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Is iWeb really that bad?

fluidedge

fluidedge

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 1, 2007
1,365
16
Hi,

I'm looking to make a website for my design work portfolio but don't know much more than <HTML>...</HTML>. I don't want to spend time learning DreamWeaver or similar packages, so the WYSIWYG format of iWeb looks ideal. I've had a quick look at the program and it looks OK, there are some nice templates and i think one will look really good and fit in with my style.

My question is, can people spot an iWeb design from 100 paces or is an iWeb design a viable option for someone like me who is pretty clueless with web design and doesn't want to get down and dirty with code and technicalities, I just want a smart looking page.

Also whats the deal with publishing to something other than a .Mac account. Can you use iWeb to design a page that is assigned to www.abc-xyz.com or are you restricted to a .Mac account?
 
iWeb is great I use it to create samples for clients (it's great for a demo or interactive wireframe), I also use it for my personal site (not portfolio).

iWeb is a home user product so it will never be a viable alternative to Dreamweaver, Coda, CSS Edit, etc... but if you're setting up a basic home page or a client sample/wireframe it is very easy and fast to use.

If you up to set up a basic web site and are a bit of a n00b to HTML then this is a great product for you to use. IMHO it's much better to start with an easy product than start with the harder one and get frustrated.
 
I say if you are a designer, you should put a little time into coming up with an original web site. The answer is yes, some people can spot a iWeb template and you may loose them as a client. Why not invest a weekend in learning a new medium to express your design. :)
 
I use iWeb for a couple personal sites and it has worked well for me. The old version was pretty bad and slow though. I use my own web server so I publish the site to a folder and then copy the files to my server. I have my own domains and do not use a .Mac account.
 
I really dislike iWeb, but that's mostly because I'm a hand coder, so that extreme lack of control frustrates me immensely. Depending on what you're trying to get out of it though, it can be a nice tool. A lot of designers can spot iWeb sites pretty easily, but normal visitors won't have a clue for the most part, but seeing as there are a number of people who still think IE "is" the Internet (yes, they still exist), that isn't saying a whole lot.

iWeb does let you publish to a folder without doing the whole .Mac thing, and people in this forum can help you through that if you run into problems. iWeb is free and wouldn't take long to try out to see if it can do what you like. Just don't expect to be able to do tons of customizations, and if you decide you want to actually learn web design, you'll likely have to start from scratch as the iWeb files aren't really portable into other web design programs.
 
Ok cheers, i'd like to publish with to a file i think. I'll have a go and knock something up in the next few days and see what i can come up with.

I can see why people think iWeb sites look a bit cheap, but I don't really see a big problem with that. I think a few of the templates look really good.
 
You may want to have a look at this page about publishing to a folder
http://iwebfaq.org/site/iWeb_Folder_FTP.html
and especially at Chapter2 about not-having to upload the whole folder each time you publish.
You will find a lot of other stuff on the site and maybe also find out that iWeb can do much more than what some people think it can...
 
fluidedge - I found myself in a similar situation a few months back having no knowledge of web stuff, and have had a good user experience with iWeb since deciding to build my company website with it. It certainly has it's limitations and annoyances (for me the main one is having to publish ALL of the site every time, and not individual pages). But with a bit of imagination you can definitely get something that doesn't look overly iWeb/template. If you're a designer, I personally would suggest creating something in Photoshop, or finding an existing website you like the look, and start with a blank canvas in iWeb. Ok, you might not be able to completely recreate it, but I'm sure you'd get close. And mines uploaded to my own domain, not a .Mac

My site, http://www.gotgotneed.com is pretty basic in layout but (hopefully) doesn't shout out iWeb when first viewed. I've since learnt how to add really basic html (copied and pasted) to give me rollover images on the 'Featured Projects' page via a tutorial online somewhere, just to embelish it slightly.

There are a couple of forums on here showing some really good iWeb sites which are worth browsing.

I'd give it a whirl. Be warned - it's addictive.
 
OMG!! your show reel is just amazing. It's just the sort of work i'd love to get into and your site is just the sort of look i'm going for!!

Liking the HTML rollovers too.

