Comment Contest: Freeway 5 Pro - Attack the Web!

Mac|Life Staff — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:10:36 -0500

Everyone is terrified of zombies and robots taking over the world. What you should be terrified of is the Web. It knows everything! It knows where you live, what you eat, how often you pay your bills. It's slowly building up a file on you. A very embarrassing file.

Beat the Web to the punch with your own site full of disinformation with Freeway 5 Pro. The best part, you can get it for free if you win this week's Comment Contest. See, the Web won't even know you've purchased it. Of course, it'll know you've won it. Hmm, there seems to be a flaw in our plan. Oh well, winning is fun and if there is one thing the Web hates, it's you having fun.

All you have to do is post a comment in this article to win your very own copy of Freeway 5 Pro. That's it! The comment can be as long or as short as you like – one word will do!

Our Mac|Life super comment choosing machine will choose a random comment and award one lucky person Freeway 5 Pro, with a retail value of approximately $249. The odds of winning are determined by the number of eligible entries received. The prize is nontransferable and must be accepted as awarded.

Here are the rules:

- You can only enter once. Commenting more than once will automatically disqualify you from the contest.

- The contest is limited to legal residents of the United States(excluding residents of Puerto Rico). Void where prohibited by law. Entrants must be at least 13 years of age.

- The contest will end at 11:59p.m. PST on May 20, 2009.

- Check out the full official rules below.

So cross your fingers and start your comments.

Freeway 5 Pro Comment Contest rules: NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A PURCHASE WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. The sponsor of the contest is Future US, Inc., 4000 Shoreline Court,Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080 (“Sponsor”). All entries must be received no later than May 20, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. PST. Winner will be determined by a single random drawing of all valid entries held on or about May 22, 2009. The decision of Sponsor shall be final and binding and within its sole discretion. Winners will be notified by phone or email within ten (10) days of the drawing.

Only one entry per person is allowed, multiple entries will lead to disqualification. The winner will be required to sign an affidavit of eligibility/release of liability/prize acceptance within seven days of receipt; failure to do so upon request will result in forfeiture of the prize. By acceptance of the prize, the winner agrees to the use of their name and/or likeness for purposes of advertising, trade, or promotion without further compensation, unless prohibited by law. Employees of Sponsor, its respective parent, subsidiaries, affiliated companies, and agents, and foregoing employes' household or immediate family members (defined as parent, spouse, child, sibling, or grandparent) are NOT eligible to enter Contest. By their submission of entry, participants warrant they are legally entitled and authorized to make such submission, either on their own behalf, or as to information submitted upon the express authorization of another on whose behalf the information is submitted. In the event of a dispute as to the winner's identity, entries will be deemed made by the holder of the email account associated with the entry. All prizes will be awarded. Prizes won by minors will be awarded to their parents or legal guardians. Limit one entry per email address. Use of automated devices or methods of submission are not valid forms of entry. Entries must include a valid email address for the entrant. Entries become the property of the Sponsors and will not be acknowledged or returned. Entries are subject to Sponsor’s privacy policy, the terms of which can be found at http://www.futureus.com/privacy.php, which terms and conditions entrants accept and agree to by submission of entries pursuant to these official rules. Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel or suspend the contest should causes beyond its control corrupt the administration, security, or proper play of the contest. Future US,Inc. is not responsible for damages or expenses the winners might incur as a result of this contest or the receipt of a prize, and winners are responsible for income taxes based on the value of the prize received .A list of winners may also be obtained by sending a stamped,self-addressed envelope to Future US, Inc. c/o Mac|Life Contest, 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080 (residents of Vermont may exclude postage).

Softpress Systems Freeway 5 Pro

Stuart Gripman — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:35:00 -0500

Freeway’s use of Mac OS X conventions make using it a smooth ride.

Building an attractive, functional website requires a breadth of skills, from user interface design to HTML and JavaScript coding. It’s rare to find a great designer who can turn out exceptional code, and programming geniuses aren’t generally known for their design acumen. Software companies tried to address this issue with WYSIWYG webpage editors that could generate HTML for you—often with dodgy results. Freeway 5 Pro, however, generates standards-compliant code.

Freeway’s interface draws heavily from page-layout apps—a welcome departure from the more common word-processing model. Most page elements start out as empty objects that you can fill, adjust, and place as desired. Text can be rendered as a GIF on output for those times you must use a particular font, drop shadows, or other effects.

Freeway is also good with images. We were able rotate, scale, crop, mirror, and skew images without a trip to an image editor. Using Master Pages, creating sitewide consistency was simple, although we also found that it was too easy to accidentally detach an object on a particular page from its Master version.

Some of Freeway’s Actions facilitate website features such as rollovers, while others are filters for manipulating photos. Freeway 5 Pro ships with 34 Actions and another 200 are available on the Softpress website. The filter Actions we tried yielded satisfactory results and can be combined to create effects. The possibilities here are vast, though the execution left us wanting. In designating target images to be used in complex rollovers, for example, Freeway requires each image to be a member of a target group. The ten target groups have fixed and somewhat obscure names, and require the user to remember which images were placed in which group.

When you’re ready to publish, Freeway will output your code. Three varieties of HTML and two XHTML are offered, all of which comply with the World Wide Web Consortium’s standards. Freeway departs from most Web design tools, however, in that HTML is not created as you work. This precludes common techniques like switching over to a text editor to adjust your code on the fly. Custom HTML can be accommodated, but if you’re used to getting under the hood of your HTML, Freeway can feel a bit confining.

Freeway’s significant learning curve is offset by a 120-page PDF user’s guide, and Softpress offers screencasts of each tutorial to supplement the text. There is also a comprehensive reference guide that helped us through some of the more advanced operations. It also helps that Freeway is a native Mac application. All the familiar OS X interface elements are present and executed correctly.

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Comment Contest: Freeway 5 Pro - Attack the Web!

Softpress Systems Freeway 5 Pro