Free iWeb downloadable templates

sboben,

What would be great is if someone came up with an appliation that showed you the current templates and let you create new ones. To work for the general public (like me) it would have to be drag and drop for graphics and fonts and have a preview method. With this we could each create our own unique look and feel. Ok, at least a unique look.

OlsonBW

You really don't need templates. Use your imagination and using a blank page such as the White welcome template. Remove everything and be creative.
I don't pretend to be an artist. But, check out what i did for my small business.

Long URL
http://web.mac.com/affordablemoves/iWeb/deliveryjoe/Home.html
Short URL
http://web.mac.com/affordablemoves

I use Photoshop to create Logo, Screenshots Pro. widget for icons, and everyelse iweb tools. So everybody give it a try. Be unique.

J - there might be hope for you! Today I got an email from a guy named Paul who has figured out how to essentially alter the layout of the stock template pages! This looks REALLY promising... he sent me the instructions. It first involves creating your custom look and feel using my instructions and then building one of each page using your new template. You move everything on these six pages to where you'd like them to appear from the template and you save your dummy site. The he has you close iWeb and nab a file out of a new place he found. I knew about this location he mentions, but I never poked around to figure out what it was. Turns out, the modified XML for every page is saved here after you publish and the new layout you defined as you built the pages has also been saved to them! This is HUGE!

He submitted this to MacOSX Hints and is waiting for it to be posted. I asked if he plans to write this up and host it on his site and I'm awaiting a reply. I'll keep you posted. 😀

SB

Hi OlsonBW - yes... I agree. Good news for you too - Apple has such an application. I'm sure everyone would agree that they built something like this in-house to do exactly what you describe. Now we can only beg and plead that they let us have it as well.

I would find it hard to believe they wouldn't in time... when is the question. Is release 2.0 too soon? Man I hope not, but there may be reasons why they don't want to do that. Not sure what those would be however.

I think if we continue to show that this topic is a significant discussion and that most people would use the feature, they'd likely consider giving it to us sooner. Ah to be on the inside 🙂

Yes indeed. The simplistic bottom line is that we the clients/consumers NEED to have an easily used SAVE AS funtion (or something to that effect) that will allow us to make our own templates out of what they provide and keep them for our own use.

Richard.

Hi OlsonBW - yes... I agree. Good news for you too -
Apple has such an application. I'm sure everyone
would agree that they built something like this
in-house to do exactly what you describe. Now we can
only beg and plead that they let us have it as well.

I would find it hard to believe they wouldn't in
time... when is the question. Is release 2.0 too
soon? Man I hope not, but there may be reasons why
they don't want to do that. Not sure what those would
be however.

I think if we continue to show that this topic is a
significant discussion and that most people would use
the feature, they'd likely consider giving it to us
sooner. Ah to be on the inside 🙂

Power Book G4 Mac OS X (10.4.2)

If you can afford Adobe Studio 8 (formerly Macromedia), you will have all the tools you need to either take a skeleton template and modify or create your own:

Dreamweaver — probably the most powerful Web design tool available. There is a learning curve, but even with some simple tutorials you'd be amazed at what evena novice can create;
Contribute — Dreamweaver's little brother, it is probably the model of iWeb. Contribute's strengths lie in page management and some design — and it has .Mac HomePage connectivity built-in. (I've searched to see if it can be used similarly with iWeb, but nothing yet);
Fireworks — I like Fireworks more and more everytime I use it. It is a vector and bitmap editing tool in one interface, which is geared to creating and manipulating Web graphics;
Flash 8 — Surely, everyone knows about Flash? It's probably the most widely-used browser plug-in. However, most Flash content are SWF (ShockWave Flash) files, which are the final products of creating Flash projects. Flash 8 has a great tool to import other video formats into it's native FLV format, which can then be exported to Web-friendly SWF files.

The caveat is I don't know how well .Mac supports Flash movies, and Flash has a steeper learning curve. Adobe also includes FlashPaper, which is a printer driver that converts anything to an SWF file. These files tend to be smaller in size than PDF files, though nowhere near as robust.

