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iWeb Review: The Great, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
By Jonathan | February 7, 2008 at 5:59 pm
First of all, I apologize to all the non-Mac users that happen to fall upon this blog post, chances are you’re not going to care about this one much. I’d like to take a few minutes to review the latest version of Apple’s website design tool, iWeb ’08.
iWeb comes standard with the most recent versions of iLife. From Apple’s webpage: “iWeb makes it easy to create a website that’s stunningly beautiful — and totally you. Start with an Apple-designed theme, then customize it with your own text, photos, movies, and podcasts until it’s exactly what you want. And switch themes with a click anytime.” These things are all true, although I found myself trying to make my sites more complex than iWeb had in mind. More on that later.
iWeb was designed with the idea that its users would integrate with their .Mac account. .Mac is simply Apple’s web hosting service that costs more than pretty much anyone else, and gives you less storage space and bandwidth. .Mac does give you some new email addresses and the ability to sync/backup documents from your computer, but all things considered I would never purchase an account with them.
This already begins to affect the iWeb functionality, as you must have a .Mac account to use certain features such as blog comments, interactive picture slideshows, and only publishing changes from pages that have changed. Confused? Yeah, I don’t think it makes much sense either.
Since I have a programming background, I decided that I could create a blog from a third party blogging site, update my blog template to match my iWeb template, and seamlessly integrate them together so that no one would be able to tell a difference. Well, that didn’t work because the iWeb templates use a bunch of JavaScript, CSS, images, and some other stuff that made it more difficult than it was worth to try to mimic. So, screw that idea. After that failed I busted out my trusty Internet friend, Google, to see if other people had tried the same thing I did. Turns out they did, and I came upon an application called iComment (link).
iComment utilizes a free third party commenting system called HaloScan (link) that users can integrate into pretty much whatever site they want. I downloaded the demo of iComment to try it out and see if I liked it. After running iComment a few times, I figured out that it was simply parsing my HTML pages and replacing/inserting text that HaloScan requires to display comments on a page. Again, since I have a programming background I figured I could do that myself. Turns out, this actually worked. One excellent new feature of iWeb is called Web Widgets. These things let you insert code directly into your HTML page, which was exactly what I need with HaloScan. Sweet, right?
I thought I was done.
When I was testing my new comment functionality, I was using a web browser with an ad blocking add-in installed…this therefore meant that the ads HaloScan was inserting near my blog comments were not visible to me. It wasn’t until my friend mentioned something to me that I noticed. Since I didn’t set this page up to make money and look like crap, I kicked HaloScan off and decided to drop iWeb altogether. I’ve since switched to WordPress as my blogging tool, and simple CSS for the layout.
Now don’t get me wrong here, iWeb certainly is nice. It is by far the easiest web design tool that I have ever used. It integrates very well with iPhoto so if you want a photo in a certain place you can simply drag and drop it on the page wherever you want. It doesn’t get a whole lot simpler than that. iWeb also comes with about 25 unique template styles, each with eight page styles so you can create a new page based on what it will be used for. Example: blog, pictures, etc. iWeb is also much, much nicer when it is used with .Mac, so all of the iWeb functionality can be used.
For experienced web programmers, iWeb is definitely not the way to go. There is no obvious way to make changes to the CSS, there is no easy way to edit the HTML code, and the functionality is greatly reduced when not used with .Mac.
In conclusion:
The Great
Ease of use, ability to make great looking websites without knowing a thing about the web.
The Good
Integration with iPhoto, WYSIWYG editor very intuitive to use.
The Bad
Adding HTML code through Web Widgets is awkward, publishing a site to a folder updates every single file on the site so it is difficult to upload only required files.
The Ugly
iWeb without .Mac integration is just a fancy version of Print Shop for the web.
Topics: Apple, review, software | 11 Comments »
February 8th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Yes I have a comment for you. I never knew how big a nerd you were until you started publishing it on the internet. You flew under my radar for so long, but now it is all black and white. This is a sad sad day Jonathan Edward Lepolt. Just think I have to admit that I am related to you, now I know how Emily and Evan feel. And as for you Abi I have no sympathy for you, I mean you picked him we’re just stuck with him. LOL. Ok, that was I little mean and I apologize to Abi. I guess you can’t help who you fall in love with, even if they are a big nerd. LOL.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I’ve never tried to hide anything about me being a nerd. All I’m trying to do is provide a useful review for the people!
You’re a Dolphins fan though…1-15? Ouch!
You can have Chad Johnson.
February 9th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Since you went there I’ll go there as well…Oh and the Bungles are so much better huh? How’s that coach workin out for ya? So he got all your hopes up taking you to the playoffs only to fail miserably when it counted. That’s a bummer. And as for Chad you can keep him. He’s turning into a T.O. with all his load mouth antics. He should just play the game and shut up. T.J. is better than him anyway.
P.S. What does the Dolphins 1-15 season have to do with you being a nerd?
February 11th, 2008 at 9:00 am
No, CD, you take Chad.
The Dolphins going 1-15 has nothing to do with me being a nerd. I think my knowledge of the situation is enough to void the “nerd status,” don’t you?
When are you moving to Cincinnati? Everyone wants you down here.
February 11th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Maybe on this subject I can void your nerd status but don’t go thinkin I’ll let you slide all the time. Wish I could move down there peeps. Find me a job.
Your an enginerd, here’s some simple math for you…
Chad Johnson+ Miami Dolphins= NOT INTERESTED or
Miami Dolphins- Chad Johnson= NO NONSENSE
i.e. Keep your load mouth. Parcells wants character players.
March 31st, 2008 at 4:26 am
I think it was very useful and I am thankful for “nerds” like you, because I know absolutely nothing about Macs and I just bought one.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
I’ve been searching on google for a solution for my website and blogs for weeks, I found your review very helpful.
I’m using Wordpress (I can see this ‘Comments’ box is also from Wordpress) for most of my website and blogs.
What web design (WYSIWYG) package will you suggest for a non-programmer? I used to use Frontpage, but as you know, most hosts already stopped supporting it.
iWeb is something I’m considering, but seems like it’s only good if you use it with .mac.
Any comment is appreciated.
BTW, I think if publishing something useful for others is a ‘nerd’, I really hope there are more ‘nerds’… : )
April 17th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Dreamweaver is an obvious choice for a good web design tool to use. It is, however, quite expensive (running around $400 a copy) and probably full of features that most people will never use.
Since I am an engineer, web design is not really my thing. I’ve resorted to finding a WordPress template that I liked and copying the CSS and page formatting to the rest of my site.
Deep down I think that iWeb is really nice, but it is not fully functional without a .Mac account ($99/year). If you don’t mind your blog and the rest of your site looking different, you could always use iWeb for the main pages, pictures pages, etc., and use something else for the blog.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:48 am
you can also use an iframe in the html widget to embed an entire web page….. such as a blog you run with wordpress….
October 8th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
nice post- you saved me $99/ year. I was thinking about using iWeb with google page creator (google hosts my website) but the blog issue killed that idea. Also, it is apparently not easy for the subfolders in iWeb to be recognized by Google page creator.
Why cant people be nice. I like this blog format. You said you use wordpress?
July 11th, 2010 at 3:06 am
Thanks for the good review! I don’t know much at all about computers and programming, but your review was readable and helpful for decision making