Karelia Software previews Sandvox

Many of you may remember (and indeed still use, as I do) a great application from Karelia Software called Watson. Originally released in 2001, Watson was a "web services" application, allowing you to view info from the web without having to use a browser via a series of "services." Ebay auctions, package tracking, local weather and television schedules, monetary exchange rates and more were available. I loved it and registered it just a day after trying it out. Like I said, I still use it.

When Apple released Mac OS 10.2 "Jaguar," in August of 2002, it included a revamped version of Sherlock, which looked and behaved a lot like Watson. To make a long story (and old argument) short, Watson was licensed by Sun Microsystems in 2004, and Karelia has since stopped supporting the application. I only mention this story because Watson is such a pleasure to use, I was thrilled to see that the boys at Karelia have a new project up on the work bench.

Previewed at WWDC this week, Sandvox is a WYSIWYG web development tool that promises to combine incredible ease of use with an intuitive interface and beautiful, professionally designed templates. Features you'd expect are in place, like drag-and-drop assembly and rich text editing, along with some geekier goodies like automatic RSS generation, the option to code by hand and an extensible plug-in architecture. Sounds interesting to me, and Karelia is currently looking for eager beta testers to give them a hand when the time rolls around.  I signed up, and if I end up loving Sandvox half as much as I love Watson, this will be one sweet little app.