Find out how

Tips on Designing Websites

If you’re going to build a website to share with your friends and family, it helps to have a plan. A good way to start is by answering these two questions:

1. What are you trying to say?
2. Who is your audience?

The answers to these questions are connected. You may want to build your site in order to express your opinions, to share your experiences with others, or maybe even to talk about your business. For example, if you’re simply trying to share your photos, movies, and thoughts with friends and family, you may want to start with the following:

1. A Home Page
2. A Photo Page
3. A Movie Page
4. A Blog Page

Using the Inspector Toolbar

Click the Inspector Tool button, located at the bottom of the iWeb window, to display the Inspector Tool window. The Inspector Tool helps you:

1. Add and Edit Text
2. Add and Edit Images
3. Add and Edit Graphics
4. Add and Edit Movies
5. Add and Edit RSS Feeds

Duplicating Page Templates

Duplicating a well-designed page and modifying it offers an easy way to give your website visual consistency and reduce the amount of layout work you have to do.

1. In the sidebar, select a single webpage that you’ve already designed, and then go to the top Menu Bar and choose Edit > Duplicate.
2. A new page appears in the sidebar — it’s colored red, to indicate that the page has not yet been published.
3. In the sidebar, double-click the new page’s name and rename it.

Changing Font Size quickly

The Inspector Tool provides the best way to add and control text on your web page. However, if all you want to do is make some text larger or smaller, iWeb makes it easy:

1. Select the text you’d like to edit.
2. To make the text larger, press the Command and “+” keys at the same time.
3. To make the text smaller, press the Command and “-” keys at the same time.

Adding a Google Map

You may want to add a Google Map to your website. To add a Google Map to a web page you’re designing:

1. With a new page template open, go to the iWeb toolbar, click Web Widgets, and choose Google Map from the pop-up menu that appears.
2. A Google Map appears on your page, with a Google Map panel.
3. Enter an address you’d like the Google Map to display, and click Apply. The map displays the location.
4. Drag the map into the position on the page that you’d like — you can adjust the map’s height and width using the handles on the sides and corners of the map.

Adding More Entries to Your Blog

After you’ve created your blog and the first entry, iWeb makes adding new blog entries easy.

1. In the sidebar, click Entries.
2. In the entry list, click the first entry listing, and choose Edit > Duplicate. A new entry appears on the list.
3. Double-click the name of the new duplicate entry and replace the selected title with a new title. Then, set the new entry’s date to a new date. The title and date appear above the entry’s main content text object.
4. Select the text in the entry’s main content area and delete it. Then type new text or simply drag and drop a text file into the content area. The new blog entry appears in the content area.
5. Using the Photos pane of the Media Browser, click iPhoto in the source list and select a photo from your iPhoto Library. Drag and drop the new photo on top of the previously existing photo in your blog entry. The photo you dragged replaces the other photo.

Adding Videos to Blog Entries

iWeb makes adding a QuickTime video to your blog entries as easy as adding a photo.

1. In the sidebar, select Entries.
2. Select the blog entry to which you’d like to add a QuickTime video.
3. With the blog entry open, go to the Media Browser or your desktop Finder and find the QuickTime video file that you’d like to add to your blog entry.
4. Drag and drop the QuickTime video file on to the existing picture in your Blog entry. The existing picture is replaced with the new QuickTime video file.

To make sure your friends and family can view your QuickTime video file quickly when they come to your website, make sure that to size it appropriately for websites.