seem to be working fine, without any major issues.

I would also like to suggest that anyone who is considering new software to buy, check system requirements, refund policies, and browse through the support forums for that product extensively to see if there would be any issues that other people are having and how those problems were solved. (this has seved me from dishing out hundreds of dollars to Adobe over the years).

I would also like to thank all of those wonderful team netobjects and other users who provide user to user tips and help via the fusion support forums / newsgroups. As to where I find the newsgroups communications a little archaic compared to the vsbulleten and phb bulletin type forums that are currently accessible via the web, the newsgroups are accessable to the masses. (even though I have found sometimes difficulty located them, and subscribing to them, depending upong which computer configuration I am working on). It seems that the fine folks at www.gotfuion.com have created a slightly enhanced way to peruse the multitude of newsgroup forums dedicated to fusion.

thank you once again, and now the blogging can just go to little frustrations like not having an auto export to template backup option and how the heck to I add an inline video that will display the HxW ratio proportional and...

Why do I love to build web sites?

Suave1
who built his first web site around 1987, years before Al gore invented the internet ;)

Deceptive advertising

We are all glad to see that a company had bought netobjects and was working on a new version. Tons if webmasters loved fusion, and thought it was a dead product. You can't imagine the excitement we all felt when rumors circulated about a new version coming out! Everyone was eager and ready to support any development of our favorite web site editor. Little did we know that web site pros was going to use netobjects fusion for deceptive advertising.

Looking back the first new version of fusion that WSP put out was awesome, but the subsequent versions had an eerie feel.

In my opinion the version in which they added the photogallery and upcharge for an upgrade really was a ploy to get a bunch of consumers, not web site professionals to buyt the product. Nothing really wrong with that, except that a lot of web site professionals had to pay for a new version to get bug fixes and a couple new features to make sites modern, and most likely all of us already had thumbnail gallery creation software that is better and not limited as fusion is.
(I was using photoimpact's album and or batch process at the time, thumbs plus is better now)

Fortunately I did not have to suffer with the ritz camera / fusion offer, but I did read many complaints from users who were duped into getting a free fusion with phot software if they bought such and such a camera from ritz camera. Well this was really lame, because imagine all these people excited with seriously cool software in thier hands, and brand new digital camera, bragging to thier friends about building and sharing new photo sites, spending hours to leanr new software, only to find that this free version only works with a paid to web site pros hosting account. And I am sure later finding issues with photo galleries being too large to work properly, and duplicate assets showing up in backups later that will cause the whole things to be screwed up. Makes me wonder if I had signed up for a hosting accoutn with 1and1.com for a client in order to recieve version 8 of fusion free, if that version would work , or be handicapped to just 1and1??? Hadn;t considered that possibility since it wasn;t stated on the hosting sign up, but if that is the case, would I ever be ticked off.

Next decpeption. The database functions. Fusion has been saying easy in program database management, but in my experience this is far from the case, and everyone suggests using MySQl and php instead of fusion, so why is this even advertised, or at least it should be advertised that it has serious limitations, and users who require more than so many entries will most likely need to use other third party stuff to make their sites (professionals).

So new versions came out. I received a bunch emails touting the new ecommerce functions. Well they don't tell you that these new ecommerce options only work a few select online shopping cart merchants, and they have thier own fees and limitations associated with them. (another way for WSP to get kickbacks?)

How about the free counters and guestbooks you get with version 8? Well, they are not free, and you can get better for free elsewhere - a waste of space in fusion in my opinion, but if it gets kicks backs to web site pros to help fund the next version of fusion I guess I can't bitch too much. Just wish there was a way to remove the links from the online view so I didn't have to keep thinking how lame for this crap to be on my desktop in a "professional" web site creation program. This is the kind of crap that I expect to see in free downloads from c-net or coffeecup software, not in programs that I pay $200 for.

My 2 cents on thanksgiving, I'm sure I will remember more deceptive advertising things with web site pros later and post then.

S

suggested maintenance - that should be automatic

From the netobject v8 forums, and something that should have been posted on wsp site, emailed to everyone who has bought fusion, and should be in the manual, and ought to be automatic anyway (at least auto check with a dialogue box box pop up suggesting ways to make things better)
--------
Open the site in 7.5. Do some preventative maintenance clean-up. Remove
unused assets, unused master borders...reoptimize....remove dead
links....that sort of thing.
-----------

Doing these things seems to fix a lot of problems that other fusion users are having upgrading to the new version. My real question is, how many people out there are having serious problems with fusion and never find a newsgroup to get help?

I am going to give another try to fixing the issues we are experiencing, by trying to find any unused masterborders.... At this point I have been unable to update this site for 4 whole days, and have spent a majority of that time doing computer maintenance trying to find a way to fix these issues... 4 days and $100 later, still trying to get back to building web sites.

