About This Article •
Okay folks, we have confirmed that NO third-party templates will work in iWeb 2.0, at least until we figure out how to convert or regenerate them. There are a few other template artisans out there and they’re in the same boat as I am. I will continually post informational updates here in my blog so [...]
August 7, 2007 12:04 PM
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iWeb 2.0 and Third-Party Template Update »
Okay folks, we have confirmed that NO third-party templates will work in iWeb 2.0, at least until we figure out how to convert or regenerate them. There are a few other template artisans out there and they’re in the same boat as I am. I will continually post informational updates here in my blog so please keep an eye on things here and I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for your patience as we work through this.
In the meantime, PLEASE (for the love of the iWeb gods) read these notes to ensure you do not lose your site or your templates OR the ability to continue to manage your site. If you get all excited and install the upgrade without considering the impact on your current work AND you’re the type who never backs-up your stuff, well, please don’t write to me - there’s nothing I can do for you.
However, if you note and follow these suggestions, you will be able to continue to use the templates and maintain your site AND install iWeb 2.0. Here goes - please pay attention:
1. Copy your current installation of iWeb to a new spot on your hard drive - a safe spot far from the Applications folder. Copy it. Don’t move it. That way when you upgrade, the installer will see you have an existing copy.
2. Back-up any domain files you have created with iWeb. If you don’t know what that is, it’s the file that stores all of your iWeb site data. If you lose that, you lose everything. That file is stored here: ~user/Library/Application Support/iWeb/Domain.sites (if you don’t show file extensions, then it will simply appear as Domain, not Domain.sites). Make a back-up of your back-up as well - burn it to DVD so you can’t possibly screw it up ;-)
3. Now you can install the iWeb 2.0 upgrade/ iLife 08 package. This will overwrite iWeb in your Application folder which it should.
4. When you first launch iWeb 2.0, it will ask you to pick an existing Domain file or create a new one. This is an important step now. If you are using any third-party template on your site, you should NOT open the site in iWeb 2.0. iWeb will convert it to the new format and then you’re really in trouble. That is if you didn’t make a back-up. Since the third-party template are not available in iWeb 2.0, it makes no sense to load your site in 2.0. If you want to play with 2.0, CREATE A NEW DOMAIN FILE, but do NOT save it to the same folder where your existing Domain file is stored. That would be very bad as well. Save it to a new folder - something like iWeb 2.0 Sites so you know exactly where the file is stored.
5. Your old Domain file(s) for iWeb 1.1.2 will remain in the location: ~user/Library/Application Support/iWeb/ and iWeb 1.1.2 will continue to look there for its sites. PLEASE CONTINUE TO USE 1.1.2 TO EDIT YOUR EXISTING SITE if you use a third-party template. It’s the only way until we figure out how to convert the themes for the new version.
6. Did I mention, BACK UP YOUR STUFF. I don’t have a copy of your site and you can’t restore your pages to iWeb from pages on the web so unless you do the back-ups, no one else can help you.
Please stay tuned. I will post updated information regarding the conversion of templates as soon as I have it, but do not hold your breath here folks. The architecture is very different and its likely that a lot of work will have to go into building some new widget to generate templates before an progress can be made on this subject.
I hope you will be able to update your nice templates to work with iWeb08.
I’ll be patient ……
Sounds like you need a care package! Thanks for the info & updates.
Thinking of you…
Tamara & the dog team
Thanks! Looks like it’s going to be significant work to convert these. My techy guy isn’t sure it’s possible so it’ll take a few days to find out. Blah.
Total bummer that we can’t move right into 2.0 — thanks for working on it though. I’ll be checking back often but won’t hold my breath. Thanks.
Yeah that’s the way it goes, but we figured something out the first time. We’ll see if we can do it again :)
This time it’s going to be very tricky because the whole theme-swapping feature indicates that there are key elements on a page that need to exist from theme to theme. My templates have lots of stuff on them that aren’t related to apple templates at all so when you swap the theme, your page looks really horrific - the new theme doesn’t know what to do with all the other stuff.
