Filed under: iLife, Software, Internet Tools, Reviews
Review: iWeb's enhancements are exactly what it needed
In the most recent iLife '06 software update that Damien mentioned, iWeb understandably received the largest bump of new features and bug fixes; after all, it is the latest to arrive at the iLife party. Considering that I've been pretty vocal about my gripes with this otherwise fantastic addition to both iLife and .Mac, you can imagine my enthusiasm for Software Update to work its magic asap.After tinkering with the new features in iWeb 1.1 like blog comments and drop-dead simple photo album page creation, I thought I'd post a quick review of what's new, as I think iWeb is finally starting to fit into its role of a strong, WYSIWYG 1.0 application from Apple.
Comment, with attachments and moreThe biggest new feature of iWeb 1.1 is probably the ability to leave comments on blog posts. Third party utilities like iComments have cropped up to add comments, but due to iWeb's extreme WYSIWYG paradigm, the setup and execution of using something like iComments is far from ideal. What's even better is that Apple's implementation of comments has some surprising features that most other blog systems can't even boast.
After updating to iWeb 1.1, comments are not automatically enabled on your blogs. In fact, finding out where to turn them on is a littler counter-intuitive - you need to go to the RSS tab of the Inspector pane (pictured) where you can toggle comments for each of your blogs. Interestingly, you can also enable your readers to leave up to 5 MB attachments with their comments - something I haven't seen in other popular systems like Blogger or even WordPress (at least, not without plugins).
Admin comments from iWeb
The slick factor of iWeb comments doesn't stop at this Inspector tab, however. Under iWeb's File menu is now a 'Check for New Comments' option. Though I couldn't see any visual feedback while iWeb actually ran its check, comments will appear at the end of your blog entries in iWeb (pictured). To top it off, you can remove comments by clicking the black (X) button. That's right: comment administration from within a local app. Kudos to the iWeb engineers on this one.
Search my blogAnother great new feature is searching, enabled under that same RSS tab in the Inspector. Once toggled, iWeb should place a search box (complete with Spotlight icon) somewhere on your blog's main page. Since I'm using the plain White theme, the search box is at the top right of my blog's banner image. Nice.
Smart publishing and easier photo album page creation
The other more minor iWeb 1.1 enhancements are most welcome, such as a separate "Publish to .Mac" option under File which is (finally) a bit smarter about publishing only the changes you've made, instead of the entirety or majority of your iWeb site. You can also simply drag an album out of the Media Browser onto a photos page to add every image from that album - that's pat #2 on the iWeb engineers' backs.
Conclusion, with exceptions
There are certainly still some gaping holes, such as a lack of iDisk/web integration and no way for easily integrating (or at least pointing to) sites under the previous Homepage system. Also, Software Update stated that image optimization has improved, but I haven't seen it yet (maybe I need to actually re-publish my entire site).
All in all, iWeb has gained some much-needed enhancements that I think are finally bringing it up to the standards of a 1.x iLife release. Check out the Read link for Apple's site, complete with QuickTime tutorials, on all the new goodies in iWeb 1.1.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
edward said 10:06PM on 5-15-2006
I am glad to see new update. Apple finally took action to improve iweb. as you explained, I am quiet satisified with all new features. you can also duplicate webpage. add photos, text files for comment is great, too.
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Mark Fleser said 10:09PM on 5-15-2006
Does it work w/ out .mac.
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Catt said 10:13PM on 5-15-2006
I like the 6 new templates too :-)
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David Chartier said 10:41PM on 5-15-2006
#2: iWeb itself can publish a website out to a folder so you can upload it to any host you want. The new comment system, I would imagine, doesn't work without .Mac's backend.
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Dane Lincoln said 11:16PM on 5-15-2006
There seems to be some bandwidth problems/problems directly tied to the iWeb update. Many users (see discussion forums on Apple's website), including myself, are finding it impossible to upload the site onto .Mac using either the Publish All option or the Publish Changes option. Just thought I'd let you know
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Daniel Ryan said 11:28PM on 5-15-2006
i think that it still needs major improvement on the code side. it creates unneccessarily bloated code and this should be cleaned up.
