iweb review

I am going to start up a first for me, a personal web site, and was interested in everyone's impression of the iweb program. Generally I want to know, is it beginner friendly, how you like it for ease of embedding and viewing video, and maybe what you don't like. Is there something better out there?
I am comfortable with the other programs, imovie and such. Just never have done a web page. Figured I'd get that crossed off my 'bucket' list...... Thanks.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Mar 22, 2010 10:55 AM

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5 replies

Mar 22, 2010 11:35 AM in response to dcmoser

how you like it for ease of embedding and viewing video


To start with some self-promotion:

http://www.wyodor.net/iFrame/

and [here|http://www.wyodor.net/Tutorials/ImageWidget/ClickMovie.html].

And more [iWeb related articles in my blog|http://www.google.com/search?q=iweb&btnG=Search ThisSite&domains=www.wyodor.net&sitesearch=www.wyodor.net].

And browse this forum.

Lots of questions and lots of answers about every conceivable iWeb problem.

Mar 22, 2010 11:36 AM in response to dcmoser

Dcmoser,

By rights, being a professional photographer and designer, used to using Photoshop and Illustrator and InDesign, designing a web site using a program such as Dreamweaver should be dead easy. But it's not! I could never get to grips with almost all the web design programs on the market. They were either too simple and the results reflected that, or too complicated and I just gave up in frustration.

Then along came iWeb and I was hooked. Like most Apple programs it did almost everything I wanted - easily. Sure, there are always little niggles and extra goodies that one would, in an ideal world, love to have, but by and large it does just what its says on the box. I have had all the various updates and produce two sites with the program. Perhaps an "iWeb Pro" would be the ultimate goal, but I'll live without it.

Beginner friendly it certainly is, although it won't be long before beginners wish to ditch some of the Apple templates and ways of doing things and add their own versions. There are so many great links through this Discussions site that you'll never be short of ideas and solutions. I must admit that I do not have much to do with embedding video, but I'm confident that there will be someone reading this who will know the answer.

http://www.peterrussellphotography.com
http://www.normandycoysomersetarmycadetforce.org.uk

Both done using iWeb '09 by someone who finds Dreamweaver as complicated as a Tax Return!

Good luck!

Mar 22, 2010 11:51 AM in response to dcmoser

It's dead easy. I am no genius and it was a breeze.
Once you have grasped the base concepts (iWeb Tutorials on Apple.com) you can refer back to this forum for any deeper knowledge

If you want to tweak a little, iWeb Seo, iTweak & FileZilla will be useful.

iWeb can be "rigid" but it's for your own good.
The only thing, is that iWeb can create heavy graphic websites, so if your provider is slow, it will show.

example of slow :
http://aloah.free.fr

Mar 23, 2010 4:46 AM in response to dcmoser

I recommend you ask in a less biased place!

If you're only interested in sticking with beginner development, then use iWeb. If you ever think you may want to have full functionality and learn web development properly, use something else. If you want to start cheap, use a free web builder to play around and see if you like it/find it easy, then buy a domain and hosting and hand code. It's not hard, eight year olds are doing it these days. You could also try downloading a free trial of Adobe Dreamweaver to see how you like it.

You sound like someone who has technological/technical experience in other areas; if so I imagine you'd get frustrated with the limits of iWeb very quickly. The main disadvantage is that you can't import and export from iWeb, so if you decide it's not for you you'd have to transfer all your content manually. Another disadvantage is that there are far more resources available for people who use more widespread/common applications - iWeb has a couple of support forums and that's it. Though the people here are very helpful, you will find that there are many problems which can't be solved due to iWeb's limitations. Also, iWeb is controlled by Apple and optimised for Mac users, so there are a considerable number of cross-compatibility issues. Apple also wants you to use MobileMe to tie you in further, so you'll find even more restrictions with what you can do unless you use that.

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iweb review

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