Serif Webplus X5 web-design software

The popularity of cheap, easy-to-use web-design applications shows there's an appetite for programs and services that allow people who don't know anything about building websites to build them.

Serif Webplus fits firmly into this category, allowing anyone to knock up a website for themselves, a club, school or small business without any knowledge of what's going on behind the scenes.

Webplus looks and feels like a desktop-publishing program and has many of the same tools for creating text, adding photos and illustrations and other design elements such as text panels and captions, headings, banners, gradient fills and so on. Each of these has a wide range of different preset styles that can be applied to create a consistent and effective design.

It also uses the same drag-and-drop principles to incorporate the different elements required to turn a printed-page-style design into a website. So you can add button bars for navigation, links, sound and video clips, forms, blogs, forums, hit counters, site search, RSS feeds (so visitors can subscribe see what's been updated) and iFrames (which allow visitors to view pages from elsewhere on your site or from another site without leaving the page).

Webplus also allows users to create online shops to sell items using popular payment services such as Paypal. Alternatively those who prefer a more join-the-dots approach will find 25 templates with all the basic navigation in place that can be tailored by adding your own text and graphics.

The new version includes a button creator to make navigation bars or buttons from scratch, pop-up panels that can be used to display extra information when a visitor clicks or moves the pointer over something, and pop-up menus for extra navigation.

A new Lightbox effect shows images full-size smoothly when the mouse moves over a small picture on the page, and a snazzy Paypal ‘minicart' makes a professional-looking shopping cart that sits at the top of the page.

The new features add real value to an already impressive web design program, particularly if you need an online shop.