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Home > News > Reviews > Windows software reviews

June 5th, 2006, 12:19 GMT · By Codrut Nistor

Professional Websites for Everybody

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Website X5 by Incomedia See editor's ratings     Request a review
Version reviewed: Website X5 5.0.7

WebSite X5 is a completely visual software: it does not require any HTML programming skills and it is the ideal tool for both home users and Web Designers who want to create and publish high quality websites with a professional look and feel.


Download Website X5
Features:

Completely visual software
Over 50 built in templates
Allows inserting Flash files and movies
Five easy steps Web site building

In the last years, Web sites selling design templates became extremely popular, as online business exploded. In the same time, programs allowing customization of design templates grew in number, complexity and quality. Becoming a good Web designer is a task hard to accomplish, especially for people who don't have the time for the necessary study, but also the ones who don't need to become web designers in order to get one or two personal sites running.

The problem is as follows - you can buy an already made template, and then pay somebody to customize it for you. This may cost more than it is worth and the results could not live up to the expectations. The other way around is using a program that has a lot of built in templates and allows you to customize them, add all the extra content that you may have and then export your site to a folder on your hard drive or straight to the web.

The program I will review next is called Website X5 and allows you to create Web sites fast and easy without requiring any HTML or design skills. Wondering "Why X5?", maybe... don't worry, the reason is easy to understand: five is the number of steps required in order to finish building a Web site with this program! How? This is what we're going to explore next!

After starting Website X5, you will be required to create a new project or edit an existing one. This is step zero, so let's move on.

Our new project has been created and first thing to do is set the general settings. Pay attention to the description and keywords, because these will make the difference when your site will be indexed by the search engines. Next, you have to select your website layout. You can choose from only three templates in the trial version. For each template you have two color schemes available.

The second step is the site map creation - you have to specify levels and sub levels for pages on your site. This allows you to set up your menu structure and add more pages if
necessary.

Third step enables you to add objects to your site's pages. These objects can be text files, images, tables, email forms and more. Once added, you will have to set properties for these objects, an operation extremely easy to perform.

The fourth program area takes care of the advanced settings. You can use it to edit settings for items like the main menu, scrollbar, links or enable an intro page and customize it to suit your taste.

The last step is publishing your work. This can be done straight on your FTP server or on your disk, but export is disabled in the trial version, so I suggest you hit the Test button in order to check your website inside your default Web browser software.

This was Website X5, a very nice piece of software that would have been much better as a trial version if the number of available templates was at least ten. Anyway, I can still call this a good program and I am sure that its full version deserves an "excellent" rating.


The Good

Website X5 is extremely easy to use, has a clean interface and requires no programming skills. The built in templates are well done and the Help file contains all the information you may ever need about this program.


The Bad

This trial version doesn't allow saving your websites at all, you can only preview them - no problem, I'd say, but this should be enough. Unfortunately, you can work with and view only the first three templates, and I am sure that showing at least a quarter of the content available in the full version would have been more reasonable.


The Truth

Website X5 is a program worth trying, but you will only benefit from its features after buying it. Working with this trial version is like entering a fast food restaurant and smelling the food; in order to eat it, you have to pay for it. Anyway, this program smells good, so I invite you to enter the Incomedia restaurant and check it for yourselves!


Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

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EDITOR'S RATINGS:

User Interface: (5/5)
Features: (2/5)
Ease of use: (5/5)
Pricing/Value: (2/5)
Overall: (3/5)
  Final verdict: Good   100% Clean Certified

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Comment #1 by: richard on 06 May 2010, 03:26 UTC reply to this comment

Eventhough this package is easy to use, to update a site, no matter how small or minor the update is, requires you to upload the WHOLE site again. This will not be a problem for small sites, but larger sites should keep this in mind.

Also, you can only edit your site with WebsiteX5, no other package like Frontpage, Komposer, Dreamweaver etc. Website X5 creates the file Yoursite.iwp which you must access to edit your complet site. Lose this file, and you stuffed. I've lost that file, and I'm unable to edit one of my published sites.

The supplied templates are all a bit too "flowery", lacks a dead clean and simple template.

Apart from those problems, the program is easy to use.

Rick

Comment #1.1 by: Matthew Cremore on 16 May 2010, 17:15 GMT

I've never had to upload the whole site again after modification, just select the option to only upload the changes since the last upload.

I reckon (I've not tried) that you could edit a site using another program (website x5 just exports html pages and javascript) but if you do do that then if you go back to website x5 it'll probably overwrite any changes made by the other programs.

Agreed that the templates are a bit useless - I ended up putting my own together but I did find this quite easy to do. Another option is to find a template close to what you're after and tweak that.

I like the program, it's not perfect but it's easy to put a site together with a uniform layout. Pages can be added or removed and the menus and navigation bars update automatically. I also code websites by hand using notepad++ but if you want a simple but easy to manage web creation program this is ideal.

Wished it would work on Linux though (natively or Wine will do...)

Comment #1.2 by: Ryan on 28 Oct 2011, 20:53 GMT

Gentlemen,
Do you know if WEbsite X5 allows you to add affiliate or ads such Adsense or amazon product and codes? If yes, can you please explain or give me some instructions?
Thanks.
Ryan


Comment #2 by: Dave Roberts on 09 Jul 2010, 17:32 UTC reply to this comment

I've used X5 for several sites and like it a lot. The one serious problem I have is with its shopping cart. It comes with a built-in shopping cart, a good thing, but it's very limited, and the support people won't help you integrate a different shopping cart.

The built-in shopping cart doesn't allow you to assign shipping costs by item or to compute them by weight or destination, so about all you can do is build shipping costs into purchase prices. I've taken this matter up with their support, and they are not forthcoming about future cart enhancements or how to integrate another cart.

There is a feature to include html in your pages, the text tool shows it, but it's not documented and the support people won't tell you how to use it. So there, too, you're stuck with X5's shopping cart.

Dave Roberts


Comment #3 by: Al on 12 Jul 2011, 14:51 UTC reply to this comment

I do hardwood floors, not webpages. I should really hire someone but had hopes for this program with all the rave reviews.

I expect a program like this to pretty much do all the work for me. I have zero artistic talent and expect the templates to be very nice. I was very disappointed with the cheesy templates and webpage styles.

The program doesn't even display properly when I open it. You cannot resize the opening window, thus the start button is hidden on the bottom right corner. You'd think a software company would not make this type of mistake.


Comment #4 by: Ryan on 28 Oct 2011, 21:02 UTC reply to this comment

Hello Gentlemen,
Do you know if website X5 allows us to add Ads such as adsense or Amazon? If yes, can you please provide me instructions before I decide to buy this software.
It looks kinda user friendly and easy to create and modify a site, but I am afraid that it might not do me any good for marketing sites. Thanks. Ryan


Comment #5 by: Don on 22 Nov 2011, 14:46 UTC reply to this comment

Website X5 V9 and sub releases have failed to iron out bugs after three months. Their website answers section fails it's customers by not commiting to any questions, failing to answer them. They use Gestapo like answers to brush off customers. Product rating should be 1 for it's glossy logo but their software fails to deliver and their support fails to deliver


Comment #6 by: Mike D on 09 Jan 2012, 16:02 UTC reply to this comment

I used previous versions of Website X5 and have to say evo 9 is a let down. The additional features are not really worth the upgrade cost. Plus the company has now channelled all support via their website which doesn't work most of the time. If you need help you'll have to WAIT! No phone support, no email support!?! Its a pity to see Website X5 going down this road as it is quickly loosing any value it added.

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