Optimisation in iWeb

Tom,
reading between the lines the iWeb built site is little different than any other site made in other ways, just build it and put on the web host with ftp. It would also follow then that even if optimising directly in IWeb is limited, it would be possible to easily do in the built in html editor in my web (adding alt and title tags for instance) is that a fair presumption.

The reason I am curious is that as an artist I often make web sites for individual projects and artworks, and at times a simple but rapidly built site would be just the go. I am less enthusiastic however if the optimising capabilities are at a normal blog site level.

I am curious about iMac as host for the site, does the domain name have to include mac.com ? Or can it work with my own domain name on .mac?

Tony
http://www.tonyjohansen.com
A Life Of Art

Tom,
Thanks,

Yes, after you have published stuff, you can add whatever html you want to your pages. The drawback is that if you then use iWeb to edit pages and republish, any custom html >you added will be erased

Almost always I would do editing in online html editor. But adding pages is an issue. Please confirm that if an extra page was built in iWeb, and uploading with fetch that that would not change anything on previously uploaded and custom edited pages.

BTW I had heard that uploading to non .Mac servers was a 'hassle' As an example Amber on Call For Help TV said so. By hassle however they really meant as per normal ftp (which I have never thought of as a hassle) I had imagined odd code or script etc that would not easily translate to a non-mac server. Seems that is wrong.

Seems too that by changing numbers it should be easy to change colours on the templates. Also adding flash headers etc should be easy, at least once online.

I was impressed in Amber's demo how quick and easy adding and rearranging images was. I have about 20 sites (static +blogs) and so any kind of reasonable shortcutting say with layout and sizing images etc would be good for me at least for the less important projects.

Tom, you seem to know your stuff, would you, considering its cost $150AUD (for family pack to get it onto 3 computers) etc consider iWeb a good investment for someone doing a fair bit of web work as described (yesterday went live with this site, took me 6 days to develop. http://www.voiceinmyhead.net )

Still not clear here:

Apple doesn't sell or host other domain names. What you would do is >simply forward a domain name you had purchased somewhere to your >.Mac url. The forwarding is handled by the place where you have your >domain name.

Say I registered 'FastSites.com' Would that on .mac become .Mac.FastSites.com or other variation, or does the '.Mac' dissappear from the name entirely?

Tony http://www.tonyjohansen.com
A Life Of Art

Tom, as you suggest I have been looking through the forum and learning little bits here and there, but this Q&A with you has taught me more in a short time than the rest put together.

It does seem that iWeb is attracting lots of inexperienced new site builders which is a wonderful thing. I regard site building as rather easy and think it is sad that many people avoid it just because a little bit of code seems frightening. If some software encourages more people to have a go then that has to be a good thing. I am a great beleiver in the liberating power of the web. As an artist I am able to avoid the hierarchy of the gallery system and yet every month I get tens of thousands of hits. Thats more people than would ever be looking at my work on a regular gallery wall. On top of that, recently New York Arts magazine found me on the web and put me on their list of picks and tips for 2006.

I am now using the net as an integral part of making art, and consequently iWeb is attractive if it can speed things up. I already own a site builder which I never use because it is too limited but it seems iWeb may just be good enough, but it is expensive. I know there is a suite being paid for but I would not be buying the others anyway, so for me the cost is for the iWeb alone. On the other hand if I can do a site in 3 days instead of 6...

With forwarding, someone would type "fastsites.com"
into their browser and they would be taken to
whatever site is at web.mac.com/username.

So it is just standard domain forwarding, which works, sort of, but people still get to see an unfortunately not so easy to remember URL when they arrive at the site.

With this, and other problems mentioned in the forum (such as a guy with multiple sites on .Mac losing parts of older sites as he uploads newer ones)
It seems much more logical for me to use my existing server as I can host unlimited sites there for no extra cash, and I can have a 'clean domain' that looks good in the URL bar, and is memorable / recognisable.

BTW are there any other sites on the web with useful iWeb users information?

Tony
http://www.tonyjohansen.com
A Life Of Art

Often you can add "masking" to "forwarding," which
means people just see your personal url.

ahh, learn something new every day. Tom you are a fount of knowledge. It is appreciated.

Tony
http://www.tonyjohansen.com
A Life Of Art