Small Changes Make iWeb Useful At Last

Giles Turnbull ()

iweb-20090107.jpg

There are is two one great new features in iWeb 09 that went unannounced in yesterday’s keynote, both of which transforms it, in my opinion, from a waste of disk space into a potentially useful tool.

The two changes are is:

→ iWeb can now handle multiple web sites simultaneously; you simply flick from one to another in the sidebar

→ iWeb now lets you publish to any (S)FTP server, rather than tying you in to Mobile Me or restricting you to publishing to a local folder

There have been a few instances in recent years when I’ve briefly toyed with the idea of using iWeb for basic web projects, only to reject it seconds later because of these two this flaws. With iLife 09 installed, I’m going to revisit those projects and think again.

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UPDATE: I am an idiot.

6 comments »

About the author

gilest

Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer in England. He writes for the Press Association and The Morning News. He has a website you can ignore and a Twitter account you needn't follow.

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Posted in News, Opinions, Software |

  • MacDuff

    Welll… “idiot”? You said it, I didn’t ;)

    I have been managing nineteen unique websites with iWeb for years. The ability to whip up a password-protected website with a unique URL for client presentation IN THREE MINUTES (not counting my content upload) is awesome!

  • Mac Guy

    Don’t be so hard on yourself… however, I think the new functionality will be huge. I used to dread updating my iWeb site because every time I made a change I had to: publish to folder the entire site and then FTP the entire site (since it is difficult to ascertain what files were changed)… which takes forever and in the process, the site is often off-line.

  • Andy Evol

    Thanks for the heads up!
    Love your initial post, and even more so your update! ;O)
    You’re cool man!

  • imajoebob

    That’s an update?
    Sorry. I’d add a stupid smiley emoticon if I didn’t vomit every time I see one.
    Welcome to the club.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/billgraefe Bill Graefe Jr

    Though it’s not pretty, iWeb CAN handle more than one complete web site (at least the one from ’08 can). You have to go to ~/Library/Application Support/iWeb and rename the Domain file of your current site to something meaningful. Then, hold down option while opening iWeb and it will ask you what Domain file to open or create new just like iPhoto will do.

  • Lucas

    what would be useful would be
    1. to be able to have separate domain files without hoops.
    2. to be able to toggle the publishing of pages on and off. that way if you are working on several changes to several pages but you don’t finish one of them you could just ‘skip’ that page when you publish the rest