Review: Aspire-x

Bloat in programming is an accepted fact, so it is with great surprise one downloads a program weighing in at only 322K and finds that it is quite a bit more than a mere notepad.

In Aspire-x's case, it is a program that offers most of the major conveniences to be found in the HTML writing market these days, including tables, frames, forms, lists, and more.

As expected with a program this size, the interface is clean — in this case displaying the familiar Windows' appearance.

Getting started is a snap, with the program opening a dialog box that allows the user to enter details about the file. These include the title, the document URL, backgrounds, and frames.

After completing the starting dialog, users can choose the basics of creating, opening, closing, and saving files. Text size and color selection, and the usual adjustments to fonts such as bold, underline, and italics are also a button click away.

Beyond that, these features and many more are available through drop-down boxes at the top of screen.

There is one drawback to the program: It only allows frames and other feature dialog boxes to come up if the correct HTML standard is chosen in the beginning.

Another area that is lacking is in building tables. While the program allows for most setup features, it does not offer the ability to designate the number of rows and columns needed at the start. These have to be inserted individually.

To offset this situation, the program does allow for user programming. However, the hand-made tags can only be applied after a text selection is made, further delaying the input of table data.

Frames can be made using templates that make the job quick and easy.

Aspire-x users can preview their documents using the major browsers, choosing the ones they wish to use in the "options" menu.

Aspire-x isn't likely to replace HomeSite or some of the other more expensive and complete HTML programs, but it offers a lot more than the many notepad-type programs and works just about as quickly.