PageMill: At long last beta
Adobe is finally releasing a beta version of PageMill 2.0 for Windows 95 and NT 4.0, three months after it was scheduled to hit retail shelves.
The Windows version of Adobe's desktop Web publishing tool is now expected to ship in May. Last September, the company promised shipment by November, and that represented a one-month delay from the company's original schedule.
The main reason for the most recent delay is the addition of support for frames, said product marketing manager Sean McKenna.
"We just underestimated some of the things we needed to do," said McKenna. "As the market was maturing, we realized we needed to include frames to be competitive."
In the program's edit mode, designers can resize frames by clicking and dragging the edge of the frame horizontally and vertically. Another new feature is the ability to toggle between edit and preview mode. PageMill users will work out of a browser-like interface, allowing easier preview of pages and multimedia files.
The Windows version will almost match the Mac version feature for feature except for a utility that uploads pages to servers through file transfer protocol (FTP), said McKenna. The Mac version uses a separate utility called SiteMill to perform the same function.
The overall seven-month delay, plus the fact that the Mac version has been out for several months, indicates Adobe's focus on the Mac market, one analyst said.
"The assumption is they cater to the Mac market," said Judy Rosall, president and principal analyst of Worldscape Strategies. "The long delay [shows that] Windows is perhaps not their priority."
PageMill 2.0 for Windows will sell for $99.