@18 (Comment by Microsofts Windows 8 makes a clear argument for switching to linux or apple_7)

I agree with everything you wrote, and especially your username! Vista also makes a clear argument for switching, which I've mostly done. I'm not even viewing this site and typing this using windows.

People selling Slicemaker need to implement it better and make is easy to use on non-ms platforms.

Thanks GOTD for letting us try it out.

The software works great if you're designing with Photoshop and wish to export your html to something other then tables. It's designed for experienced front-end web developers who know what they're doing.

I have been using since first giveaway and upgraded to the full version when on sale - was worth it. Their website has lots of support and resources to download.

Highly recommended.

Thanks,
Justin

It looked interesting until I read some reviews.
#21- The producers only wasted your time for the first 2 attempts. After that the waste of time was your own.
1st time & it doesn't work; I may have not followed directions
2nd time & it doesn't work; strike 3 and I'm done with that program

Looking at the developer's web site usually tells you even more about the performance of the software vis-a-vis how your site will perform after you have spent all that time tinkering with every nuance to get your page just right.

Speed is crucial, lest your visitors get bored and move on to your competitor's site. So I was glad to see the blurb:
"Support CSS Sprites to make your webpage load faster."

After spining its wheels for quite some time (which honestly could be due to server pressure) it took 83 seconds to load the main page.

Once the main page was loaded I saw an opportunity to see the CSS Sprites in full action by clicking on "Click here to view the screenshot". Should be lightning fast, right? I mean all it has to do is open a linked page that displays a few optimized .JPG's.
WRONG !!! That page took 123 seconds to load. On a 10 MBPS line that is totally unacceptable. That was over 3 minutes of waiting time to load 2 pages.

In that time the customer could have gone to your competitor's web site, chosen their product and checked out.

Again, UNACCEPTABLE . . . TWO THUMBS WAAAAAY DOWN ON THIS ONE.

Guys, take a look at [FREE] "Kompozer" if you want a good-simple WYSIWYG website making tool. (I prefer V0.7.10 instead of the latest version.)

http://www.kompozer.net/

@ #1 :

WOT is useless due to that so many click this and that site to be untrustworthy...many times just because they dislike the compamy/webmaster or likewise, that have the site. A lot of forums mention this.

Some even say it is a spyware. True or false, up to You to decide !

Does it generate HTML5 code?

Hi Giovanni. Thanks for the freebie suggestions! I don't often leave in here (Hmmm... Didi I ever??) but you're right. You don't get the recognition that you should. Keep them coming and Thanks again!
LarryG

Everyone who is complaining that this isn't the most efficient way to design and code a website is missing the point. In some working environments -- especially larger corporations -- graphic design and website coding are two completely separate activities. Typically the graphic designer works in Photoshop and produces a PSD mockup of a webpage, and it's up to the coder to get it to render in HTML, with areas where text content can be added.

In short, the coder creates an HTML template based on the design. The way to do that is by slicing. That's what this program is meant to help with.

Whether or not this is the best way to do things in 2014 is another question. It's definitely not the way most people do it these days, but that doesn't make it useless.

I'll take the previous commenters at their word that this program is poorly made, but from what I can tell, none of the alternatives suggested so far do what this program is meant to do (which is of value, even if you build sites in WordPress)...i.e., slice a full site mock-up image into a bunch of div'd pieces. There is a whole market for this sort of service/tool. It's definitely not for the layperson, and it only plays one limited role in the process of site design, but I'd love to have a good slicing program.

I didn't download any of your options, Giovanni, because they all claim to be general web design programs, which is not what this Slicemaker is. Do you know if any of those programs actually have that particular feature?

Thanx Guys .... am looking to redo a Non-Profit Community Learning website so will go check out the suggested programs. On your advice above I am not trying this GOTD!

The best and easy software is http://www.openelement.com , Drag and drop, templates, powerful and easy to use.

@ no 10 : hi giovanni, appreciate all your contributions,excellent , almost any single one of them, only one question today: you recommend bluevoda, but bluevoda is not free when you want to publish anything , you have to pay the hosting- or am i missing an opportunity to use bluevoda for free?

