IWeb? I Frustrated!

I am a new Mac user (I have an iMac) but a very long time PC user - transitioning over is NOT easy and iWeb appears to be no exception.
I am in the process of trying to use iWeb to construct a relatively basic webpage and am finding the templates to be ridiculously rigid.
For instance, I am using the 'Black' template ... it has the navigation bar positioned at the top of the page where it would be above the logo. I don't want the navigation bar there, but I can't seem to customize or move it.
I am going to need to link pages that will not be 'on' my actual webpage - for instance, I have a related PHBPP forum that I want to be included in the navigation bar - normally I would have hyperlinked it with either a 'button' or 'text prompt' - but the Mac template doesn't seem to allow this either.
I think I'd like a little less 'help' and a little more flexability/customizability. Can I design with a blank page 'template'and a wysiwyg editor? What are my iWeb options?
The other BIG problem right now, is that I am temporarily using a dial up connection, which is very slow and means all those jazzy video tutorials .... are virtually useless to me. If I were to be pointed in the direction of help, its going to need to take my connection into account :/
Would appreciate any suggestions or help - I don't know any other Mac users and am really feeling isolated; one Mac in a sea of PC's.
iMac Mac OS X (10.4.7)

For instance, I am using the 'Black' template ... it
has the navigation bar positioned at the top of the
page where it would be above the logo. I don't want
the navigation bar there, but I can't seem to
customize or move it.
You can increase the header size in the page tab of Inspector and put your logo above the nav bar. OR use a different template.
You can also remove the nav bar completely in the same tab of inspector.
I am going to need to link pages that will not be
'on' my actual webpage - for instance, I have a
related PHBPP forum that I want to be included in the
navigation bar - normally I would have hyperlinked
it with either a 'button' or 'text prompt' - but the
Mac template doesn't seem to allow this either.
You can do this, but it requires some post publish editing.
1. Create a "dummy page" in iWeb called "Forum" (or whatever) and make sure it is included in the nav bar via the Page tab of inspector.
Put something like "If you have reached this page, then I am in the process of updating the site. Normally, clicking Forum in the navigation bar would take you to my Forum. CLICK HERE to visit my Forum." (CLICK HERE = a text link to http://addressofforumgoeshere)
Publish your site.
(Question: Are you publishing to .Mac or to a folder?)
2. Find your html files.
Go to iDisk/Web/Sites/iWeb/Sitename/Pagename.html
(If you publish to a folder, look in the folder you selected or try looking in your Sites folder of your home folder. )
There are two ways to handle accessing your iDisk.
Method 1:
Turn on local copy of your iDisk in System Prefs, with or without automatic syncing.
If you publish your site via iWeb, now the updated pages exist online but the old pages are on your local iDisk. You need to sync (automatically or manually) to get the new pages on your local iDisk (on your computer).
Then you can open the updated files, make your html changes in Text Edit or whatever program, and SYNC AGAIN (automatically or manually) to update the online version of the site to match what you have just changed on your local iDisk
Method 2:
Mount the iDisk when needed via the "Go" menu in Finder. This is the ONLINE VERSION of your iDisk, not a local copy. When you publish your site via iWeb, the changes INSTANTLY appear on the iDisk on your desktop. If you make html edits or other changes, they appear INSTANTLY online.
I recommend Method 2 - much easier!!!
3. Make the html changes.
You can open the html files generated by iWeb in any text or html editor. In TextEdit, to view the code in an HTML file, choose File > Open and select "Ignore rich text commands." Then locate the .html file (as described in step 2) and click Open.
You will need to make this change in every .html page that contains the nav bar, EXCEPT Forum.html. That comes later.
Find
href="Forum.html"
Replace with
href="http://addressofforumgoeshere"
Now in Forum.html,
Find
</head>
Replace with
<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" content="0;URL=”http://addressofforumgoeshere">
and don't forget to save your changes (not Save As, just Save)!!!
4. Remember, if you make a change to a page like this post-publishing, and later re-publish, you have to make the html changes again! Set up a Find/Replace command in MassReplaceIt and you can do this very quickly. You can save your queries so you can make all of your changes with one click the next time you save.
Download here:
http://www.hexmonkeysoftware.com
I think I'd like a little less 'help' and a little
more flexability/customizability. Can I design with a
blank page 'template'and a wysiwyg editor? What are
my iWeb options?
http://web.mac.com/sboben/iWeb/11Mystics/Documentation.html
PS - here's our forum FAQ, a work in progress:
http://web.mac.com/varkgirl/iWeb/iWebFAQ