This is typical however when you push the envelope with things. iWeb was designed to be more simple than many of us have chosen to use it. The bottom line is, I love iWeb and we’ll see if we can’t figure out a way to adapt to this new version as well.
Geez, what a bloody mess. I am SO glad I had a *rare* moment of inspiration and checked your site BEFORE I jumped right in. As much as I want to play, I think I will just hold off a bit :) Mainly because I was putting the finishing touches on my all new site done with LightSide :( Here we have all been waiting with baited breath for the update, and now this! Bah! Well…I am sticking with you! I will keep using -old- iWeb until something is figured out. Keep up the good work!
I have been considering using iWeb and your templates for my wife’s pottery site.
Given your caveats, I will start with 2.0 stock templates for now, but will stay tuned for your progress. I will also pre-backup my 1.2 installation per your instructions in case I want to play with your templates in the meantime
But wanted to say that I am tremendously impressed with your diligence in keeping your users properly informed. Well done!
Hope you crack the problem!
Suzanne… you are to be commended, not just for your gorgeous templates, but also for your concern for your customers. I do hope you can find a conversion process, because my 11mystics/iWeb site (donmcdonald.com) gets rave reviews from everyone! Hang in there!
Jerry and Don - thanks so much for the sideline support on this one. It seems silly to think someone wouldn’t advise people this way, but I suppose that happens. The bottom line is we all want to keep working smoothly so we have the opportunity to make choices rather than have to react to disaster. I don’t want anyone to lose their work. It’s no surprise this happened and I guarantee you, we’ll go through this again next year, but that’s part of the price of using templates that aren’t standard. It’s a luxury to have the option, but it also carries this risk.
Today I’m testing the tools I use to generate templates to see if they’ll work on the new code. We already know that the tools have to be updated to include the new page type Apple included, and there are a host of new configuration files for themes. The tests should help us determine what has to be rewritten and we’ll go from there.
Two other template artists and a couple of developers are working with me so cross your fingers that we can figure this out.
Again, thanks for the support. It keeps the fun in the challenge and keeps the community looking forward as well. - Suz
Well, too late. Ugh. Yep you guessed it. I upgraded today before reading that the 3rd party templates do not work.
I have good news and bad news. Let me start w/ the latter. I have a deadline for a (simple) site to be up and running by next Thursday. I had already put 30 hours into the layout and text. Now, Im deep into the project and stuck!
The good news: I did backup the domain prior to upgrading iWeb. So, I still have the file. BUT I did not back up the older application file. I’ll dig around to see if I still have the old install disk. If I don’t, am I just out of luck or is there a place to still get iWeb 1.2???
P.S. Thanks for all of your work here. Great job!
Well at least you have the domain file WHEW! If you do nightly backups of your hard drive, just a reminder that the old iWeb should be in that backup. But if not, yep, you’ll have to find it on the installation disks. I hope OSX will allow you to install an old copy. Not sure how that will work. I’d send you mine, but it would take me hours to remove all my custom files. My 1.1.2 installation is over 1 gigabyte in size!
Good luck
Say, something else… I have not tried this, but it’s possible that you can open your site in iWeb 2.0 and continue to use it in that version. But you wouldn’t have the template. If you needed new pages, you’d have to duplicate existing ones. That technically *should* work, but I don’t know. Just back-up your back-up so you don’t lose anything important while you investigate.
Thanks Suzanne, Here’s hoping your techy guy is wrong!
The important thing I try to reinforce to folks multiple times a day is BACK UP YOUR STUFF! I cannot imagine creating a site and not backing up…and backing up my backup…and burning a copy of my backup…etc. But for whatever reason, too many folks do not, then they get pissed when something happens.
