iWeb

Thinking of buying iLife '06 for the iWeb app, but had a few questions.

Can I use iWeb to make pages and have them hosted by something other than .mac? I dont mind using .mac but have my own domain names and really dont know if I can use them with a .mac account. I remember when I had .mac my email and web address where about 200 characters long

as you can see Im very new to this so feel free to offer any advice you have on building a web site for a small but growing photography business.

A friend creates and maintains web sites has helped me as best he can but I just dont have the time to learn the "real" way and am very interested in the iWeb approach.

http://thesbimage.com/

I love the first page (he had it up in a few minutes, it would have takin me a year )

but I need to do much of the rest and feel starting fresh with a app like iWeb would be a better idea

thank you
Ray

iWeb works fine at making simple, generic websites. You can customize it to a point, but it's very time consuming.

You don't have to use .Mac, but it makes the whole process a lot easier.

iWeb makes pages with very bloated code. Pages load very slowly.

Overall, though, I feel that you would enjoy using it, and it would be worth it in the long run.

Thanks, I think simple is what Im after, many of the "big" sites are just much, I want to make it clean and simple

a main page (I like the general look of the one I have) all I need is 4 or 5 portfolio pages (wedding, fashion, sports, product, fine art) contact page, about us and what we can provide. all clean and consistent

sample portfolio page

http://www.pbase.com/ray645/image/58661222

Do you think iWeb would be a good choice as I dont have much time to learn a higher end web app? also is it possible to use .Mac with my own domain name?

thank you again
Ray

.Mac extras only work in .Mac sites. If you want to take advantage of them you have to use them in .Mac domains. Many people keep their domains and use them as inicial pages then automatically loading to the .Mac page, it allows them to use short adresses, or you can use a frame layout.

I don't think is possible to have that kind of structure in just one page with iWeb, i mean clicking in the thumbnail and having the image loaded in the same page, you wold have to either create an album page or create an individual page for each image.

A lot of stuff can be done with iWeb, and even more if you learn to tweak the template files but that is complicated. I have been playing with the templates for a few months now and i have done this so far:

http://web.mac.com/mraya/iWeb/site/Photos/Photos.html
http://web.mac.com/mraya/iWeb/site/Templates.html
http://web.mac.com/mraya/iWeb/TemplateTests/Blog/Blog.html

If you like those, i might be able to make you a template, just send me a PM and see if it can be at your expectations.

There are other links with a lot of information about iWeb and the templates, just some that may help you...

http://www.11mystics.com/blog/
http://members.chello.nl/haan2/iwebhacking/iWeBlog2/iWeBlog2.html
http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=188

I think Im going to go for it

I would rather have a page of small thumb nails and when you click one have it open a second page (or maybe with a slide show tool bar)

something like this

http://www.pbase.com/ray645/image/59979149

but when you click on a small thumb it opens the slide show or just a 300x400ish jpg in a separate window

main page (home), contact page, about us page, 3 or 4 galleries like the one above

I will have a look through your templets, and send you a PM latter

thank you
Ray

RayLee said:

Can I use iWeb to make pages and have them hosted by something other than .mac?

Click to expand...

Enter some nonsense the first time that annoying iWeb "Buy .Mac!" splash screen pops up, add to keychain, make sure to "Always Allow" next time iWeb starts and the pestiferous ad will never be seen again.

Then, publish whatever you create in iWeb to a local folder, and upload to your Web space using a FTP program.


:mac:
If Apple wants me to buy 10.5 when it comes out, it better include RW mounting of FTP folders as network drives and a cmd X function in Finder.

IMO iWeb is awesome. It is incredibly easy to use and that saves me ALOT of time. Sure the website has a .mac addess but with the time it saved me my customers can type the extra 3 letters. Also the slideshow feature REALLY helps me. If anyone wants to take a look and give me some feedback.

www.web.mac.com/lkunlimited


Edit: WOW i just published the website and there is a big difference in speed, ALOT faster than it was before, anyone know any other changes.

RapidWeaver slaughters iWeb, and is in my opinion a far superior product.

I use it for my website—http://www.lilserenity.com

I have yet to throughly use iWeb 1.1 (the recent upgrade) but I do genuinely feel the results from RapidWeaver are much more rewarding.

Vicky

lil said:

RapidWeaver slaughters iWeb, and is in my opinion a far superior product.

I use it for my website—http://www.lilserenity.com

I have yet to throughly use iWeb 1.1 (the recent upgrade) but I do genuinely feel the results from RapidWeaver are much more rewarding.

Vicky

Click to expand...

I've seen on here where quite a few people use RapidWeaver. I've been using Dreamweaver myself, how does it compare? going to check out Rapidweaver's site now...

ecks618 said:

IMO iWeb is awesome. It is incredibly easy to use and that saves me ALOT of time. Sure the website has a .mac addess but with the time it saved me my customers can type the extra 3 letters. Also the slideshow feature REALLY helps me. If anyone wants to take a look and give me some feedback.

www.web.mac.com/lkunlimited


Edit: WOW i just published the website and there is a big difference in speed, ALOT faster than it was before, anyone know any other changes.

Click to expand...

Yeah, a little thing: It doesn't come up.

For the price of RapidWeaver I think it's worth giving it a shot. Of course I might be considered biased, but I have put all of the beginer level web authoring apps through their paces and RapidWeaver comes out on top. If this weren't the case, you can rest assured that I would build themes for the other guys.

