August 29, 2007
Avid fans, I beseech you to check out my cool new iWeb Library! If you’ve been cllicking around my site, then you’ve likely arleady found this sub-site, made entirely with iWeb.
I created this for a couple reasons, 1) to get the iWeb information into a better organized format and 2) to really see what iWeb 2.0 can achieve. Is it still just the iLife widget that gets your iLife project to the web? Or can it do more?
So far I’m happy with it. The HTML widget is really showing its value. We have to remember here that iLife and iWeb in particular were designed with a specific goal in mind: The user must need not know any code or anything about how web publishing works. Being a long-time geek, I understand the limitations of any applicaiton that tries to publish web content and I can avoid the things that could cause problems, but what about normal folks? Does iWeb do the job despite their inability to foresee or avoid publishing no-no’s? Hum… it’s looking pretty good in that respect.
I’m experiencing some publishing issues – the most common one is the disappearing images problem. I’ve heard many people are seeing this problem; it appears to be an iWeb bug, not a template/theme bug as it’s happening to people using the Apple themes as well. That’s getting irritating. I have to replace my images here and there when it happens.
The AdSense widget leaves a bit to be desired. I think the widget itself works well, but I suspect there’s a lack of content available perhaps. I keep getting the same old ads and three of them have been what I would call inappropriate for my site! …not just not matched to the content, but one displays a giant condom, one says “don’t even think of clicking here” and has fingers on it that look like they belong to a woman from the red light district and the last one… hum… now I can’t remember, but I see today it’s asking me if I want to calculate the exact name of my perfect lover. Either this widget needs to let us select the category for the ads that appear on the page or Google needs to learn how to better match ads and content. I’m not sure many geeks learning iWeb widget code need a condom or are interested, at least at that moment, in a perfect lover. Well who knows. Who am I to judge? LOL Just don’t write to me about it – I *don’t* want to know :)
Please send me some feedback on this sub-site.
Today I’ll likely complete the rest of the Zones colors and I should be able to get a beta version of AquaPRO out there. The AquaPRO version won’t be perfect; the podcast page requires a lot of manual labor, but since most people don’t use the podcast pages, I can let the theme go out in beta form. No reason you can begin to use the other pages. When it’s complete, you just overwrite the old version with the new.
Oh, another thing I’m not completely sold on is this theme swapping thing. At first I thought that was going to be a great thing, but I find it’s quite useless once you’ve really dug in to your site design work. If you move things around, change colors, add stuff to the pages… be careful swapping the theme! It will, in most cases, severly upset your layout. The swapping feature, again, is for people who do not alter the layout of the template pages. If all you do is replace the dummy text with your own, swapping will work great. But otherwise, it’s not particularly useful.
Overall, kudos to Apple who once again, is moving iLife in a nice direction. I cringe with the publishing errors, but I know they’ll work that stuff out. This application has allowed so many new people to explore their web presence – it’s a blessing and a curse, but it’s going in a good direction. As always, version 3.0 is where any application grows some roots.
About This Article
This entry was posted by Suzanne on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 9:30 AM and was filed in the FYI category using the tags: iweb, widget. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Why do umlautes or other special characters break my web pages?
Zones Sky for iWeb 2.0 Released
I think the template switching is going to work best when first setting up a site. Being able to start with a bare bones site and some information then change the template to see what works best. Once you really get into your site and personalize it, I don’t see the constant template switching. (But then again, that is just me.)
I do like the iWeb Library site. The Widget code is going to come in very handy. I am also looking forward to the information on CSS and HTML – maybe you could also include a “suggested reading” book list for those who want to continue to learn more about how this works!
About the AdSense widget on the front desk page, I realized that in Camino I only saw the text bubble about not being a fan. Then I check my preferences and realized I had “block web advertising” checked and it definitely blocks it.
I would agree with you – the theme switching is likely going to be a preliminary thing when choosing a theme for the site. History with 1.0 has shown that a lot of people do want to switch mid-stream as well. I got this question a lot when people would find my site. They created a site using an Apple theme, went looking for new templates, found my site, or Peter’s and then wanted to use a new template they purchased. DOH.
You can’t win them all.
I had to laugh when I read your note about “suggested reading”. I am non-reader. I find it very slow and tedious so I tend to “do and fail and fail and fail and finally succeed” rather than read and learn. I have lord knows how many books on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, blah – never read any of them other than checking for things here and there. That’s just me. One thing I can say though, I’ll write a better guide for noobies than any book will. I really should get in to publishing. Some guy from Peachpit contacted me once about collaborating on a book for Photoshop, but I just wasn’t in a place to pursue that at the time.
Rambling again… AdSense… hum… good thing to note about ad visibility! Imagine all these sites now with gaping blank spaces all over their pages ;-)
I highly dislike sites with ads on them. Unless they’re extremely useful to the viewer, I find them tacky. There are so few cases where they can be “extremely” useful. You have little control over the way they look and the iWeb version does not allow you to select the category of content to display.
I think if the site owner were able to integrate them better so they didn’t appear so sterile and out of place I’d have a better opinion, but too many people just stick these on their sites because they think it makes them look more official. They’re not making an income off these things. The ad is just taking up space and I believe it detracts from your credibility more than it helps your “cool” quotient.
I prefer to create my own rotating banner ads if I’m going to do any affiliate work. I posted a script in the widget code area that allows you to do this. If you belong to any affiliate network, like RegNow or Linkshare, etc, this can be useful since you control which banners appear and the links that are tied to them.
Gads, affiliate life is another whole genre of information I could ramble about but I have to get these themes released today :)
I noticed my adsense ads seem inappropriate too… its probably because iweb inserts web snippets in iframes – so there really ISN’T any content for the ad to play off of. :(
You’re right.
I recall that “normal” AdSense users can pick their category for the particular ads on the page. I’m going to have to go back to Google and find that doorway cuz the automated one for iWeb isn’t going to cut it if it’s putting stuff like that one my pages.