Bournemouth — Aug 17th 2010

At the last moment Michael was unable to attend the meeting so Lionel acted as Chair and opened the proceedings with a short discussion of hints, tips and problems. Mark Ford then took over the remainder of the meeting with a demonstration of iWeb following on from last month’s meeting which dealt with web hosting and domain names. iWeb is the web site building application that comes with every new Mac as part of iLife. The current version is '09 with a totally renewed version rumoured to be arriving soon as part of iLife '11. That sort of undermined the session but provides a subject for an update!

Mark took us systematically through the templates that are common to each of the numerous themes supplied and the functions in the Inspector. Links were made to the similarity between iWeb and the other Apple applications.

The scope for personalising pages with inserted html was a surprise to some and the availability of other template themes from 3rd parties was noted. A recent MacWorld note is a good place to start if you are hunting for the html for widgets to enliven your site - there are thousands. Take a look at:
http://www.macworld.com/article/147129/2010/03/widgets.html

Mark also alerted us to the problem of choosing fonts. While we may select a font we like from our Apple collection our visitors will only see them as we do if they have the same font on their particular machine. If they don't then another font will be substituted. Some fonts, known as 'browser safe fonts' show up the same on PCs. There is a list & explanation here: http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/WindowsMacFonts.html

It was apparent that iWeb for all its simplicity was capable of producing quite a sophisticated web site. The fact that you can now upload your site to any hosting venue you choose increases its flexibility. Other members were able to make additional contributions emphasising the flexibility.
Following his iWeb demonstration Mark also demonstrated the WAMUG website for any members who were not familiar with it.

The meeting was followed by a visit to the local Italian.

Comments

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Mark Ford said…

It woz Mick wot new bout the font problem.

Roy Rainford said…

Two excellent presentations on web sites. First from Mick at the previous meeting 20th July and this logical follow-on from Mark. Many thanks to both for the helpful and interesting information.
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