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30th January 2006

iWeb blog interface

posted in apple, blogs |

I have started a new “job hunt blog” this evening using iWeb software included with iLife06. I have several reasons for starting this blog (which I posted about within it actually), but the main ones are to learn more about the capabilities of iWeb as well as document my own job hunt that is ongoing this spring.

Based on my experiments with the iWeb blogging interface this evening, I can offer the following observations:

  1. The interface is clean and intuitive, it is extremely easy to drop images from iPhoto libraries or directly from a web browser into pre-defined container spaces on blog pages.
  2. Publication of the blog couldn’t be easier with a 3rd party blogging software tool, especially since I have a .Mac account already configured in my computer’s system preferences. When minor changes are made to a page, the publication process seems fast, so it must not reupload all content in this case. That is good.
  3. I wish there was a keyboard shortcut for the hyperlink formatting command.
  4. There does not appear to be any way to use bulleted or numbered lists in blog entries.
  5. There does not appear to be any way to include interactive comments on the blog. This is a major shortcoming for a blog tool, but common (maybe even universal) for 3rd party software blogging tools that are not server-based. I’ll experiment later in the week with Haloscan to see if it can be integrated. That is the way I previously used comments when I was still blogging with iBlog.

I am a big advocate for server-based blogging systems like Wordpress and Blogger. However, I notice that iWeb blogs lend themselves much more readily to including photos from other places. Including photos in Wordpress or Blogger sites is a much more technical process, generally.

I love the podcast posting features of iWeb, which I explored last week and over the weekend. My initial reaction to the iWeb blogging interface is also positive, especially considering the year+ of experiences I have using a similar (but not as powerful) 3rd party blogging application: iBlog.

On this day..

This entry was posted on Monday, January 30th, 2006 at 11:12 pm and is filed under apple, blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

There are currently 8 responses to “iWeb blog interface”

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  1. 1 On February 13th, 2006, Erica Cohen said:

    Did you ever find a way to get comments for your blog through iWeb? I just got iLife ‘06 and I love the blog, but it needs the option for comments! :)

  2. 2 On February 13th, 2006, Wesley Fryer said:

    Unfortunately I haven’t yet. But I will keep trying to find out… there has to be a way to access the iWeb template source code. If we can access that, we can use a free service like Haloscan to setup commenting.

  3. 3 On February 28th, 2006, matthew said:

    I love iweb blog interface as well. But I can’t seem to INSERT a blog item (ie. all entries are necessarily added to the top of the list). For a journal, this would be fine, but for other types of documentation, one may want to insert an entry between two others (like keeping a log of events, and wanting to add one that was forgotten about initially, etc). The only way to do this that I can find is to completely re-build the main blog page AND each of the entries. am I missing something? thanks!

  4. 4 On March 7th, 2006, Wesley Fryer said:

    Matthew emailed me the following clarification about iWeb:

    The key is to input the date in the date field exactly how it expects it to be. You can write anything there you want, and will appear, but it won’t acknowledge it as a date unless it’s in this format: March 8, 2006. once you type it in like this, then it will put the entry in order relative to other entries with correct dates. Those entries that have arbitrary dates (ie. “june 2004″ or “2004-2005″ (which some of mine did)), are just left wherever you happened to add them in the first place.

    So I fixed all my dates, and then I could re-order and insert very easily. The main problem with most entry level mac software is that there are no user manuals beyond the sparse “help” menu. I looked this question up a thousand different ways and always ended up in the same paragraph-length page about “adding new blog entry”.

    Hope this helps you out.

  5. 5 On March 29th, 2006, Matt said:

    I was looking for more info on blogs and did find this for use with iWeb…not sure of how it is working but below is also an example.
    iComment http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/29043
    iComment example: http://bilbo.gehr.info/

  6. 6 On March 31st, 2006, Curtis said:

    Sweet, I was struggling with blogs and dates to backfill the system. Thanks.

  7. 7 On August 18th, 2006, Michael Reinhart said:

    Can you tell me if there’s a way to add blog entries without iWeb?— for example, if I’m travelling and have to use a PC in an internet cafe?

    Thanks,
    Michael

  8. 8 On August 19th, 2006, Wesley Fryer said:

    I recommend using a web-based blogging tool like blogger (www.blogger.com) or one you can install yourself or have installed on your own webspace like Wordpress (www.wordpress.org). Then you can use any web browser to post new entries!