It is very sad that a good idea is so badly implemented! Dated? Lots of tutorials in HTML use "sliced images" as a complement to photoshop in designing websites.... it is not comparable to a CMS system, it is just a help with designing a "look and feel" and it then can convert design to HTML! With regard to implementation: would it not be better if this software could be used to design WYSIWYG and output it as templates for Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal etc?
I don´t agree that anyone who has not used wordpress could set it up and running in less than 5 minutes. Creating the database, setting permissions and passwords could even take longer than that. The claims of Wordpress put me off long time ago because they are clearly targeted at real noobs ("If you've ever created a document, you're already a whizz at creating content with WordPress"?) etc.etc . Nonsense!

Wow, does that website take forever to load! Secondly, image based websites are terrible in terms of SEO. Thirdly, I'm with Papin on using a CMS like wordpress instead. Especially for newbies.

Giovanni.....
Thank you so much for your alternatives. I'm not really computer savvy and you always explain the offered programs (what they really do and do not do). You always help me so much!
Dianne

This program will cripple a website because it just takes a graphic - which search engines don't recognize - and splits it into smaller pieces. Forget links, audio-video, etc.

I had a customer came to me with what looked like an attractive website. He said he never got any response or search engine listings., His niece had made it for him. I told him all it was was a picture of a web page, not an actual webpage. That's why he got no results or search engine listings.

This program does the same thing.

I'd be grateful if somebody could explain the difference between "index.html(include)" and "index.html" (see first screenshot).

The developer's web site is hardly reachable because of a bad link (firefox trying hard but eventually failing to load "html://js" on line 44). After at least 1 (one) mn I was about to give up; then it won't stop loading something for another 1 or 2 mn. Thumbs up if you can read the user guide in less than an hour... or two.

Viewing the source page, seems like it's built with their own software. It's ugly, and, man, the CSS: unbearable! Absolutely NOT professional. In fact, looks like it's built with MS Word: same mistakes, same ill/evil-conception (abuse of <span> and inline styles in spite of more than 2100 lines of CSS). Needless to say the CSS code is bad coded too (look at top.css for example). And there are 2 (two) links to the same .css file!!! This is how you want your web pages look like?

Then, as the screenshots suggest, your site will not be up in minutes contrary to the developers' claim. The interface is cluttered with tons on settings, almost useless. Take the second screenshot for example. "File encoding": Why not set UTF-8 by default? Unicode can handle all Chinese characters; the GB2312 encoding is outdated, replaced by the more complete GB18030. "Path": should always be relative. Etc.

In the 90's, design was made using tables just because MSIE sucked too much (still is). Now, this product takes the same path with DIVs (with absolute positioning, fixed size fonts...). This design approach is outdated and not ready for HTML 5.

Enough said.

Most (and wise) people would be better off picking any CMS like Wordpress (dozens to choose between). Apart for writing contents ---which is the goal in the first place--- the whole setup and running won't take more than 5 minutes. And the code will be much more efficient and better written than with this GOTD.

Funny addition...

I wanted to find out, where the company SlideMaker ist situated. I did not found any information.

They claim to be "slicemaker software co., ltd" and they claim on their website :

"All Webpages of SliceMaker Soft are Created by SliceMaker Products.
Copyright ©"

Then this must be a chinese company, because in parts of their websites sourcecode they forgot to wipe out the chinese comments.

Just like the program, their website http://www.slicemaker.com takes ages to load. That does not give a good impression how good their product will be.

Already given away several times in the past, this SW does what it claims flawlessly....but there's a catch: it's not for noobs (see Karl's comment above)!!!

Here is how it works:
http://www.slicemaker.com/product_user_guides_1.htm

Besides that, my supercool security software (Webroot Anywhere Complete....guess what? Got it for FREE!! LOL!) warned me that their homepage contains malicious code (and I wonder why GAOTD team didn't check it out before releasing their software here free of charge).

So my suggestion is to SKIP it and use different apps (FREE of course)!!!

Which ones you may ask? Hey, why the heck I'm the only one here showing you BETTER FREE ALTERNATIVES every darn day? Even Ashraf is missing....that's not good...don't be lazy folks!!

First of all, if you use WORDPRESS or JOOMLA as your website Platform you don't need such kind of software.