So, regarding the above post, I am going to try opening one of my old test sites off my laptop using the new version and see what happens. My main work is on my iMac and multiple backups, so I think going from the laptop should be safe enough. No harm, no foul, right? ;)
Where did you want those care packages sent? Hang in there folks. Suz always comes thru!!!
You guys crack me up. I just got a note from my super techy Jedi code master buddy saying his Apple store is sold out of iLife 08 already! Part of this challenge is waiting for everyone to just get the software ack.
Suzanna, you’re right. You can technically open the 1.2 templates and just duplicate pages as needed. However, it definitely breaks some things. I havent looked at in great detail, but I did notice the page (menu) links were broken badly. I’ll repost tonight after rounding up my iLife 06 discs to let you know if you can backward install. That brings up another question though, I have a machine at home w/ 1.2 on it. Can I just drag that application from one machine to the next?
Suzanne,
yep you get my vote for customer care ;-)
I can promise you I will be sending you some money for the Aqua set as soon as you are sorted ;-)
Big Hugs and ‘virtual care package’ from us all here
I believe you can. Hope that does the trick! Report back and thanks for helping with the help - much appreciated.
Suzanne - Thanks for your hard work and attentiveness to this problem. I feel like I have been a sucker for the new version, it is ordered with delivery for tomorrow. I certainly will not install it till YOU give the green light.
We have all waited a long time for the *next level* and it seems to have missed the mark a lot of ways. (sorry to rant)
I LOVE YOUR TEMPLATES & I AWAIT YOUR MIRACLES!!
John
David thank you! You guys are the best. One of the things I have considered now, after reviewing the new theme swapping functionality is rewriting all my themes to be much more compatible with that feature.
I’m not sure if you guys have noticed but if you try to swap the theme on a site you’ve already built, and you’ve added or removed text and images from the original design, you’ll get all kinds of weird stuff from the new theme you choose. I don’t like that. So my theory is that a theme should be not much more than the background images, ,the navigation menu style, the font styles and the shape styles. This way if you swap between themes, you don’t get all that extra stuff on your page after you’ve spent all that time creating it.
Now, to combat the lack of stuff on the pages then, I would suggest that theme designers provide a package of imagery that users can drag and drop on to their pages instead.
I need to get the templates working first, but I may pursue this “more compatible” route when I do. That way we should be better set next year when they again, release an update.
I’ll keep you guys posted - spread the word too. Many of the emails I sent to subscribers were rejected by their email servers (yahoo, .mac, etc) because I sent so many so quickly. I don’t know how else to get the word out, but people will be happy to have this info upfront I’m sure.
Don’t be too discouraged John - the new version has a lot of neat new features but not as many as I thought there’d be (believe it or not). I think a lot of development resources went to the iPhone so iWeb probably got the short end of the resources stick there. Despite that, at least you can now change your hyperlink colors and use a vertical navigation menu if you want.
But yeah, if I can get my themes working for 2.0, then we’ll be rockin heh
Suz,
Thanks for all you’re doing for us! I’m patiently waiting until you give the word before I buy the upgrade. As you know, I love your templates and don’t want to be without them!!
I know you can do it!
-Ron
Ron! The man who brought us Aerolite Sage… great to see you here. You guys are reminding me why I do this. Thanks!
Hi Suzanne
I haven’t updated to iWeb 2 yet. I was holding off until you got your copy and ported you templates to version 2 which I assumed you were going to have to do anyway. I’m also still waiting for “the secret web tool project you mentioned a while back” I’m wondering with all the iWeb 2 template fixes does this means that this will be delayed? Just wondering.
I agree with the previous comments here that your customer support is awesome and will be getting your template package as soon as you finish the transition to version 2. Thanks for working on this and give me a hollar when you’re done.