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Doug said 11:32PM on 5-15-2006
Better, but please:
- Open and Save As
- Publish particular web sites (not all) option
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Natrino said 12:36AM on 5-16-2006
Still crashes :-(
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Ben said 1:58AM on 5-16-2006
One other really nice addition on top of the new Commenting feature is the fact that you can now edit the blog date and time via a little calendar pop-up.
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Mr Lizard said 2:42AM on 5-16-2006
#2 & 3: From the Apple tutorial site for iWeb:
"Publishing to .Mac also allows you to use the blog comments and search features, enhanced slideshows, and password protection"
So yep, everything else will work fine outside of .Mac
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Ben said 3:56AM on 5-16-2006
Well, it's all really nice features...if you can get it to work. I just ran the iLife 06 updates and it's causing all kinds of problems. Not the mention no available comment feature on my blog, even when I already enabled it.
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John said 4:37AM on 5-16-2006
Aaah, at last... I was waiting for this update... iComments gets me mad
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Kevin said 5:08AM on 5-16-2006
***NONE of the new features does anything to help if you don't have .Mac. Also, what's up with the Search and Add Comments items being not customizable? You can't even move them on the page. The worst thing about this app is that it STILL re-writes ALL of your data UNLESS you have .Mac. I really want to love this app, but I have to upload nearly a full Gig to my .com server every time I want to fix a simple typo.
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Anthony Sigalas said 5:23AM on 5-16-2006
hey! you forgot to mention the 6 new themes!
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Chris Mok said 7:31AM on 5-16-2006
Since i got the update i cant get it to publish with comments or at all!
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Brian Allen said 9:03AM on 5-16-2006
The image size improvement is minimal at best.
Those having crashes should create a new user account and try iWeb in the new account. I bet you will have no problems.
You need to republish your whole site to get the comments to work.
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Hawk said 12:51PM on 5-16-2006
I think people complaining that iWeb doesn't do what they want are probably the people who iWeb isn't supposed to be designed for. "WAAAH it won't work with my gigs of data being uploaded every time!"
If you have gigs of data, maybe you need a more robust and flexible solution than the 'super easy to use thing to put pictures of your cat on your website'.
For example, if i want to put up pix of something I'm selling (not my cat):
1) Make a new page in iWeb
2) Drag my photos onto the page
3) Caption them
4) Publish it.
Or, even, I
1) open iPhoto
2) Select my photos
3) Export to iWeb
4) publish
That's what iWeb's for.
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Steve in Denmark said 4:10PM on 5-16-2006
It's been a disaster! Check the iWeb forum. No one can publish anything. Well, one or two can, but the important people - like me - can't.
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David Chartier said 4:55PM on 5-16-2006
#19: Try to be careful when you refer to users in a forum as "no one", who are discussing problems as "a disaster".
I published just fine. Multiple times. Adding comments, publishing, fixing typos, publishing again, then tweaking a number of things and re-publishing the entire site.
Most likely the issue is that their servers are getting hammered right now. I'm willing to bet .Mac is slightly underpowered in hosting terms because the majority of sites they host just aren't very high bandwidth. They're "look at my cute dog" picture sites and "hey check out the family vacation" photo albums. I'd wager in times like this when major updates land they just can't handle boatloads of people all hammering on the server at the same time trying to fix typos or swapping images out of photo albums.
Give it some time for things to calm down. Then determine whether this is truly an emergency of "disastrous" proportions.
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Kevin said 9:51AM on 5-17-2006
iWeb 1.1's blog comment feature as well as blog posting date adjusting is great. Spotlight-like search feature is also good. Unfortunately the search feature only seems to work with 1-byte roman (read: English) character set. It fails to search 2-byte unicode (Korean) character set. Only a minor quibble, though.
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