Why? Well have a look at this:

http://opendynamo.org/pages/features.php

If, for some reasons, you don't want to rely on a any CMS program, well you can take your pick.....

http://www.z-admin.com (==> Great for small businesses)
http://www.openelement.com (==> Great tool with built-in SEO tools)
http://www.webdesignland.com
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/WEB-Design/HTML-Editors/Microsoft-Expression-Web-Designer.shtml
http://www.bluevoda.com (==> Perfect for noobs)

==> ALL FREE, EASIER TO USE & BETTER APPS than this GAOTD! <== Enjoy !!!

My 0.0000000000000000000000000000001 cent for today's giveaway!! ^_^

Poorly written piece of junk. Comes with no logic, no instructions - it opens and INTERNET EXPLORER window with a video. The programmer's don;t even know enough to open a person's default browser. Plus, they don;t know enough that most people don't want a video -they want a couple of sentences of instruction. Offer a video - but don't force - especially when you don;t have anything else

Plus, all the normal graphic commands -say draw a box with the mouse - don't work -you know like Gimp, Photoshop, Fireworks, Paint, etc.

Uninstalling....

Surprise, surprise - the uninstall routine won't even clean up after itself by removing it's directory from the Programs directory. Should have guessed that when I saw the installer they were using...

I could go and make Sunday lunch and write a will in the time this takes to start up. I can't even do anything else on my computer in the meantime as the screen is obliterated by the Slicemaker banner. Not a good first impression. Oh and once you have registered, the program re-starts and displays the banner all over again!!

@ #3 Vladimir

It's certainly 'a claim of quite different attitude' - miss something out and and sell it as doing us a favour! What's next in this trend? 'To simplify your task we've missed out the text and graphics editors so you can use the one you're familiar with rather than having to learn a new one'

Though I don't use provided templates to create a project, they can have a useful role - to see what a program is capable of and how it can be done.

Of course the biggest issue is that if your website is simply a sliced graphic, it doesn't contain any searchable text for Google to index. Also, if it contains a telephone number or address, your site visitor can't copy that text - can be very frustrating.

I have this from a previous giveaway and have used it only twice, it's so laid back it should really be called Mañana.
Clicking the links we slice for you and we make ready websites for you means plenty of time to make tea/coffee or even find an alternative program, I never knew a website or program take so long to open.
It isn't the easiest program to work with either, and like Karl #4, I find that coding html is better and very much quicker.

Be fair test yourself as realitycheck.
If you try the original website then you can see who good it will work what you do with this program.
If comments are correct on wots then you should use something like noscript in firefox to protect yourself.
use comodo firewall sandbox for installing to protect yourself at first time while testing
use a virtual machine like sandboxie to drive sw within.

Installed and registered Win 8.1 64 bit system without problems.

I did not know this product and I expected something like a wysiwyg web editor. As soon, as the program starts, I saw, that i was completely wrong...

This is a different approach to create a web site. You start with the complete graphic image of your planned website. This means, you have to define the layout of the website with a graphic program beforehand. If you are good in graphic design, than this is a easy task. Otherwise you are finished, before you can work with this software.

Imported the image of your website, you start "slicing" your image into parts of interacting. The program creates the corresponding div templates and css. This is easy said, but without a knowledge of these "tags" you are faster at your limit, as you can write "text".

I designed my first website some twenty years ago and i speak fluently .html and .css. In former times you had to hard code every part by yourself.

I understand the goal of this software, but I do not see a real use for the one, who wants to create his website as a beginner. I did not see an easy way to import a ready made .html template for correction or adding slices. But.. helas! There are two links on the right site of the program window :

we slice for you and we make ready websites for you

Maybe this is the real goal of the SliceMaker Standard. Let the customer get lost and then offer to create the website, of course paid, for him. Who knows?

Better still, SliceMaker Standard doesn’t come with predefined set of templates, the created webpage is what you want your graphic for web design look like – Unique and professional.
Very strong sentence! Yes, there is a trend to supply a lot of predefined templates for you web page, most of them are simply a garbage. This is a claim of quite different attitude! Lets try, folks!

I haven't installed a more unresponsive program as this one. The SliceMaker Standard Logo + version hangs on startup for about 3 minutes. With a 2nd generation i7 + 8GB ram, this is ridiculous. Thumbs down.

Very bad rep at WOT (https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/slicemaker.com?utm_source=addon&utm_content=warn-viewsc)