For Web design, Studio 8 is a better product suite than Adobe's, which is geared toward print media and PDF generation. I am not an expert in either, but we have two 2-Gb .Mac accounts, and I wanted to best tools to put content on them.

I just wish Apple would provide more information on how to use these tools with .Mac.

I want to download or buy more templates for iWeb. I
am getting a bit tired of the five or six themes
available for my site. I want MORE!

Here is more free templates for your use, enjoy.

http://macezzy.com

Thanks for the Video!
Not to mention the themes.
Is there an easy way to apply new themes to estabalished sites?

No that was the question. I've altered the layout of
a blog entry and have to make the same alterations
each time I add an entry. It's become automatic, but
it would be nice to somehow save the changes.

That is an excellent question ... I have the exact same need for the same reasons.

Thanks for the Video!
Not to mention the themes.
Is there an easy way to apply new themes to
estabalished sites?

Thank you for the feedback, Iam glad you liked it. iWeb doesn't have theme changes on the fly capability yet. You pretty much have to recreate your site from scratch and upload it.

http://macezzy.com

I thought you might say that ...

Also, perhaps you answer another question that Im sure will be "no".
Templates for iWeb are used as a style templates. Where as a page templte would allow a defaut page's layout(oh, blog new entry) to be changed and saved so the changes do not have to be manually be changed every single entry. I do not see a way to save changed to default pages and hope you will say, "sure this is how you can do it".

Yes, this is possible. A guy named Paul sent me the instructions and you will see them posted at MacOSX Hints shortly.

You don't have to settle for the layout Apple or anyone else has specified now. The crux of Paul's find is this - you build your custom template (do not confuse template with theme). You do this by swapping out graphics and altering the XML of a duplicated Apple template. Then you build a dummy site with your new template - one of each page type, but move everything around to where you want it. Save and publish. Close iWeb. Then you go into the domain.sites folder and nab the XML from there and use it to create a new version of your custom template - this version will retain the layout you altered from the original.

It's something close to that. You'll see it at MacOSX Hints shortly and Paul is going to post it on his site as well.

My guess is that they want to make sure they can support what they've released so far "just in case" we figured out how to really mess things up that they haven't done yet.

Then once things settle down they'll probably release the template creator/editor and not be bombed with everything too soon. Basically with each feature we get, the more support (in one way or another) we need.

Hi OlsonBW - yes... I agree. Good news for you too -
Apple has such an application. I'm sure everyone
would agree that they built something like this
in-house to do exactly what you describe. Now we can
only beg and plead that they let us have it as well.

I would find it hard to believe they wouldn't in
time... when is the question. Is release 2.0 too
soon? Man I hope not, but there may be reasons why
they don't want to do that. Not sure what those would
be however.

I think if we continue to show that this topic is a
significant discussion and that most people would use
the feature, they'd likely consider giving it to us
sooner. Ah to be on the inside 🙂

"It's something close to that. You'll see it at MacOSX Hints shortly and Paul is going to post it on his site as well. '

Cool ... thanks

Apple Pages gives you ability to create your own templates by giving you pre defined styles and also ability to create your own styles. Styles are those image holders and text holders you see in templates, for those of you wondering. This is not available yet for iWeb. Adopting Pages template creation method into iWeb is much better ideal for all iWeb users.
Breaking into file and application pakage is terrible ideal. Here is reasons why.
Making templates should be readily available to all users of iWeb whatever their user levels happens to be. Template creation should not be so complicated that only industrious few will do it. Breaking into pakage to make templates takes too long. iWeb users should not be forced to learn html, css, javascript, xml, xcode, and adobe photoshop to make templates.
I have made templates using Rapidweaver and I can tell you from experience that it is not fun or productive. We don't want carbon copy of Rapidweaver. iWeb's real strength comes from ability to layout images and text on the page wherever and whenever you want. This is much easier, faster, with minimal learning curve for everybody.
If you want Apple Pages template creation method simply request that feature in iWeb's menu and clicking feeback.

http://macezzy.com

Powerbook G4 Ti Mac OS X (10.4.4)