Web authoring app needed
I've spent a little time in iWeb and like everybody else, liked the potential of the app. However, it is very limited in its current form. What I would like to see is the next version go way further and give us a good tool that would make many pro web designers take notice.
While the current version gives templates for photo pages, blogs, and podcasts, why not go further and add templates for forums and stores? Also add mysql links for getting data, photos, videos, audio, etc out of a database. Also how about registration templates for building email lists for email blasts? Apple should then build back ends for these utilities for no-brainer management.
Apple should also adapt Keynote for developing Flash animations that could be used on the web authoring app. This way most people could do good websites and never need Adobe apps. Not that Adobe apps are bad but they really are overkill for most people.
All these suggestions might currently be pro web developer stuff but only because there is no current application that makes building these things quick and easy. There is no reason why I shouldn't be able to teach a ten year old kid - or a grandmother - to create a good website in an hour. And this program should integrate with other iLife and iWork apps seamlessly.
I am surprised that even pro web designers currently have to hack together various pieces of the puzzle to do these important things. I sense a real opportunity for Apple to grab the market and deliver an app that turns everybody into a web designer. iWeb promises that some but falls way short of what it could be.
Apple needs to upgrade iLife and iWork and combine them into a new Appleworks on steriods. We need a decent Web authoring app, an Illustrator app, and a long overdue spreadsheet app. Apple should have this new Appleworks (iLIfe + iWork) suite replace most people's need for MS Office and Adobe apps.
Web development should be easy and fast. Let us focus on form and not on function. The genius behind myspace is not the social networking that most people talk about. What myspace did was let the average person create personal websites without having to hire a programmer. Same with youtube. Again, it let the average person put video on the web without having to hire or be a programmer.
This is the market for iWeb. Just like word processors, email, and the internet are not just for geeks anymore, so to should web programming. But Apple shouldn't hobble us with a preschool iWeb.
While the current version gives templates for photo pages, blogs, and podcasts, why not go further and add templates for forums and stores? Also add mysql links for getting data, photos, videos, audio, etc out of a database. Also how about registration templates for building email lists for email blasts? Apple should then build back ends for these utilities for no-brainer management.
Apple should also adapt Keynote for developing Flash animations that could be used on the web authoring app. This way most people could do good websites and never need Adobe apps. Not that Adobe apps are bad but they really are overkill for most people.
All these suggestions might currently be pro web developer stuff but only because there is no current application that makes building these things quick and easy. There is no reason why I shouldn't be able to teach a ten year old kid - or a grandmother - to create a good website in an hour. And this program should integrate with other iLife and iWork apps seamlessly.
I am surprised that even pro web designers currently have to hack together various pieces of the puzzle to do these important things. I sense a real opportunity for Apple to grab the market and deliver an app that turns everybody into a web designer. iWeb promises that some but falls way short of what it could be.
Apple needs to upgrade iLife and iWork and combine them into a new Appleworks on steriods. We need a decent Web authoring app, an Illustrator app, and a long overdue spreadsheet app. Apple should have this new Appleworks (iLIfe + iWork) suite replace most people's need for MS Office and Adobe apps.
Web development should be easy and fast. Let us focus on form and not on function. The genius behind myspace is not the social networking that most people talk about. What myspace did was let the average person create personal websites without having to hire a programmer. Same with youtube. Again, it let the average person put video on the web without having to hire or be a programmer.
This is the market for iWeb. Just like word processors, email, and the internet are not just for geeks anymore, so to should web programming. But Apple shouldn't hobble us with a preschool iWeb.
Comments
I am surprised that even pro web designers currently have to hack together various pieces of the puzzle to do these important things. I sense a real opportunity for Apple to grab the market and deliver an app that turns everybody into a web designer. iWeb promises that some but falls way short of what it could be.
Web development should be easy and fast. Let us focus on form and not on function. The genius behind myspace is not the social networking that most people talk about. What myspace did was let the average person create personal websites without having to hire a programmer. Same with youtube. Again, it let the average person put video on the web without having to hire or be a programmer.
I think you just answered your own question there, professionals hack their own stuff together piece by piece, just because thats the way it needs to be done. Most people don't even know what a database is, let alone have any need for it. Different databases are for different needs, and so are web pages.
Where would you draw the line, what is professional enough to be out of iWeb's scope, pages with 10 hits per day? 100 hits per day? 1000 hits per day? All of those set very different constraints to servers and services.
Program that uses templates can only go so far, what about when user wants to change the template?
There are plenty of WYSIWYG editors, that create decent pages, but I guess they maybe aren't so idiot proof anymore. Also writing html isn't really rocket science, but creating beautiful layout is much different story.
Adding video to a web page takes one line HTML script, hardly a task for a professional.
