Is iWeb worth it?

[octoberdeath]

I'm wanting to upgrade my iLife apps and had a few questions about iWeb. I have noticed that many of the iWeb sites I have seen all pretty much look the same.
1) Does iWeb allow you to create your own themes?

2) Can you start with a theme and then completly change it only keeping basic layout designs?

3) Can you put Flash elements into iWeb?

4) Can you import other html elements from like Photoshop (photo albums)?

5) Can you take the RSS feeds used to create Podcasts & Video Podcasts and put them on other websites?

6) When you create a Podcast do you get to make a page for it on iTunes or is it just linked on iTunes?

[steveedge]

Before I answer your questions, let me just say that in order to do most of what you asked about you would need another editor, which means you don't need I-Web. It is pretty basic, that being said....
1) Does iWeb allow you to create your own themes? Not sure, I could find no theme folder but there may be a way.

2) Can you start with a theme and then completly change it only keeping basic layout designs? yes provided you either have another editor or know how to code.

3) Can you put Flash elements into iWeb? same answer as above.

4) Can you import other html elements from like Photoshop (photo albums)? Yes, I web automatically shows u the contents of your I-Photo folder.

5) Can you take the RSS feeds used to create Podcasts & Video Podcasts and put them on other websites? yes You can export the entire thing or part.

6) When you create a Podcast do you get to make a page for it on iTunes or is it just linked on iTunes? You can make a page.

[HiRez]

I just started using iWeb and so far I'm finding it extremely limiting. For example, there seems to be no way to manually name the HTML name of a page (other than doing a search and replace on the whole site after it's published to a folder). Let's say I want the name displayed to the user to be My Company's Home Page. Well iWeb names it "0B49818F-3A90-44E0-BF8D-003D35D551CE.html" ... not exactly ideal. The other thing that's really annoying is that themes have certain elements that, AFAICT, cannot be deleted, such as the main header text block and the "Lorum ipsum" text block. A Blank template for pages in each theme would be useful, as well as the ability to duplicate a page and use multiple Master Pages like in Keynote, InDesign, etc. Maybe I'm just missing something but I find the app, while very approachable and cool in many respects, to be severely constraining and frustrating to use. Hopefully iWeb 2.0+ will be more usable for me.

[jaseone]

Basically if you are asking questions like that then iWeb is NOT for you, iWeb is to make publishing a website easy for the masses and also for those of us that feel lazy from time to time.

[dongmin]

it's pretty useless, in my opinion. it's perhaps the most limited of the iApps Apple has released. really, it has zero innovative features. you might actually be better off using Pages and the stock photo/video export features built into .Mac. there are other, far better drag and drop options...

[steelphantom]

Originally Posted by jaseone

Basically if you are asking questions like that then iWeb is NOT for you, iWeb is to make publishing a website easy for the masses and also for those of us that feel lazy from time to time.

I agree. iWeb is aimed at people who either don't know the first thing about creating a web site or are too lazy to write one from scratch. It's a nice app, but it's not for a power user by any means.

[FoxyKaye]

*shrugs*

It's worth it for my mother, or my friend who has never built a Web site before. I checked it out for about 20 minutes and went back to Dreamweaver.

[Billy Boo Bob]

Originally Posted by FoxyKaye

It's worth it for my mother, or my friend who has never built a Web site before...

Same here. When I can get a new Mac for me, my Ma will get my current eMac 800. I think she'd be able to use both iWeb and Pages to make simple things for her church without being overwhelmed (after a little training). There's no way I'd bother to even open GoLive (or DreamWeaver) for her, or something like InDesign for bulletins. She gets lost too easily if she's outside of a browser/mail/solitaire app as it is.

I do like the easy reflections in the images, though.

[Pistol Pete]

you all have to be on drugs for dissing iweb...

this has been long needed from apple...

/rant

[octoberdeath]

Thats what I was needing to hear. I just figured it would be the easiest way to get podcast urls to put on iTunes so that I could post it on another website I have. I guess I can do that anyway with Garageband or iMovie and just export it to iWeb and then copy and past the code? I don't know a lick about creating RSS feeds for video podcasting and stuff of that nature. How would I go about creating my own page for iTunes where people would download my podcast? Does Apple give you an option when you submit a podcast?

[HiRez]

Originally Posted by Pistol Pete

you all have to be on drugs for dissing iweb...

this has been long needed from apple...

