Freeway Pro is a web design program that doesn't edit HTML code. Much like a desktop publishing program, your website is displayed and edited as a single document.

Once you're done, Freeway Pro converts your document into HTML and uploads everything to the appropriate server.

The great advantage to this approach is that you can fully exploit your page-layout skills without the need to learn any HTML or JavaScript.

HTML knowledge not necessary

While earlier versions of Freeway Pro offered a range of output options including HTML 3.2, HTML 4.01 and XHTML, the results weren't always standards compliant.

But Freeway Pro 5 does appear to produce web pages that consistently pass the W3C Markup Validation Service. You also have the option of producing code that is more compatible with Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7.

But because Freeway Pro doesn't edit HTML directly, it isn't an attractive tool for web designers who need to manage existing sites or work cooperatively with others.

Adding features to your website

Central to the way Freeway Pro works are Actions - commands that add features and effects to web pages.

Often, these Actions take the hard work out of crafting the code that needs to be attached to the page once it's exported. To set up a rollover, for example, you open the Actions window, configure the relevant settings and off you go.

But other Actions work at the design end of things, as is the case with the very useful Navigation and Graphic Action sets. Actions that create navigation menus and bars will be familiar to long-time Freeway Pro users, but version 5 sees CSS-based menus added to the mix.

These are much faster than JavaScript-based menus, and have the advantage of working on browsers that don't support JavaScript or have had JavaScript turned off.

Attaching graphics

The Graphics Actions are a mixed bag in terms of usefulness. At their best, Actions make it easy to alter images without the need to edit them in a graphics program.

Because the original artwork is left untouched, you're free to play around with the image as much as you want. Being able to adjust the gamma, mirror or flip images, and apply fade effects are all obvious timesavers.

But compared with the photorealistic effects available in other applications, some of the graphical Actions in Freeway Pro are looking a bit rusty.