Will do Chai - I’m still working on the other project yes, but that’s a longer-term deal. Nothing til next year. It was interesting to see how iWeb has changed - Apple is still going a different route than we intend. Wish I could say more, but you know how it is… don’t say anything until the second trimester ;-)
Well, I got it sorted out… sort of. I found the install disk for iLife 06. However, it will NOT allow you to install (downgrade) iWeb back to 1.2. I had to copy the app from one of my other machines. After that I just followed your instructions at the very top of this page and now I have my template and site back. That’s a big relief. Thanks for the help and keep me posted about the template porting.P.S. I’ve noticed a few others commenting about being notified by email. I never receive anything and I’m feeling left out ;)
Yeah the first thing is, you need to have a valid email address set up in your account here, second, you have to be subscribed to my newsletters feature (which is in your account settings) and third, your email host has to accept my emails. Many emails were bounced back at me because the hosts blocked it assuming it was spam.
Glad to hear you got everything fixed up though!
HELP!!! I didnt read the instructions until after I had upgraded and opened iWeb! I havent published yet and even though I can see my template…there are no more links to my other pages of my site. Is there someway to get back my site mabye from iDisk because I haven’t overwritten that yet. PLEASE HELP!
One day I’m just going to have to listen to the “inner me”. Before I installed I thought “Mmm…wonder if that will mess up the template?” Then I put my cowboy hat on and thought, oh what harm can it do? LOL. Um…plenty. My lightside site is shall we say, worse for wear? Yes I do have backups, but I expect they’re not going to be overly helpful at this stage. Have fiddled and messed about and it looks weird and wonderful — wish I’d listened to the “other” me. Oh well, fortunately it’s still up on the web, and as long as I don’t want to change anything for a while, it will allow time for solutions to be found! Good luck with it!
Zach, without a back-up, you can’t restore anything.
Gayle, man have I been there… I’m a big one for intuition, but yes it’s always that “oh what the heck” that gets you isn’t it :)
I’m going through my email this morning and it appears my super developer buddy has made some break-throughs. Hopefully today we make some progress toward success! Stay tuned.
I have not upgraded (thank goodness), but I have 2 questions:
a) Is the problem that the templates are *installed* or that they are *used*?
b) I only have several simple pages that are Italian Tile. If I change these pages to one of the Apple’s iWeb pages, will I be safe, or do i need to remove the templates as well?
Thanks, cuz I really want to be safe
Phil when you upgrade to 2.0, you will lose the templates all together. iLife overwrites your old version of iWeb where the tempaltes were stored so 1) yes you’ll lose access to the Italian Tile template, but 2) the import of your site may look a little off also.
If you follow my instructions, you can load the new version and continue to use the old version while you wait for me to convert the themes. That way you win both ways.
I suspect that the answer is “no time soon” or “after the paid-for pages,” but can you give me an idea of when the free templates might be able to be updated? I am particularly interested in Italian Tile.
You’re right… after the paid themes, which includes AquaPRO. But Italian Tile will go first of all those and will get a nice facelift too. That theme *may* convert to a paid-for theme depending on what I do with it.
Just an FYI, you *can* import your existing site into iWeb 2.0 and just duplicate a page if you need a new one. You just can’t make new pages with the template until you get the 2.0 version of it.
Please visit the Apple iWeb forums though first and understand the issues and problems related to important 1.0 sites. I hear there are problems.
hi, although i should no better and i got back-ups for important stuff… i was too quick and installed iWeb 2.0. Luckily i am still developing and finding my way to get the right touch. No real harm done..
However maybe worthwhile for others, i assume Suzanne already knows it. Apple released a fix 2.0.1. related to migrating from iWeb 1.0 websites. As far as i found so far i can view/edit things as expected, but maybe the problems are in the fine print. But without the fix it DIDN’T work at all.
In particular for those with 2.0 upgrade and no domain backup…some hope?!?
Good luck with the update, I hoped Apple would come with some tooling to manage own templates, but that seems to be missing. I have been playing with the XML files, a maze of settings.
Bart