Similar Messages

Iweb '08 - frustration with missing content

if anyone can help me, i am slowing going crazy with the frustrations that i have had since i upgraded to iweb 08 about 2 weeks ago.
firstly i have had to rebuild my website twice, as the domain file didn't exist at that point.
so my issue is this - my website is built and looks fabulous, however each page in the iweb program constantly has missing content, and i have to continuously re-add everything back in - there are "question marks" all over where the content SHOULD be and where IT WAS. this is causing so much more work for me, and i just don't have the patience to keep screwing with the program.
if anyone knows how i can fix this problem, please respond!!

After you installed iWeb '08 and ran the updates, did you restart your Mac?
Quit iWeb.
Delete the Preference file - Home Folder/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iWeb.plist.
Restart your Mac.
Run Disk Utility to repair permissions.

IWeb publishing frustration

I am new to iWeb so any help will be appreciated. I created a website and when I published it to MobilMe 2 of the 3 pages looked as they did in iWeb while one of the pages had pics overlying text and had a large get between certain areas of text. All pages had text and pics and as far as I know I did not do anything different for any of the pages. TIA

What's the URL of your site so we can examine it first hand? Often it's best to embed the photo in the text box and activate word wrap around using the Inspector/Text/Wrap pane:
Click to view full size
This way the text and photo always stay in register. This demo page is an example: Photos and Shapes in Text Box with Wraparound. Also, all of my tutorial pages are done that way: http://toadstutorials.info.
OT

How to import my webpage back 2 iweb

just got a new mac and made the mistake of first making my new webpage THEN transporting old mac info to new mac. This little operation made all my Iweb files on new mac go bye bye. Luckily i could retrieve them from my webpage and download them to my mac into a folder EXACTLY as I first did from Iweb when asked to publich in a folder. Now the QUESTION is; how do I open this folder in Iweb so i can edit my page? Theres doesnt seem to be an "open folder" button anywhere. but is there other means to this problem???
help help help
Michael

Hi
The only way to get your pages to iWeb is to open that file:
HomeFolder/Library/Application Support/iWeb/domain.sites2
Where iWeb stores its files. If you still have the old Mac with your stuff on it then grab your old domain.sites2 and put it on your new computer in the same location. If you don't have that file anymore and don't have a backup of it but you have your actual pages in html same as you see when you browse on your page in the internet then there's no way to get them back in iWeb.
The only way would then be to copy and paste your content of the pages on the server to new pages in iWeb.
Frustrating I know...
Regards,
Cédric

Frustrated with iWeb 1.0.1

Like others I'm finding that my iWeb website does not properly update. After making the same changes to my site, I publish them and repeatedly the results are poor. Changes frequently don't migrate to the site and there are lots of little question marks now where some of my pics used to be. Very frustrating. I've published to a desktop folder and viewed it locally and it appears exactly as created in iWeb. I've tried deleting the folder with my site from my iDisk as well as clearing the cache in Safari when viewing, but nothing fixes the problematic viewing on Apples end after publishing to the web. Any other fixes people have found or just wait for Apple to work out the kinks in their servers +/- upgrading iWeb in the future??!?!? Are there any alternative apps that can integrate tightly with iDisk/.mac service with more features and just as easy to use? Thanks.
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I tried the OPTION key refresh repeatedly as suggested but no luck. Thanks for the suggestion, however. Here's the website:
http://web.mac.com/livin1965/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html
It appears today that the background color and everything on the home page and blog page are rendering nicely. Just the Photos and Album pages that are problematic for me. I have deleted Safari cache and removed all iDisk content regarding the site so that it had to be resync'd (I did all that before posting, and the cache removal helped on a few spots but overall very minimal improvement afterward).
Please let me know if others have thoughts on how to fix. The site looks fine when I publish to a desktop folder and view the files, so I am guessing it's a problem on Apple's server. But, I'm no webmaster

Frustrating to publish with iweb Ahhhhhhhhh!!

