InDesign 1.5: Half a Giant Step Forward
Adobe InDesign 1.5
Rating: ****

Adobe InDesign version 1.5 fills many holes that 1.0 was criticized for when it was released last fall (for a complete list of features, go to www.adobe.com/products/indesign/whatsnew.html.) It also adds some important and ground-breaking innovations.

InDesign has been most popular with ad agencies and other creators of short, design-intensive documents. Version 1.5 is aimed mainly at this audience, and adds only a few long-document features. (Adobe is addressing long document publishers, at least for now, with the newly upgraded FrameMaker.) High-end print production is where InDesign intends to make its mark.

Many of 1.5's new features are clearly of the catch-up-to-QuarkXPress variety: Automatic page-level trapping controls (although still no object-based trapping apart from 1.0's overprint spreads for strokes and fills), text on a path, drag-and-drop colors, a plug-ins management control panel, and object alignment and distribution controls. In some cases (particularly the last) InDesign does a better job of it.

But there is one inimitable advantage that InDesign has over XPress: its interface integration with Illustrator and Photoshop, which is stronger than ever in 1.5. While not a true integrated suite--youÕll find redundant tools in all three applications--they look the same, feel the same, and make it easy to switch from one program to another. Parroting Illustrator's drawing tools--including a new freehand curve-smoothing control--and a Photoshop-like eraser that works on vector artwork, makes InDesign far stronger in this area than XPress.

With 1.5, InDesign also adds new edge-detection technology, which it leverages several ways. For example, the program can wrap text around irregularly shaped graphics (and follow a clipping path or alpha-channel mask, if available), and create clipping paths and masks based on the contours of drawn or imported artwork.

InDesign's new eyedropper reflects this same tool-design concept: Create a generic tool and apply it to a range of processes, simplifying the toolbox. It can not only copy colors (and create swatches from colors in imported graphics), but also pick up character and paragraph attributes and stroke and fill characteristics. Likewise, InDesign 1.5 similary extends the style sheet concept to output profiles, which can define all the print (or print-to-disk) variables for a file or group of files.

InDesign's text handling has also improved with the addition of vertical justification (still pretty basic, compared to good pagination software, but better than nothing), keyboard control over tracking (handy for copy fitting), and user dictionaries you can embed in a document (to assure proper hyphenation when a document travels from computer to computer). A new Find Font command creates a report of every font used in a document, even those buried in embedded PDF or EPS files. Competent tracking controls, though, are still unaccountably missing. Ditto for table tools. For this, you'll have to turn to a third-party plug-in, such as PowrTable from PowrTools.

InDesign 1.5 is a very mixed bag of features--features you might suspect were planned for version 1.0 but didnÕt get finished in time. Apart from its new trapping controls, there aren't any mission critical features that would convince publishers who balked at using 1.0 to adopt 1.5. InDesign is still no Quark killer, but if it continues to accumulate features at the current pace, and system integrators continue to build new workflow systems around it, it will definitely give XPress a run for its money

--Jim Felici

Navigator on the Right Course
Netscape 6 Preview Release 1
Rating: ****

Millions of people sail the Web every day with Netscape Navigator. Based on my look at the pre-release Netscape 6 (the new name for the company's browser, e-mail, news, etc., package), I suspect they'll like this new version--and may find themselves joined by a gaggle of Internet Explorer users, too.

Granted, many of the features in this beta weren't working during my evaluation. But what's here--and what's hinted at--are tantalizing. Netscape 6 promises to do what Navigator has always done--only faster, cheaper, and better. Perhaps just as important, Netscape 6 aims to be much more compliant with HTML and XML standards and lean far less on proprietary Netscape technology. (To download the beta, go to home.netscape.com/download/previewrelease.html?cp=dowsea). The version I looked at included the browser, mail, news, composer, Instant Messenger, address book, and Net2Phone, although the product may include other modules when it ships later this year.

Netscape 6 looks and feels unlike any previous version of Navigator, and you can customize it to our own liking, using "skins" that specify fonts, colors, and such. When I installed Netscape 6, it imported my Navigator 4.7 profiles; on my laptop, which has an older version of Navigator, I had to create new profiles.

Fire up the browser and the first thing you'll notice is the My Sidebar area to the left. This vertical, customizable HTML page is built right into the browser, and it uses overlapping tabs to organize features--by default, News, Stocks, Buddy List, and Search. Each tab, except for the Buddy List, gets its content from the appropriate Netscape page. Click the Customize link at the top of the My Sidebar page to create a tab for your bookmarks, or say, for a specific site, such as CNN.com. If Netscape's servers are working, you can add dozens of channels from Disney, Merrill Lynch, and other providers.

