iWeb Not Enough? Build Your Web Site With Sandvox

There’s no shortage of ways to build a web site using your Mac. Master XHTML and CSS via online tutorials and all you need is a text editor and Safari.

Or, you could build an attractive, professional looking site using Apple’s free iWeb, part of iLife ‘09 on every new Mac. Or, assuming you don’t want a web site that looks like every other web site, try something different with Sandvox. It’s the same drag and drop, point and click as iWeb, but with more bells and whistles, more feature control, and customized designs.

iDon’t iWeb

The school where I work has dozens of teachers running Macs and PCs. Many of them want to create simple web sites as part of their instruction plans.

iWeb does the job, but with a limited number of themes, the jobs sites tend to look the same as every other web page built by a Mac user. What to do?

Fortunately, Mac users have multiple choices for web page construction. The two major competitors for the drag and drop, point and click crowd of would be web page publishers are Rapidweaver and Sandvox.

The former has long been a favorite of the Mac360 staff, and the latter has come a long way in the past couple of years. Sandvox is loaded with features and capability but still takes little effort to create an attractive web site.

Choose Features & Designs

In many ways, Sandvox looks and acts like Rapidweaver. Out of the box, Sandvox has 50 different site designs which can be customized with a few clicks.

Every teacher I know that builds a web site here and there hates the same thing. A blank page. Sandvox gets you started with a design, a theme or template, that matches your site’s objective.

Not to worry. Any of the included themes can be changed with a click or two for a completely different look and feel. Cumbersome CSS changes are reduced to simple point and click. Graphics and be dropped in to replace the default.

Not satisfied with the basics? Sandvox Designs has even more.

Building From The Ground Up

Every web site has the same problem. Content. What do you want to say and how do you want to say it? Just text? Images? Movies?

Sandvox makes building the site’s elements nothing more than an exercise in typing what you want, dragging and dropping the elements to match. Drag and drop photos into your Sandvox page and position to fit.

Drag and drop movies and audio files into other pages. One thing I like about Sandvox over Rapidweaver is the ability to edit and review changes immediately—no preview needed. It’s all live on your Mac.

Teachers in our school tend to like Apple’s iWeb because it’s easy to use and the results, though the same for everyone using a particular theme, are attractive and usable. Teachers like Sandvox because of the extra control.

Control? Sure. Web page building isn’t just drag and drop, but fancy features don’t have to be hand coded, either.

Read on to Page 2 for the extra details you’ll want—Flickr, YouTube, contact forms, Google Analytics, search engine optimization and more.