Originally designed with primary school students in mind, SiteCentral is the quickest and easiest way to create interactive Web sites. Suitable for beginners with no HTML or coding knowledge, the total drag-and-drop interface takes all the time consuming drudgery out of Web site authoring.

However, business professionals might baulk at presenting such a simplistic face to the online community.

Apart from being a valuable educational tool, SiteCentral is ideal for home users and small businesses looking to drag-and-drop quick pics and simple advertising onto the Net, and if used with imagination and finesse the software can produce some effective keep-it-simple pages with a minimum of fuss.

The program includes over 10,000 pieces of Web-ready clip media and allows users to import graphics in virtually any format, or it can acquire them from outside sources such as scanners and digital cameras.The feature that makes this software stand out is the freedom to use drag-and-drop to position graphics, text and other features such as links and buttons anywhere on the page. SiteCentral delivers true WYSIWYG formatting, whose results work effectively through both Netscape and Internet Explorer, although there did seem to be some fiddling around required to get text into position.

Features include broad libraries of special effects, sounds, links, clip art, animated GIFs, backgrounds, signs, buttons, photographs and text sure to entertain even the most jaded Web designer for a while, but serious programmers will find little but facade here.While the software does include all users need to post pages to sites, it's hard to say how it would line up for users with security in mind. Templates, and some of the clip art, signs and buttons, seem to have something of a US flavour to them ('no kangaroos here, skip'), but are nevertheless effective.

Templates provided will give hesitant users a good base to start from if they lack the expertise needed to set up page sizing and ultilise effective text placement.

The Links section is automatically customised so that personal favourites appear within a range of other Internet topics including everything from Astronomy and Space to Zoos and Aquariums.

The software comes with a one-colour user guide, aimed at teachers or beginners, which covers aspects of this program fairly thoroughly, although it does assume some previous Web design and basic HTML coding knowledge. SiteCentral is specially enhanced to support HyperStudio projects, and is ideally used by teachers and students interested in creating visually pleasing sites with a minimum amount of fuss, and in a minimum amount of time. Constructing with SiteCentral is most of all like building with Lego: good clean results, but you wouldn't want to drive a Lego car too far.

Averil Bones