I'm not dissing iWeb at all, I think it is a very cool, approachable app. But I'm just hoping for some more power and flexibility in the future. Other iApps such as iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD have all become much more capable (while still maintaining their ease of use) over the years, so I hope iWeb will as well. I'm a graphics professional who uses Cinema4D, Photoshop, After Effects, InDesign, Illustrator, and so forth, yet I still find all kinds of uses for many of the iApps. Sometimes it's just a lot easier to do something fast and with good quality in those apps rather than go the power user route. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a web design guru, and so I was looking for an easy way to make a nice-looking web site without devoting weeks or months to learning yet another massive application (95% of the features of which I'll probably never use).

[Stella]

IMO, iWeb is too basic to be usable.

Extremely limiting.

[mjstew33]

Originally Posted by Stella

IMO, iWeb is too basic to be usable.

Extremely limiting.

It's limiting, not extremely limiting.

It has some GREAT features. Plus, it's only version one, too.

[amacgenius]

Let me tell you this, during the install of iLife '06 - I unchecked iWeb.

[mjstew33]

Originally Posted by amacgenius

Let me tell you this, during the install of iLife '06 - I unchecked iWeb.

Why would you do that? You couldn't of played with it personally before that.

[Kingsly]

While were on the subject of iWeb... Hows this?
I literally spent about 30 minutes making it... so yeah, its easy. Do I miss GoLive CS? Yes, I do.

[Platform]

Go with Rapidwaver....same ease of use but does so, so much more

But if you want to be a real Pro....Dreamweaver.

Rapidweaver costs less than iLife as well....yes I know it is only one app, but you seemed to be upgrading to iLife 06 for iWeb only so.

[HiRez]

Originally Posted by Kingsly

While were on the subject of iWeb... Hows this?
I literally spent about 30 minutes making it... so yeah, its easy. Do I miss GoLive CS? Yes, I do.

It looks nice, it's just that if you ever need to depart from the theme in any way, you're kind of hosed (or at least in for a lot of work manually changing the output HTML pages). And I think that most users eventually are going to want to do somthing outside the iWeb sandbox. For example, if you wanted one of the top nav rollovers to point to a page that is not in your iWeb project.

Anyway, really cute kid! And you found a beautiful girl who wears AC/DC shirts...I envy you, you bastard. If you tell me she's a Mac user I might have to come kill you.

[Kingsly]

Originally Posted by HiRez

Anyway, really cute kid! And you found a beautiful girl who wears AC/DC shirts...I envy you, you bastard. If you tell me she's a Mac user I might have to come kill you.

Uhh, yeah. My sister is a mac user.
Would you still like to kill me?

As for iWeb, I already feel the limitations. I want a photo album within a photo album, like the podcast page. Oh yeah, speaking of podcasts, I don't want to LISTEN to my widgets!!
Apple, help me?

[amacgenius]

Originally Posted by lilstewart92

Why would you do that? You couldn't of played with it personally before that.

I did before - I *uh* *cough* tested it before I bought it (iLife '06)....
hrmph *walks away*.

[kwajo.com]

i find iWeb useful. I know how to design websites, and have done several over the years, but sometimes I just want to put an idea or a photo online quickly and it's just easier to do it in iWeb, especially when you're feeling lazy

[Demon Hunter]

Originally Posted by Pistol Pete

you all have to be on drugs for dissing iweb...

this has been long needed from apple...

/rant

I couldn't have said it better myself.

iWeb is basically an extension of .Mac. It's much better than web-based HomePage, and far more advanced. It was only a matter of time. I'm actually surprised it took Apple this long to release a basic HTML-maker.

My websites are handmade in TextEdit with dazzling Photoshop designs. Do I have a use for iWeb? Absolutely.

I have no desire to learn the coding for blogs, and setting up WordPress is a lot of work.

Love iWeb.

[littlejim]

My Daughter did a school project about Emeline Pankhurst a couple of weeks ago. She did it in Pages and she wanted it put online.

It took about fifteen minutes to get the site completed and uploaded :

http://www.niamhkelly.me.uk/pankhurst/

How old is my Daughter? Nine years old.
This sort of software is enabling our kids to do things that even I couldn't do without a lot of time and effort just a few years ago.

Just my 2p worth!

[prostuff1]

i just saw this on versiontracker. It might help you do what you are looking for.

I have messed around with iWeb adn for what i need to do it works pretty good. It is basic but that is all i really need to do.