Softpress Systems on Thursday announced the release of Freeway 5.1, a new version of its Web design software for Mac OS X. A free update for 5.0 users, Freeway is available in Express and Pro versions for $79 or $249 respectively.

Freeway is a visual Web site design tool that mimics tools designers are accustomed to from page layout software. Freeway features graphic text effects, support for graphic edges and transparency, HTML box background effects, multiple master page support, link styles, CSS control and more.

New in the 5.1 release is the ability to publish a news feed from a We page using the RSS Feed Action. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is now a supported graphic import format; Freeway can convert to JPEG, GIF or PNG or pass through the SVG to the finished page. In-flow block items can now be either CSS or table-based items, and other fixes and enhancements have been made.

Freeway requires Mac OS X v10.4.11 or later.