More frustrations. More features needed.

A few quick thoughts.

Assets handling should include a pop up stating that you have multiple assets with the same filename (presumably located in different folders on your drive). This pop up window should have a way to automatically rename assets.

This assets handling should also ask if you want to copy all assets into a new folder, it should check for consistency and duplications of this folder as well.

We should also have a way to make table corners rounded, and the borders of tables dotted, dashed, rounded, etc. as suggested at http://www.fusedocs.com/wishlist/

I also would like to suggest that fusion post a list that is easily accessible on their sites with a click here for known issues before purchasing.
I believe that if web site pros can send me 20 emails in the past year touting all these reasons why I need to upgrade, that they should also be able to send us emails notifying us that a know issue has been found, and that they are working on it. This would add a community supported feel to the product, rather than all of us having problems and spending hours and hours tying to fix them, only to later find out that is has been a known issue.

There should also be a page posted with frequently occurred problems, solutions for migrating from older version, etc.

It is ridiculous that anyone should have to try and find a forum to post to, wait a few days, and then be directed to a third party tutorial just to get info on migrating from another version (gotfusion tutorial in my case, gotfusion is great by the way, and thanks guys for offering a free membership opportunity) - web site pros should have all this and more already set up.

------


Today I sent a refund request to netobjects. We remained on hold yesterday for 40 minutes waiting for a customer service rep to answer the phone. Posting to the netobjects forums got a little help, but the solutions suggested made the site navigation a little faster (25 seconds as compared to 55 seconds), the new version 8 is still unusable for the 600 page web site that is of most concern at this time.

feature requests

As of this post date I am still using version 7, if any of these things have been added or fixed in netobject fusion version 8 I am not yet aware of them.

1. Fix the spell check
2. fix the video plug in to allow greater control over inline play functions, including an auto size that maintains the proper HxW ratio. Also add the other options that windows mediaplayer allows.
3. Assets management should alert to same named files and offer automatic renaming and asset relocation.
4. Automatic full template backup
5. The ability to automatically publish cell phone versions, and higher resloution versions (this should be relatively easy, smaller text and graphics for cell, larger text and graphics for higher res) - this would make netobjects fusion revolutionary if it comes out with netobjects fusion before anyone else does it.
6. A fusion sub version that will allow customers to add / change content to their sites (likemacromedia contribute) - my thinking on this is that a web based application could have secure information set up by webmasters, with a log in for end users to make adjustments by copying pasting into the web browser, or uploading word documents.
7. Copy and paste from word, excell, firefox, and internet explorer, while maintaining formatting of text, or changing formatting of text to be similar at least (preview function would be nice)
8. Text font size changes should be fixed (they do not always work in v7, and have crazy results)
9. Assets view needs a major makeover - it should not redraw the screen and start you at the beginning evertime. Also the mysterious assets that show up in use, but have no page associated with them is always a mystery.
10. Importing templates should be fixed. This IS MAJOR. What a time saver it would be to actually use the feature that has been in fusion for so long, and be able to use it without inflating issues and screwed up assets management. I actually started aproject where sections of a big site were to be exported to several other sites - as of now that project has been put on the back burner
11. The sizes of text and properties boxes should be larger on higher resolution screens; toggleable would be nice.
12. Assets shared with multiple sites. Most web pros that I know end up using the same banners, links, pictures on multiple sites... it would be nice to have the global assets show up for every site rather than having to reinvent the wheel with every site.
13. Default folders, and a list of favorite folders to go to with one click for all of the open file dialogues.
14. Change default options in the phot gallery settings. I hate redoing the same settings over and over again over the 4 pages of options.
15. Options to have the photos open as a file link from the thumbnails instead of always opening on an html page. Also other photo open options like namo web editor has would be nice.
16. Give us complete meta tag control, or we can not produce the best search engine friendly professional web sites.
17. A bold link to a page on netobjects.com and any other fusion sites, and on the online view of fusion tiself to link to a page where known issues are posted. work around tutorials are offered free, a lit of feature requests, and comments from WSP are posted.
18. A better help function that links pages to thier parent pages and related topics.
19. WSP should also buy out the other dozne or so fusion groups and have a global fusion help site, with the most frequently asked problems and solutions published, searchable, and easy to find. The newsgroups are full of great people, but filtering through them, even finding them is a task. Often times the help is hidden behind some reqistration required BS.
20. get with times with xml, php and all the other new web stuff coming out.
21. A discounted full version for those who have been using fusion for more than 3 years.

Ther are also a ton of other great feature requests listed at:
http://www.beyondfusion.com/wish/html/view.php

I agree completely with 95% of these, and very much would like to see them made a reality.

I know there are other features I have been cursing about, will post them later...