I would like to say that iweb seems like an amazing application! I have been so excited by the release. I built a truly amazing web site in a short period of time! I was so excited by it's simple design and ease of use that I told everybody I'd come in contact with about it all the while I was making my site. that is until................ I can't seem to publish it!
I have been trying to publish a site for the last three weeks to no avail except for a one and only time! I have tried everything in my bag of tricks. I have read all the posts here contacted tech support several times all with no satisfaction.
I have been a long time mac user/supporter/advocate and am pretty proficient with them. I almost never have to call tech support and usually find that when I do, I have an equal or better understanding of my mac than they do. Now don't get me wrong there have been times when they have helped me solve my problem and always seem eager to help and I have always been appreciative of their being. It's just that my last conversation with them and thier pathetic answer left an aweful foul tast in my mouth!
My last series of phone calls to tech support ended with apple telling me that the problem was with my internet connection. Now I know that they were as frustrated with my problem as I was but for them to put this thing to rest and get me off their back by telling me that this is my problem? Well it's just plain not acceptable!
I know that my internet connection is not the problem! I have tried several other connections at different places and all end up with the same result.
The one time I did get my site to publish a week ago I was using the, "publish to folder" option and then pointing it to my "web" folder on idisk. I was amazed when it published but that was a week ago and now I have updated my site and can't get it to upload again no matter what I try. I've trashed prefs., reinstalled the program, held down the option key and clicked the "publish all" button, I have tried uploading around 3am several times thinking that the server may have less traffic and that might help. I have deleted all my media from my idisk and started over, which in hind site was a mistake, I tried uploading a simple one page one picture site and nothing will publish! I get error messages everytime!! I have not one time given up and have literally spent days of my time trying to figure this problem out!
Here are a list of just SOME of the error messages I get.
An error occurred while publishing file “Images”.
An error occurred while publishing file “index.html”.
An error occurred while publishing file “shapeimage_1.jpg”.
An error occurred while publishing file “shapeimage_2.png”.
Can’t create the file “navbar5normal.png.” The disk may be damaged, full, or you may not have sufficient access privileges.
Can’t create the file “BoilLineProductions/About BLP.html.” The disk may be damaged, full, or you may not have sufficient access privileges.
An error occurred while publishing file “index.html”.
Can’t create the file “navbar4normal.png.” The disk may be damaged, full, or you may not have sufficient access privileges.
Can’t create the file “navbarseparator3.png.” The disk may be damaged, full, or you may not have sufficient access privileges.
Is there anybody out there who has suffered like this? If so what are you doing about it?
Sincerely,
Todd

I was having trouble publishing to my .mac account as well. I am traveling so I have the disadvantage/advantage of trying completely different isp networks while trying to upload. I was receiving most of the same errors, but after trying yet another hotel high speed the site published. I hadn't changed any files as I didn't have time I would just start publishing before bed, and the best I can figure is that the isp was causing some delay as well as a delay in the .mac servers causing the program to drop the connection just long enough to hang the upload. It is my understanding that the .mac servers are not the fastest due to sheer volume of use. (idisks constantly syncing etc.) Some things to look at are how big are your files the larger the file obviously the more chance to loose packets of info in transfer and possible errors. How large is the total site you may have hidden files on your idisk eating up needed space or your email may be taking to much of the hard drive. try to reconfigure your email storage to a lower amount of idisk. Mine was set to 512mb or half of my storage space. Did just publish to .mac with a total file size of 400mb so it can be done. also check to make sure your computer is not disconnecting if it goes to sleep. Just a few suggestions hopefully it will help.
1 ghz powerbook g4 Mac OS X (10.4.1)

IWeb Page Width Frustrations - Can't get it to scale appropriately

So, I've been googling and trying to figure out the answer to this question for a few hours here, and can't seem to figure it quite out.
I'm using the Freestyle theme, and I want to make the page layout a bit wider, so I set the page width to 980 px. After doing this, I can expand / scale to fill everything except the header graphic. I can't seem to figure out a way to select it to expand it.
Has anyone had this problem? How do I go about getting the header to fit my page? Many points to the answerer of this problem.
Picture of the problem -
http://imgur.com/sGt2b.jpg

