Using iWeb for websites...

Hi,

Lately, I've been looking for a new website layout and came accross iWeb. The program seems great for what I want, but after creating a site that works fine locally; after uploading it, its slow and pages take an age to load. After looking at the sizes of files, code, etc, it seems everything is a little bloated and images are saved in super high quality png files, including some text. Tried re-saving some as smaller sizes, but it still takes ages to load pages; seems like it freezes before any content appears; maybe caching it, but not sure, but still takes at least a minute. The webserver is fine, have other content there that works ok, so its not a slow server and my Internet connection is fine.

Is there any way possible to get a decent size from iWeb? If not, are there any other comparable programs for osx for creating websites?

Any suggestions....?

Thanks.

 

Hi,

I use iWeb for my personal website: http://www.alvinsblog.co.uk . I use it mainly because it allows me to get on with the content without having to fuss over coding and layout.

I also often find that webpages take a while to load. I'm using Apple's MobileMe for the hosting service. What hosting service are you using?

I'm unsure of why this is (whether it's the size of the webpages and content, or some kind of bottleneck at MobileMe's server end) as I haven't really looked into it.

 

iWeb isn't designed to create hyper efficient web pages. It helps you get content up easily, but you'll need to use another tool altogether to get more efficient pages!

 

Learn CSS and HTML and edit it in osx's version of notepad what ever it's called

 

Or you can just....Wordpress it.

 

@Alvin.C I use pickaweb in the uk. Its a quick server
@Deathwinger I had Wordpress before and have used it quite a bit, but I like the way I could just drag/drop with iWeb to create albums, etc of my images.

Anyone know how to get iWeb pages to be efficient?

 

There isn't a hell of a lot you can do, but this website has lots of great info.
http://iwebfaq.org/
Also try putting a simple page as your first/entry page. This will load a lot faster than a album page.
I've been running iweb sites for a few years now, and the simplicity far out ways the slightly slower load times. The only other alternative is maybe rapidweaver, more complex but more control too.
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That sites not too bad, some useful info there. I've started another wordpress site with the yapb plugin. Works ok so far, so may stick with that; don't really feel like paying £35 for the web crusher software yet.

Thanks for your help.

 

Here is the reason why iWeb makes fat websites that load painfully slow.

Lets say you have a web layout in iWeb and a huge section of your layout is white. Instead of using the code #FFFFFF for white to generate the color, iWeb instead stupidly uses a white .png or .jpeg to fill that color.

iWeb does this for all colors, so what you get is an overweight website. Either using something else other than iWeb or learn HTML/CSS.

 

iWeb, unfortunately, is kind of "websites for dummies" - you're not going to learn anything out of it (of course, that is fine, not everyone is out there to learn websites) and it looks pretty good but customization is weak.

Square Space is pretty good, its an online web hosting service that also allows you to do all the template stuff and editing and its pretty powerful. Otherwise, learning isn't that hard and pretty rewarding (I do website design for part time...in fact I won this MacBook through a website design contest!).

 

ultimately, wrong question.

again, you will need to learn how to use a better web design tool to get more efficient pages.

efficient pages aren't the goal for everyone, and if you just want to get content up easily, iWeb mostly succeeds in making that possible. but you will need to look elsewhere.