For example, a store and a forum are two common website parts nomally left only to pros. This does not have to be. In all the websites I've visited over the years, they all have the same needs. I think iWeb could include a few templates for each of these functions that the average person could drag and drop into their website. Well written documentation should enable the average computer user to understand what it takes to support these drop-in-place modules. So even if the novice author didn't know anything about databases, it is the iWeb documentation's job to educate him or her.
You say adding video to a website is easy but then why can't most people do this in an elegent way? Even if there are many web authoring programs that make it easy to do this, most people do not know about them. Apple can make iWeb a great program and then market it so everybody knows about it. They did this some with iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto. I think they should have marketed it even more. Apple can and should own this "web authoring for the average joe" market.
If you were to compare most of the existing websites and exclude the top 1%, most websites need and offer the same functionality. Websites are not as different as most people think. The the art on each website, that is its skin, may look radically different from one website to another, but they all share the same skeletal structure underneath.
And most back ends suck. Their interfaces remind me of Windows. I want a Apple back end.
So try this experiment. Write out the top ten things websites do and then see how many websites go beyond this list. I bet you find 99% of all websites share the same skeletal structure.
Project2501, I disagree.
For example, a store and a forum are two common website parts nomally left only to pros. This does not have to be. In all the websites I've visited over the years, they all have the same needs. I think iWeb could include a few templates for each of these functions that the average person could drag and drop into their website. Well written documentation should enable the average computer user to understand what it takes to support these drop-in-place modules. So even if the novice author didn't know anything about databases, it is the iWeb documentation's job to educate him or her.
You say adding video to a website is easy but then why can't most people do this in an elegent way? Even if there are many web authoring programs that make it easy to do this, most people do not know about them. Apple can make iWeb a great program and then market it so everybody knows about it. They did this some with iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto. I think they should have marketed it even more. Apple can and should own this "web authoring for the average joe" market.
If you were to compare most of the existing websites and exclude the top 1%, most websites need and offer the same functionality. Websites are not as different as most people think. The the art on each website, that is its skin, may look radically different from one website to another, but they all share the same skeletal structure underneath.
And most back ends suck. Their interfaces remind me of Windows. I want a Apple back end.
So try this experiment. Write out the top ten things websites do and then see how many websites go beyond this list. I bet you find 99% of all websites share the same skeletal structure.
I do understand your point somewhat. Still even though concepts may sound easy enough, why are those professionals really paid so much, if it was an easy task in reality.iWeb creates simple web pages that are only meant to be shown to your friends. They get about 10 unique hits per month. This is fine, and if something goes wrong no big harm is done. But you talk about online stores, and what if you happened to build so successful online store that you could start make living of it. Who is to blame, if something goes wrong then? Same goes for the forums. When websites start to get more hits, and more people are getting involved , all kinds of new problems start to appear. Suddenly optimization is needed, backups be come critical, who is responsible? I agree that apple could have offered some simple web tools, I.e. comment box, but full blown forum?
Good example is this very site, If you haven't noticed, there has been quite many database related problems past week. This site is professionally operated, build on top of well known products. Hosted by professional hosting facility and yet still there are problems.
Just as early automobiles broke down frequently and needed mechanics to repair them often, I think many sites on the web are like these early automobiles. But just as automobiles are now quite robust and dependable, I think web authoring and administration needs to also evolve to the point where we spend very little time under the hood. We do not each need custom cars to the point where we design custom engines - that is left for race cars and their mechanics.
As a long time SysAdmin/DBA/Programmer, I see how far the software tools have come in the last two decades. I think web authoring is still rather early in its development and can evolve much further. I also first started dealing with photography, video, and audio on computers and that has come a long, long way. If you were to ask me if the average Joe was capable of editing movies back twenty years ago I would have said no way. But now when I see iMovie my opinion has changed. It still takes great skill to be really good at making a movie, but the software side is not the hard part any more.
Garageband has also done a great job with recording music. This is another area that ten years ago were have only been operated by a pro. Same with desktop publishing. Also, look at word processing. Anybody remember Emacs? Powerful - yes, but not for the average Joe. Anybody remember email and bulletin boards with command line interfaces? Compare that with Mail today. Yes, even grandmas now do what use to be the domain of pros and geeks.
I think iWeb is capable of much more if Apple were to use good and powerful templates. I want iWeb to be so good, powerful, and easy that experienced web developers have a hard decision whether to use the old tried and true way of doing things or a new simple but powerful app. I think iWeb could one day be this app. If not, somebody will create it.
I know people have WYSIWYG editors, even for video, but they have not gone far enough with database, forum, store modules. But I think it is coming and like with iMovie, it will ussher in a new wave of average joes doing the jobs of pros.