I’ve played around with iWeb several times since it first came out, but I never really gave it much thought, as it always seemed pretty limited for what I wanted it to do. Recently however I was having a conversation with a friend who showed me some of the things they were doing with it and I was pretty impressed. So I decided to give it a second chance and have a good, deep exploration of the software’s capabilities. I have to say, I was really impressed with what I found. But this is not a review, because there are plenty of those around the internet already, instead I’d like to discuss what I think iWeb could be, because iWeb has, in my opinion huge potential. There is nothing really like it on any platform from what I can see, yet it is limited, partly for the audience it is aimed at. But with maybe 10 percent more functionality, iWeb could be 100 percent more useful. With that in mind, rather than cannibalize the iLife suite, I think Apple could really shake the web design market up if they came out with a professional version of iWeb.
There are plenty of visual web editors out there, and many offer significantly more functionality than iWeb, but none offer the same kind of features iWeb has. Take adding pictures to a page for example. You can quickly add picture frames, position them anywhere, scale and rotate, have drag and drop replacements all with relative ease. Programs like Softpress Freeway allow you to visually lay out your page, but to do what you can do in iWeb you’d need to prep everything in Photoshop first, and then changes would be a pain. [UPDATE: Certainly Applications like Freeway allow you to import images and graphics of any kind into the software, but what I am referring to is the way iWeb comes with templates and drop zones for various items, such as the cool picture frames, where you can just drag and drop into the drop zone to replace an image, or the way it generates gallery links for photo pages automatically. This is a great timesaver and really flexible. You could certainly do this in other software but it would require more work. The way iWeb does this (and Dvd studio pro too) is just brilliant]
With iWeb it’s so simple to create visually powerful layouts in minutes an yet some simple things are equally frustrating, such as changing the width of your site. To do this you have to edit every new page, and then things don’t flow properly so you have to go change that, and there is no way to do this on a master basis.
If you look at some of Apple’s other Applications though, you can see some ideas that would work really well with iWeb. Take keynote for example. It’s ability to create and edit master pages would make iWeb considerably more useful. If you could edit the master pages of themes, it would be so much easier to create customized sites. Another similar paradigm is DVD Studio Pro. It’s menu layout system has some neat features that would greatly enhance a professional version of iWeb, such as the ability to store libraries of custom styles for buttons, text etc.As I said, I don’t think it would actually require that much as Apple has most of the technology in its other software, it’s just a matter of rolling it into a new package. (And yes, I know that’s not as easy as It sounds)
So here is a list of 10 things I think iWeb Pro, for want of a better name could have to make it a powerful entry into the web design field:
1. Ability to edit master pages and templates like Keynote. SO for example you can select a theme and then edit the master pages that make up that theme so that any new pages you create will be based on your modified masters. Also, you should have the ability to save your changes as a new theme.
2. Ability to make site wide styles and changes that affect your entire site. Much like working with CSS in traditional web design
3. Come with a library of objects and images, much like DVD studio Pro, SoundTrack pro, Motion etc.
4. Ability to create custom libraries of Button Styles, Layouts, Text Styles etc, in the same way you can with DVD Studio Pro.
5. Built in FTP Client.
6. More pre-defined web widgets
7. Plug in Architecture for web widgets, much like the way wordpress widgets work
8. On Screen rulers and grids and (non dynamic) guides for precision layouts
9. Some kind of support for server based blogging, in other words, you’re not limited to updating your blog through iWeb
10. Support for dynamic and animated elements, even if it’s just basic custom roll overs, or menu effects.
So there you have it. I don’t think any of this is too ambitious or too much to ask for, but you could end up with a pretty powerful web design system that fills a badly needed hole in the current line up of web design tools. I for one would buy it in a heart beat. In the mean time I’m going back to seeing how far i can push iWeb.
[UPDATE 2: In response to the comment below, I don’t mean to take away from other Web Development packages such as Freeway, Dreamweaver or Golive. All are great packages. I think iWeb’s way of doing things is uniquely Apple, that it would be great if it just past some of it’s limitations to attract a wider audience.]
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