WWSD - What would I do if I owned netobjects / wsp

haha, well, I would do a whole lot...

first I would strip out everything, rip it apart, and only leave in the ability to add text and photos.
sell this version as a fusion lt... don't we consumers love figuring out what lt, xl, pro and crap like that really means..

Anyhow, I would push this version hard in every media possible to get as many sales and upsells as possible, generate some cash and work secretly on the next pro version.

Netobjects Fusion 9 LT

share those holiday photos instantlyonline with comments, and have your family add text pages and pretty pictures for the whole family around the world to see the same day!

More of what would steve do with netobjects fusion coming soon!

Do not rely on a backup or even think about upgrading

I just purchased version 8. I just imported my newest web project into v8.
It now takes 55 seconds to scroll to the right one frame in site view.
Thinking it may be computer related, I opened a new hard hard drive, installed and updated windows 2000, added zonealarm, photimpact 7, and netobjects fusion 7, then the V8 upgrade.
Imported the 600 page web site.
It still takes 55 seconds just to scroll one page to the right in site view. Switching to page view and back I have enough time to play a video game and come back.
This does not work for a professional web developer.

Is there any way to get a refund for my purchase of V8, and wait for V9.. maybe that will work the way it is advertised?

Another issue is the duplicated file issues, I am still hoping that fusion will one day realize that when exporting a template, if file names are the same for different assets that it needs to place them in different folders or rename them or something.

Any suggestions? If I have to recreate all 50 web sites (and growing) every time a new version of fusion comes out I am just going to switch to Namo or even frontpage, they seem to have better bug fix and customer service teams.

I am disappointed, extremely disappointed in this version 8, I am completely disappointed in the advertising of all these wonderful features that do not appear to work properly.

It may be time to give up on calling netobjest a professional web tool, strip the bullS**t database function out of fusion and sell it for what it really is, a pretty WYSIWYG web page maker for kids wanting to share family photos on the net (as long as those galleries aren't too big!), because these people won't be losing money and time and stress if it doesn't work properly.

Everyone can complain that microsoft should fix this or fix that, everyone can say well if you only did it this way or whatever. But the real life scenario is that people want to import word docs to fusion quickly, hell, my customers would like to email them and have them added to their site that minute. Why can't fusion find an easy way to strip unnecessary formatting and add it to fusion in one click and maintain some of the formatting.

It seems so ridiculous to have to open, ctrl-copy, paste, then go through and delete all these stupid single line carriage returns, replace them with enter, then go back though and re bold, or change the font size for every frickin page of text sent to me.

Real world situations, people will end up with duplicate file names, this has been an issue for a while, especially since the first digital camera came out using lame file naming systems. Now I try to rename them all, but some of my older sites have these issues (which now sit un updated since my backups are all screwed up with pictures that need to be renamed and replaced - if my drive hadn't crapped out last year that site might actually be gaining money)

Even with the backup I can't work on it, it will take way too many hours to fix what has already been created, much less adding new content, and hoping something wasn't missed in the fixing process.

So the question remains, recreate this 600 page site in fusion 8, hoping that fusion 9 will import it correctly.. or recreate this site in dreamweaver, Namo, or Frontpage, which appear to be more focused on taking care of it's customers, and which I might as well gamble will have a way to backup and import into newer versions in a way that works... let's see, the the time that would save me on this one project would be worth any learning curve of new software... I'm also starting to think that maybe there is real database integration in one of those products that works...

I have been a strong supporter of fusion for years, and suggest it to other people, but at this point I am thinking another 50 web sites are about to loose their built with NOF meta tags forever.

The time saving features of automatically changing nav bars cost 10 times that in other problems...

So 45 minutes later, I have downloaded namo web editor and played with the new v6 on my other computer, while going thought the interactive online demo for frontpage 2003 on my other computer. From this little 45 minute peek around it seems that frontpage will do everything fusion is supposed to do, with a lot more, and newer features. My little test drive of the new namo looks promising as well... if only the photo gallery options allowed an option to open the full sized picture without a pop up window or without any other html, I wouldn't have to keep using thumbs plus to create galleries... maybe frontpage has those options, haven't tried it yet. (fusion doesn't allow this yet either it seems....

So what are the benefits of using fusion?
you can keep the thousands of hours of formatting, linking, etc - just use your exported templates.
No, they do not appear to work.

So if I am going to recreate all over again all of sites I have to really consider using something more up to date.

I use to laugh at those who said they had web sites made with frontpage, we used to joke about inflated code and stuff. But now, the frontpage users are out playing with their kids, while I am still copying pasting, and reformatting into fusion, they are laughing, because their kid has a way to take documents, paste them into frontpage and boom, it's on the web, and looks good.

The search engines are enjoying the meta tag control of frontpage, meanwhile, my "professional" web sites are suffering.

Oh I could go on all day, think I will just blog about this crap instead.

I want my $100 back, I will be giving it to Bill Gates or Namo instead.

Steve