So Cool.
 
gotgotneed said:
fluidedge - I found myself in a similar situation a few months back having no knowledge of web stuff, and have had a good user experience with iWeb since deciding to build my company website with it. It certainly has it's limitations and annoyances (for me the main one is having to publish ALL of the site every time, and not individual pages). But with a bit of imagination you can definitely get something that doesn't look overly iWeb/template. If you're a designer, I personally would suggest creating something in Photoshop, or finding an existing website you like the look, and start with a blank canvas in iWeb. Ok, you might not be able to completely recreate it, but I'm sure you'd get close. And mines uploaded to my own domain, not a .Mac

My site, http://www.gotgotneed.com is pretty basic in layout but (hopefully) doesn't shout out iWeb when first viewed. I've since learnt how to add really basic html (copied and pasted) to give me rollover images on the 'Featured Projects' page via a tutorial online somewhere, just to embelish it slightly.

There are a couple of forums on here showing some really good iWeb sites which are worth browsing.

I'd give it a whirl. Be warned - it's addictive.
Click to expand...

Damn impressive work. I think you guys need to move past iWeb ;)
 
The only problem I have with iWeb sites is that they load fairly slowly, and use a ton of bandwidth, other than that they look pretty good though.
 
gotgotneed said:
fluidedge - I found myself in a similar situation a few months back having no knowledge of web stuff, and have had a good user experience with iWeb since deciding to build my company website with it. It certainly has it's limitations and annoyances (for me the main one is having to publish ALL of the site every time, and not individual pages). But with a bit of imagination you can definitely get something that doesn't look overly iWeb/template. If you're a designer, I personally would suggest creating something in Photoshop, or finding an existing website you like the look, and start with a blank canvas in iWeb. Ok, you might not be able to completely recreate it, but I'm sure you'd get close. And mines uploaded to my own domain, not a .Mac

My site, http://www.gotgotneed.com is pretty basic in layout but (hopefully) doesn't shout out iWeb when first viewed. I've since learnt how to add really basic html (copied and pasted) to give me rollover images on the 'Featured Projects' page via a tutorial online somewhere, just to embelish it slightly.

There are a couple of forums on here showing some really good iWeb sites which are worth browsing.

I'd give it a whirl. Be warned - it's addictive.
Click to expand...

Really really cool!
I've been making my website with iWeb for a year now, but I had no idea it could look like this (rollover...). It really makes me want to learn how do it!
 
You guys talking about the roll-overs in the Featured Products section? Yeah, nice. Is that not a regular feature of iWeb? Gosh, I even remember that from GoLive days (now there's a buggy bit of history that still has me waking up at nights in a cold sweat of terror — and bad gas. Or was that the chillie? :eek:)
 
iWeb is great and I've seen quite a few very nice looking sites. The above posters are on the right track, almost zero of the surfing public will be able to recognize what you used to create the site.

There are other WYSIWYG tools as well. In addition to iWeb I have a site created with Sandvox. There is also Rapidweaver.
 
Premade templates for Mac

Is Joomla pre-made templates designed for Win only? If yes, are there other premade templates I can create quick websites for clients (other than iWeb) for Mac? I have a Dreamweaver program but it is all new and it is taking me forever to work on html. I want to be able to have choices between Dreamweaver and some other pre-made templates.

Thanks
 
iWeb is good for personal websites, but the style is pretty recognisable. It looks good, but I think building even a medium sized site would have the designer starting to get annoyed with the limitations and restrictions.

Ive used it for a couple of small, simple personal sites with movies and pictures and for that, it works and looks great though!

Dreamweaver scares the ming out of me.
 
Dreamweaver is a scary program! Sometimes having too much control and options is a bad thing - the average user wanting to knock up a quick page doesn't need the power of Dreamweaver.
 
Nothing wrong with the design of its templates, and who cares if people recognise it's iWeb, but the code / quality of the webpage it returns are ****, atleast in the version before this one.
 
how do iWeb pages cope with other browsers? I use Safari 99% of the time and i'm sure they work well with safari, but what about IE7, IE8, Firefox 2 and Firefox 3? Do they all put the page together in the right way etc?
 
fluidedge said:
how do iWeb pages cope with other browsers? I use Safari 99% of the time and i'm sure they work well with safari, but what about IE7, IE8, Firefox 2 and Firefox 3? Do they all put the page together in the right way etc?
Click to expand...

Iweb sometimes wrote funny codes, also it produces things only safari can read. call it backdoor if you want. or use selected standard only safari support.

iweb also generate complicated js, excess codes as well, they may or may not be necessary, thats one of the reasons why website created by iweb are slow to load, even in safari itself.

Overall, I would rate iweb just above frontpage, below everything else.
 
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