iWeb

Day 32

Discovered a great tool to prototype web sites on the Mac; an app called iWeb.   I find it to be very intuitive.  It's easy to create quality web pages and very easy to publish to the site using FTP (although the default is to try to push it to a MobileMe account - which, again, I am choosing to not get).

In demonstrating the simplicity and elegance of iWeb with some of my colleagues; I demonstrated - at different times - the ability to create or update a web site in a matter of minutes.   They were all very impressed.   The project navigator bar, the various themes you can select, the widgets, and the palette at the bottom, the inspector - all provide the kind of layout that makes it easy - and fun.

Also, for a customer, I was asked for specific input on what needed to change on a web site that he makes recommendations to.     I found email to not be a conductive tool to describe what needed to change - so quickly (within an hour) semi-cloned the web site under discussion using iWeb and made the suggested mods and then published it to a subset on our website for his review.    He was able to see it visibily - made some suggestions - and, with quick turn around, I updated the prototype site for his review.  It was all very simple -- and mutually beneficial.

I said in the opening iWeb is a great prototyping tool for the web.   iWeb does not have all the features corporate America needs for building and maintaining web sites.  But for the normal (or wanna be) hack who doesn't understand html, it's a great tool.  A tool I'm glad to have in my tool box if I need to spit out something quick.  But I also like looking at and tweaking html.   If it had that feature - it would be tempting to use iWeb exclusively for web development.  Still, iWeb, even with this deficiency, is another good reason to love a Mac.