Because that theme and most of the others except for Black, White, Modern Frame and Formal (except for the Blog layout) use non scalable graphic elements as part of their layout design you won't be able to widen the page automatically. You might try placing a shape of the color you want under the navbar and over the existing object.
For maximum control over a site's design use one of the four themes I mentioned above and add your own layout graphics. To make the navbar font colors, regular, rollover and visited, something other than what the theme provides you can follow the instructions in this tutorial: #24 - How to Change the Basic, Rollover and Visited Color of an iWeb Navbar.
OT

IWeb+Pocast+Godaddy=Question/Frustration

OK - here is my site...
www.shanemontgomery.com
If you click on the link "podcast" then the "listen" link the Podcast archive loads up but all I see is a quicktime image with no podcast happening. When I save my iWeb Site to a folder and then view it I see the podcast. I see the file in the Podcast folder of my site on my ftp server. But no workie Podcast!!!!!!!!!! I checked with my hosting company and the podcast is supported and they could not tell me why it doesn't work.
HELP!!!!!

http://shanemontgomery.com/sam71167/shanemontgomery.com/Podcast/498D9E43-BE38-49 8A-94D8-B21A64C3EF7E_files/RealLovePart1Foundation.m4a
that's the address of the podcast. no expert, but look a little odd.

Iweb hyperlink opacity frustration!

Hi there,
I'm using iWeb to put together a website for my assessment and I'm currently having problems with my text hyperlinks.
I've made its 'normal' setting 0% opaque with a black rollover. This works fine in the program but once I publish it to my browser (tried Safari and Google Crome - to a local folder) it doesn't respond to the rollover change.
I've tried everything to my knowledge...is this a known glitch?
Please help...my assessment is on Friday Thank you!

Bonjour,
You need to turn your link into image
Just for you: http://iweb.debutersurmac.com/jumble/rollover2.html

Total iWeb Frustration

I admit, I am not a computer or software wizard. I have spent all weekend trying to put back together a couple of web sites. But the combination of iWeb no longer being supported, upgrading to 10.7, and moving my sites away from Mobile Me to 1&1 has me so flummoxed I am about ready to find a cliff to jump.
Here is the story:
I have a web page I created in iWeb with several sites. I have tried both publishing to the local folder as well as to the FTP Server. I have moved all of my sites to individual domains.
I spent much of the weekend trying to figure out the online directions on how to shorten my web address to just www.handsoftheshepherd.com, but every tutorial or written directions are just too complicated. So I guess I will live with just www.handsoftheshepherd.com/main
I can get my main page to publish online, but cannot get the links to the other sites(domains) to work. No links to the other sites work. I am not sure if the formating is correct, or if soemthing else is wrong. And I read online that the idex.html is important, but I don't understand what to do with them.
What is so maddening is that iWeb used to be so dang user friendly. And now I can't even get a my web page online. Nothing online, either written or in video, helps me. I just wish someone could talk me through this. Then I would have it.
I hate the thought of spending the time to move all of this to Rapidweaver.
Sorry, just had to vent.
Tom

Its probably a lot easier to understand what's going on with the files on the server if you can actually see them. An FTP application allows you to see both the local files and the remote ones...
http://www.iwebformusicians.com/Search-Engine-Optimization/Upload.html
iWeb produces a folder and an index.html file. If you upload both to the root folder on the server you will get the folder name (which is the same as the site name in iWeb) in the URL like so...
http://www.domain-name.com/SIte-Name/Page-Name.html
There's also a copy of the index.html file inside the folder so you can upload the contents - rather than the folder itself. See this page...
http://www.iwebformusicians.com/iWeb/URLs-Favicons.html
The index.html file produced by iWeb is just a redirect to the "Home" or "Landing" page of your site which is the page at the top of the list in the left column of the iWeb window.

