iWeb 1.1 and the Competition, Revisited

On 30/03/2007, at 6:08 AM, Cathy Wolfe wrote:

> I am not an experienced web designer, but I have tried out various
> web design software, including iWeb, and even managed to put
> together a site from scratch with GoLive, which I like. Recently
> upon the recommendation of someone, I tried out WebSiteBuilder
> which comes with my 1and1 hosting package. It seems OK, but it's so
> much clunkier than iWeb. I just love the simplicity and ease of use
> of iWeb. However, I need to create an ecommerce site, and
> understand that iWeb is not really suitable. Having used iWeb it's
> hard for me to "settle" for something else, even though I know iWeb
> doesn't have all the features I need. I was reading your reviews of
> other simple web design software, and am wondering -- which in your
> opinion would be the closest to iWeb and still give me the full
> functionality of an ecommerce site? I will be selling women's
> clothing, jewelry, accessories, etc. Or do I really need a full-
> featured application like GoLive or Dreamweaver? I am an
> experienced computer user with many applications but fairly new to
> web design and HTML. I really enjoy playing with HTML and designing
> but need to get something up and running quickly. I can spend hours
> just playing and learning and never get anything running! Any
> suggestions are very welcome.

Cathy, try Freeway Pro 4. I have been using this for a number of
years and the support from the UK based creator is awesome as well.

Regards, Noel

On Mar 29, 2007, at 4:08 PM, Cathy Wolfe wrote:

> I need to create an ecommerce site, and understand that iWeb is
> not really suitable.

I've been using Sandvox from Karelia Software since last summer:
http://www.karelia.com/

I've built two non-commercial websites using it that I am quite
pleased with. If you go to their website, look down the left-hand
column. There you will find a list of clickable links to sites built
using Sandvox, and many of them are very attractive, commercial sites.

Sandvox uses three Cocoa libraries from Apple: Connection Kit, Core
Data, and Web Kit, to achieve a remarkable mix of site layout power
and ease-of-use. The downside has been that these libraries are
bleeding-edge technologies. As such, they are not bug-free.

Since I have been using it, Sandvox has gone through a series of
betas that have not been bug-free, whether due to bugs in the
libraries or bugs in the Sandvox code itself. I have learned that I
can always protect myself from any new gotchas by always working on a
copy of my site file and never the original.

Over these nine months, I have developed a lot of respect for the
skills and responsiveness of its two developers, Dan Wood and
Terrence Talbot.

I always try out the latest beta as soon as it becomes available.
The most recent beta has proven to be quite stable for me, though it
still has at least one cosmetic bug remaining to be fixed.

Dan Wood is well-known as the developer of Watson, a software
companion to an early version of Apple's Sherlock.

Dick Rucker

I need to create an ecommerce site, and understand that iWeb is not really suitable.

Cathy,

If you have in mind an e-commerce site complete with catalog, shopping cart and payment methods, then give consideration to zen-cart. <http://www.zen-cart.com/>

good luck, Lee Willoughby

On Mar 29, 2007, at 4:08 PM, Cathy Wolfe wrote:

> I am not an experienced web designer, but I have tried out various
> web design software, including iWeb, and even managed to put
> together a site from scratch with GoLive, which I like. Recently
> upon the recommendation of someone, I tried out WebSiteBuilder
> which comes with my 1and1 hosting package. It seems OK, but it's so
> much clunkier than iWeb. I just love the simplicity and ease of use
> of iWeb. However, I need to create an ecommerce site, and
> understand that iWeb is not really suitable. Having used iWeb it's
> hard for me to "settle" for something else, even though I know iWeb
> doesn't have all the features I need. I was reading your reviews of
> other simple web design software, and am wondering -- which in your
> opinion would be the closest to iWeb and still give me the full
> functionality of an ecommerce site? I will be selling women's
> clothing, jewelry, accessories, etc. Or do I really need a full-
> featured application like GoLive or Dreamweaver?

Have you decided on how you want to sell online? Will you be using
Paypal, or setting up a secure site with a shopping cart package, or
establishing a Yahoo or similar type store? It's imperative to do
your research and decide on what the best methods will be for
purchasing your products for your potential customers, and what will
work best for you as an online merchant. You'll need to consider
costs for operations and how it will affect your prices, think about
hosting, how you'll handle shipping and taxes, etc.

Don't even think about design until you've worked out the above. If
you decide to go the PayPal route, it should be very easy to slug in
buttons, etc. using whatever design package you like. Someone on a
list I belong to wrote a free Paypal button configurer plug in for
Dreamweaver:

http://www.kaosweaver.com/extensions/details.php?id=50

But unless you know CGI, PHP, etc., you're fairly limited with what
you can do to customize the PayPal shopping experience.

Many hosting companies supply reasonably priced basic secure shopping
cart options like Americart. On a Dreamweaver list I belong to, I've
heard recommendations for a plug in called Cartweaver, which is
supposed to be very configurable - I've never used it and can't vouch
for it personally. There are other plug ins and stand alone packages
out there. Start with a paper and pencil and maybe colored markers.

Once you've decided on what the back end will be, then think about
the design. IMHO, HTML editors are not the best tools for ideating a
design or shopping experience. They are too limiting, box oriented
(whether you're working with tables or CSS-p) and clunky. Define a
personality for the site, think about how you want to present the
items you'll be selling, and sketch out some basic look/feel
iterations for pages.

Then think about navigation and architecture - how many clicks it
will take to get from x to y, what the checkout procedure will be,
how many links you'll need and where, and how the shopping and
purchasing experience should be. Even if it's a simple site, I highly
recommend wireframing to think the flow through. Index cards are a
great way to start mapping things out and thinking about facilitating
the buying process. If you've got an older Mac that came with
OmniGraffle, it's a great tool for wireframing. You can use any
vector drawing application for this, and I also highly recommend
Inspiration.

Once you're organized and have a plan, mock up a design in
Illustrator, Photoshop, or whatever graphic application you use, then
think about coding.

HTH,

Marilyn

Another option for ecommerce sites is SOHOLaunch. (SOHO=Small Office, Home Office.) It comes as a free service with many web hosting packages. It is designed to be used by non-programmers. I have not personally used it, but I know others who are total web beginners who have used it to create web sites. There are online videos on how to use its various functions. One friend researched it for his ecommerce site and was very impressed and would have used it but he wanted Quickbooks integration. He wound up using something called IAModules.

This web page that I found with Google has a forum for SOHOLaunch with a link to the videos. <http://www.vodahost.com/vodatalk/soholaunch-general-issues.html>

The main web site for SOHOLaunch is another forum at < http://forum.soholaunch.com/index.php>

Doug

Thank you so much for your detailed reply and advice. I can hardly believe it's been over a year since I asked my question. got sidetracked into a different direction and am just now picking up where I left off. So many useful ideas I hadn't thought through. I will try to follow up with everyone's suggestions.