BBEdit Lite

-Taki

There’s a new version of Rapidweaver available in beta form. Lots of new features. This one runs only on Mac OS X Tiger.

I’m becoming more and more impressed with applications like this. They do a good, clean, dependable job of creating web pages that are attractive and standards compliant.

I just shelled out another $399 for the upgrade to Macromedia’s new Studio 8. It’s a great collection of applications. Dreamweaver and Fireworks are both enhanced and easily best of breed. But it’s about $1,000 for a new, off-the-shelf package which, in the end, simply creates web pages.

I’m starting to use Rapidweaver for web pages as presentations. It works. Links are perfect. Runs on any browser. Easy to add elements like QuickTime movies.

Looking forward to the final version.

Has anyone tried the new Rapidweaver yet? The feature list is hefty but I’d like the view of someone more experienced. It just takes too long to do web pages in HTML.

The latest Rapidweaver is excellent for quality pages, quickly constructed. What I’ve seen of Karelia Software’s Sandvox tells me the same thing. These kinds of applications are going for XHTML and CSS standards so the code is good and looks great on most browsers (MSIE Windows being the exception). Pretty much everything is point and click or drag and drop.

MacDailyNews is reporting that Apple may launch a new application for web page development (don’t try Pages in iWork), and a lower price for .Mac.

“Members of Apple’s .Mac Internet services may be able to purchase domain names (.com, .net, and .org) directly from within the Web application, sources have said. Alternatively, the application will allow quick and simple Web site publishing through a member’s existing .Mac Web space,” McLean reports. “Apple reportedly set out to design the new Web application in a way that it would enhance its consumer software offerings and drive subscriptions to its .Mac internet services (which it hopes will reach 1 million users sometime this year)... The company may also slash the yearly .Mac subscription fee from $99.95 to an appeal price of $69.95… Work ‘06 is still expected to pack at least one new application, an Apple-branded spreadsheet application dubbed Numbers 1.0, along with updates to Pages and Keynote.”

That works for me.

My neighbor does web pages and got a beta of Karelia’s Sandvox. All I can say is wow. And Sweet. Simple. Fast. Classy. Attractive.

It breaks the web page down into types and regions. Types include regular web page, photos, movies, etc. Then, each page can have “pagelets” which are small containers that hold additional content inside each page.

It’s all point and click and generates clean XHTML and CSS code. Creating a web page is nearly instant, and adding pages is quick and painless.

Even better is the ability to change to look and feel of the site to a completely different look with templates—in one click. It’s better than the Open Source content management system from Mambo.

Apple willl need to have something like Sandvox to get my money.

Jeff Mincey - 06 January 2006 06:46 AM

My neighbor does web pages and got a beta of Karelia’s Sandvox. All I can say is wow. And Sweet. Simple. Fast. Classy. Attractive…. Apple willl need to have something like Sandvox to get my money.

We’ve been using Sandvox for a couple of months, too, as a beta test. It’s VERY good, though a bit different than Rapidweaver, which we like for rapid web page development. The code output of each is very good (standard XHTML and CSS).

My copy of iLife ‘06 arrives Thursday afternoon, so I’ll work on a review of the goodies for Friday’s updates.

At some point we’ll need to compare the three; iWeb to Sandvox to Rapidweaver. They change the metaphor for building web sites. You gotta love drag and drop…

[quote author=“Tera Patricks” date=“1137053309At some point we’ll need to compare the three; iWeb to Sandvox to Rapidweaver. They change the metaphor for building web sites. You gotta love drag and drop…

Please do. I ran through the QT overview of iWeb on the Apple site, and it does look very, very easy. I worry, though, if the functionality and ease is directly linked to a .Mac account. I would prefer to use server space that a friend has, and don’t want to be ‘forced’ to use .Mac just because I want to use iWeb.

I’ve made some clunky, beginner’s web sites in the past, but hard to do, and most of all, difficult to update. Nothing up at the moment, and I’m at the nexus of making a decision: Rapidweaver, Sandvox, or iWeb? And I’m also considering the $99 version of—oh, bad news, the hard drive in the head just crashed, can’t recall the name, another drag-and-drop app. But will be happy to read some side-by-side comparisons. Go for it.

Check my review of iWeb today on Mac360. One day of use. It’s awesome. There are some shortcomings, though, particularly with web sites that have many pages. But for quick and dirty… uh, make that quick and beautiful, it’s VERY good.

We have an indepth review of iPhoto and iWeb today, iMovie and Garageband scheduled for Saturday, iDVD on Sunday or Monday.