The Buddy List tab is your link to AOL Instant Messenger. If you have AIM set up, click this tab, supply your screen name and password, and it will import the buddy list on your PC. (You can also import your buddy list into your mail address book using Tasks//Tools//Import Utility. However, the preview version can't import addresses from other e-mail programs yet.) Your buddy list is also saved on the Netscape server, so you can access it from anywhere.

One of the coolest features is the language translation service. Open a Web page in another language, say fr.yahoo.com, and select View//Translate. The browser connects to a Web page run by Gist-in-Time and plugs in the URL. Choose the "from" and "to" languages and click the Gist! Button. The page can translate Portuguese, Italian, German, Spanish, French, and Japanese into English, and translate English into all these languages, plus simplified and traditional Chinese characters. C'est totalement cool!

Mail is quite different in Netscape 6. To launch the mail program, click the envelope icon at the bottom of the page, or select Tasks//Mail. Selecting Edit//Mail-News Account Settings launches a wizard that asks for your server, login, and password. Choose Save and the Password Manager wizard pops up, which lets you create one master password that opens an encrypted database that holds all your other online passwords. If you record a master password, you'll be asked for it whenever you access a page, site, mail account, or anything else online that requires a password.

Better yet, this is the first e-mail program I've seen that can retrieve mail from POP, IMAP, and AOL--and for the latter, you don't have to log on to www.aol.com, the ever-so-sluggish Net Mail. To fetch AOL mail, you set it up like any other mail account; sending and receiving is as simple as using a POP account. For this to work, of course, AOL's IMAP server has to be working properly, and it didn't, four days out of five during my tests. At the moment, the mail module lacks the ability to import settings, address books, and filters, but they will be added to the final version.

Add to all this such extras as built-in Java (instead of a plug-in, which means the browser is much faster), the latest Macromedia Flash plug-in, Net2Phone (an Internet telephony product), and an easier-to-use Composer, and you'll see that Netscape 6 is a dreamboat.

--Elizabeth P. Crowe

T-1 For the Rest of Us
DNAI/Covad DSL (Telesurfer Pro)
Rating: *****

Remember ISDN? That pricey, cranky, and not-so-fast Bell service made cynics out of a lot of us searching for the Holy Grail of a faster connection. Now DSL is the new gold standard, and it seems every other bus kiosk and Superbowl commercial is promoting this always-on hyperconnection.

But friends and readers who jumped on the DSL bandwagon have reported not-so-hyper support and wonky connections. So I stuck with my paltry 128Kbps ISDN line until I got an iMac for Christmas. The iMac, of course, was incompatible with my ISDN terminal adapter. I limped along with the iMac's internal 56K modem for a few days, then finally broke down and called my ISP, DNAI, which was offering a special DSL deal with Covad.

Like many ISPs hooking up with DSL providers (such as PacBell, NorthPoint, and Rhythms), DNAI offers various packages. I opted for DNAI's TeleSurfer Pro home office package, which offers "best effort" downstream/upstream performance up to 1.5Mbps/384Kbps, plus one static IP address, one e-mail account (but options for more POP accounts), 50MB of Web space, custom DNS, and one dial-up account. Installation and the first month of service are free, and Covad's $150 rebate (since upped to $198) slashed the ultimate cost of the DSL modem to $74. Sign up for a year's service and you pay $90 per month. Compared to my ISDN service--which was $39 per month and $60 to $70 per month for usage--switching was a no-brainer.

DNAI made moving up to DSL a snap, thanks to its thorough, Johnny-on-the-spot response. I've gone through a few ISPs in my time, and DNAI is one of the few with live people who actually answer the phones when they ring--even on evenings and weekends! Phone support is free forever and toll free, and available 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekends.

DNAI booked the two required appointments based on my schedule. The first was with Pacific Bell, to determine if my phone line was up to snuff. This was handled remotely. The second appointment, about a week later, was for a four-hour window with Covad to install the inside line, jack, and whatnot in my house. Both sessions happened precisely at the prescribed times. The Covad installer, who finished the job in about 90 minutes, was courteous, efficient, and thorough. But actually testing the Internet connection and tweaking my iMac's setup was my job--which DNAI made painless by supplying me with detailed instructions. Still, shouldn't DSL providers make getting online as easy as AOL?

Alas, like a lot of DSL providers, DNAI and Covad don't talk much about protecting your line and PC from hackers. (For more on DSL and security issues, see www.currents.net/magazine/national/1802/covr1802.html). The SpeedStream 5250 SDSL modem that came with my setup--at least according to its manufacturer's Web page--doesn't offer much in the way of security features.

Unlike some other DSL providers whose connections seem unreliable at best, I've only had one service hiccup in the first three months with DNAI/Covad. When I called, DNAI already knew about the problem and fixed it when they said they would. That's the kind of service that turns a cynic into a believer--someone who's finally held the Grail at last.

--Karen Wickre