iWeb is dead. Long live iWeb. And may iWeb’s replacement contenders live even longer, fuller, richer lives.
It’s not surprising that Apple stopped development on iWeb. It wasn’t much of a business, regardless of how cool iWeb could make family web sites. What can you use to replace iWeb? Get ready for more features, more functions, and more money.
Only Two iWeb Contenders
iWeb was a great Mac app for two reasons. It was free. And the web designs were typical Apple. Plenty of attractive site designs and layouts, and most drag and drop site building.
Is there anything like iWeb on the Mac market today?
Yes. And yes. RapidWeaver has been around for years, and builds web sites without mucking into code.
Like iWeb, it’s a drag and drop and tweak till you drop app. It’s one of our favorite static web development tools with a whole community of add-ons that support the platform with themes and utilities.
Also on the list is Karelia’s Sandvox. Like RapidWeaver, Sandvox starts with site designs. Some are simple and sophomoric, while other are sophisticated and complex.
Creating pages is simple. Select New from the Toolbar, select a type of page, and begin filling in your content.
A floating palette of tools called the Inspector gives you the functions you need to embed text, graphics, movies and photos.
Photos, movies, music from iLife can be dropped into Sandvox web pages, drag and drop.
There’s also a built in Photo Gallery, similar to the famed Lightbox, which displays photos in a handy pop up window.
Sandvox also does Facebook and Twitter, and has support for comments in the blog section by using Disqus, IntenseDebate, and Facebook Comments.
Of course, if you need to get all geeky when building a web site, Sandvox comes with options to drop in raw HTML, JavaScript, or PHP into nearly any web page element.
Otherwise, like RapidWeaver, you won’t need to know code. Just point and click and re-arrange elements on a page, page after page after page. When you site is complete, simply upload it to a web server or host, and you’ve joined the world of 100 million web sites.
Sandvox is $3 less expensive than RapidWeaver (which we’ve reviewed many times on Mac360) with similar functionality. Both are try-before-you-buy apps.
About Ron McElfresh
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