RapidWeaver has alot of advantages right now, it has been around more than iWeb and there are a lot of people around not only making themes for it but also plug-ins. On the other hand iWeb is less than 1 year old and only 2 people/groups are working on templates (oficially) and only 1 or 2 are making extras for it.
I do believe in the next 6-12 months iWeb will gain a lot more of terrain, consider that each Mac sold today comes with iWeb, also allows you to get a big discount if you get .Mac, also within 5 months Apple has released an important upgrade, i expect (at least) another one before the end of this year and a radical improve for iLife '07.
On the other hand, RapidWeaver does not depend on .Mac services as iWeb does, this will keep a good market for it, but they better keep improving faster. If i were you min_max9000, i would learn more about iWeb templates as soon as possible, just in case.

mraya said:

...If i were you min_max9000, i would learn more about iWeb templates as soon as possible, just in case.

Click to expand...

Have no fear, I have ALL my bases covered adequately.

mraya said:

On the other hand, RapidWeaver does not depend on .Mac services as iWeb does, this will keep a good market for it, but they better keep improving faster. If i were you min_max9000, i would learn more about iWeb templates as soon as possible, just in case.

Click to expand...

iWeb does not "depend" on .Mac services. You can use it anywhere you want, but it will only auto upload to .Mac. I redid nearly all of my site (see "My Pictures" in my sig) in iWeb because it was easier to maintain and create new pages. The main page I did/do in DreamWeaver. While I like Dreamweaver, iWeb beats it for simplicity and ease of use for the average user.

I should have used another word, my bad. Some of iWeb's fetures do require .Mac account, like comments, search, visit counter, rss, photocast, and partially the slide show window, which has a better look if you use a .Mac. I think is safe to asume that the number of features that will depend on .Mac will grow, you have to sell your products.
iWeb beats not only Dreamweaver in simplicity but i think also RapidWeaver. I used RapidWeaver demo for less than an hour, looking for a replacement for my old version of DreamWeaver, i don't like it even i have seen people do wonders with it, i just don't like it.
In the case of iWeb i don't like the templates, for a company whose image is based on simplicity and minimalism they are just too cluttered, too overloaded, but i know that can be fixed now.

By the way, nice photos Baggs.

Kar98 said:

Enter some nonsense the first time that annoying iWeb "Buy .Mac!" splash screen pops up, add to keychain, make sure to "Always Allow" next time iWeb starts and the pestiferous ad will never be seen again.

Then, publish whatever you create in iWeb to a local folder, and upload to your Web space using a FTP program.


:mac:
If Apple wants me to buy 10.5 when it comes out, it better include RW mounting of FTP folders as network drives and a cmd X function in Finder.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the tip, Im starting to play around with some different apps (wish me luck)

Ray

thank you all

I have downloaded Rapidweaver (trial) and will try it out, Dreamweaver! not for me Im lucky I figured out how to find this thread again

again thank you all, I think Im going with either Rapid or Iweb. The templets on 1and1 are pretty poor for photography

JUST A TEST

http://www.rlbimages.com/index.html

much to busy for me, and all my images are comming up very soft from "resizing" or what ever the 1and1 gallery function is doing

regards
Ray

RayLee said:

much to busy for me, and all my images are comming up very soft from "resizing" or what ever the 1and1 gallery function is doing

regards
Ray

Click to expand...

iWeb and 1and...I tried that combination (not my choice, but the customer's) and ran away screaming :black:

Kar98 said:

iWeb and 1and...I tried that combination (not my choice, but the customer's) and ran away screaming :black:

Click to expand...

thank you, it looks like its going to be 1and1 and RapidWeaver and maybe latter Freeway (if I ever get to a point where I need more control than Rapid had to offer)

Once I start be ready for an avalanche of questions

5 30 or 40 minutes with the pre mad templets was enough, I just do not like them

(testing site 2)

http://www.rlbimages.com/index.html

For some reason I cant seem to upload a zip to 1 and 1 (need to get this fixed ASAP!)

thanks again
Ray

Galleries, if it wasn't for galleries being such great tools, I'd just slap some text in Times New Roman on the site and maybe a pic or two and leave it at that. As it is, I just spent a couple of hours updating this http://www.threeoaks-marshall.com/gallery.html gallery. Select desired pictures in iPhoto, File/Export/Web Page (putting that under Share where the other half of the export options sit would have made too much sense?), give it a name, pic a background picture if the gallery is supposed to fit in with the rest of the site. Upload.
But that's only half the fun. Seeing how the export settings in iPhoto are rather rudimentary, to put it mildly...open FTP site in Dreamweaver and fix the code. Align center, put in the other common page elements (in this case logo and nav menu), make sure Dreamweaver doesn't helpfully fark up the links, save.
Hit refresh in browser. Make sure to test at least in 800*600 and 1024*768, and FFx and IE.

Here's a design I'm throwing together for somebody else, work in progress: http://www.ginocchiobarandgrill.info/, hosted at 1and1. One of these days I'll figure out where to put the files on their server.

And yeah, the pre-made iWeb templates look all nice, but allow as much creativity as filling in the forms at myspace.

Btw, it's possible that .zip files are a file type that's not allowed to be uploaded to 1and1. MP3s, .exe and some others could be verboten, too.