Trellix updates desktop app suite
The start-up's latest desktop applications suite Trellix 2.0 is a Web management product for the end user and a stress reliever for the Webmaster.
Priced at $249, the updated version of the product allows users to create documents, organize multiple-linked Web pages, apply design features to dress-up a Web site, and share documents over the intranet. Trellix 2.0 is available for Windows 95 and 98 as well as Windows NT.
Trellix is part of a growing group of software vendors developing products that attempt to ease the information overload experienced by company Webmasters. The tool lets end users produce and maintain linked Web documents without the need to know HTML programming or graphic design, the company said.
Trellix is the first document creation application created in the Web era with online viewing in mind, said Dan Bricklin, cofounder and chief technology officer. "People now have too much stuff to read and not enough time to read it."
Trellix 2.0 includes HTML tables, boosted support for importing Microsoft Word documents, and OLE object embedding. A Trellix content map allows writers to visually organize information to direct readers' attention to the information they need.
"The cost and complexity of maintaining and updating content on the corporate intranet is creating a bottleneck at the Webmaster's desk in many organizations, as more business people begin to use the intranet to share information," Bricklin said.
Founded in 1995 by PC software pioneer Bricklin, Trellix develops Trellix 2.0 as well as Trellix Trelligram Utility, a technology for distributing and viewing HTML files that consists of multiple text and image files.
Trelligram is packaged with Trellix 2.0 so that Trellix documents in HTML can be sent via email as an enhancement. The tool is also available as a free download for people who want to package and distribute HTML content.
Bricklin, cocreator in the 1970s of the first electronic spreadsheet called VisiCalc, said the software addresses the needs of users who are creating longer documents, such as white papers and user manuals. In the age of email and HTML, those documents are still created the old-fashioned way, by writing multipage documents that usually wind up as email attachments that must be printed out for optimal viewing.