Duplicate user account OR migrate iPhoto/iWeb between users

I've seen this question asked several times before, but have not seen an answer!
So, with as many details as I can muster:
I have, on my computer, 4 user accounts: my admin account, my user account, my boyfriend's user account, and our business account... All separate, keeps things nice and tidy (sort of!).
I have a new and separate project that I'm starting to work on which involves lots of images, and new websites, and new and different stuff that's necessary for the project, but just clutter in any of the other accounts.
Because this project started out as something my man wanted to play around with, all of the beginnings of this are in his iPhoto and his iWeb, and they're well organized. I've not had luck so far moving the iPhoto and iWeb libraries to a new/blank user and maintaining the organization that I've spent time and attention making right.
He's not so great with technology, and gets very frustrated (and unproductive!) when anything on the computer doesn't work exactly like he expects it to. (When Lion came out and the scrolling went "the wrong direction" he was afraid to use the computer at all for a week, because "everything changed, I don't even know how to use it anymore" that's between us though, personal issure ). So I'd like to keep the user experience the same for him. I'd like to duplicate his settings, preferences, etc. into a new user for him, and take over his current account to isolate this project.
So, in summary:
I want to create a new account with the same user experience as a current account without having to find and reset all of his settings.
OR
I want an exact copy of the iPhoto and iWeb from this user account to another one, on the same machine.
I am currently running OSX 10.7.2, iPhoto '11 9.2.1 and iWeb 3.0.4
Thanks in advance for any help!

Kenzishly wrote:
I want to create a new account with the same user experience as a current account without having to find and reset all of his settings.
That's easy, if you have Time Machine or "bootable clone" backups. (If you don't, you should anyway. Post back if you need info on them.)
Use Migration Assistant to transfer just that user account from the backups; it will put up a screen saying it can't transfer it under the same name as the existing account, and allowing you to rename it.
Other than having a different name, the transferred account will be identical to the existing one. Then you can modifiy them separately as necessary.
EDIT: see Using Migration Assistant on Lion for detailed instructions. Be sure to un-check the boxes for eveything except that one user account.
Message was edited by: Pondini

Aperture - iWeb - MobileMe... WORKFLOWS WANTED!

I come seeking advice, and hoping this online essay will spark some discussion on the much-needed integration of Apple-apps online photo sharing and display capabilities -- and I promise to keep the rants to a minimum...
*What I'm trying to do:*
Create a series of Aperture-published (or at least Aperture-based, since that's where my pictures reside) photo pages, pages on which visitors can...
1) Quickly peruse the thumbs (with column&row arrangement, sizing, and framing options all determined by me), while also reading some descriptive text I've provided re the overall event being showcased;
2) View individual shots at a modest but adjustable display size in Slideshow mode (with transition options I've set), and simultaneously see the associated Caption, Date and whatever other Aperture-stored metadata I've chosen to be displayed for that set of images; and then, if they so desire...
3) Download selected images at their original, FULL-pixel dimensions (assuming I've set the page to allow that).
4) PLUS, I want to have each of these individual pages indexed on an iWeb "Album Page", which allows for the contents of each individual photo page to be mouse-skimmed before actually clicking and going to that page.
*An Impossible Dream?*
Not really. Everything I've just described is relatively easy to do -- but only in bits and pieces, it appears -- using Aperture, Aperture-published MobileMe Albums (aka Galleries) and Aperture-published Web Pages, iWeb '09, iWeb's Media Browser, and a MobileMe account. So now I find myself playing Dr. Frankenstein (that's "Fronkensteen"), and trying to stitch together a new form of photographic life online.
In other words, I'm just trying to create the kind of truly functional and flexible photo pages which SHOULD be a no-brainer by now, since all the features I'm imagining already exist! (Then again, I shouldn't ask for too much -- I mean it's not like Aperture, iWeb, and the MobileMe service are all from the same company, right?)
*In OTHER other words...*
I want to publish Gallery-esque pages from Aperture, but ones which automatically include and display whatever combination of Caption, Title, Date, or any other Metadata I select. And ones which can be INDIVIDUALLY indexed on an iWeb Album Page, as opposed to simply dragging in iWeb's MobileMe widget (which so far as I can tell just gives you a single link to ALL your Galleries in one quick but inelegant whack).
OR...
I want to publish Aperture Web Pages, but ones which aren't given a ludicrous "homepage.mac" URL (cripes, how old is THAT code?), and which can be easily seen by iWeb once published, so they can then be dragged into iWeb Album pages for convenient indexing and one-stop skimability by the user. (Also, pages for which Aperture has some sort of "Settings / Visit Page / Announce Site" pull-down button as it does for every MobileMe Gallery -- that's just being consistent.)
OR...
I want iWeb's Media Browser to let me select and drag into iWeb the contents of specific Aperture Projects and/or Albums, but with all Caption, Date, and other metadata for the selected images included, AND (if I so choose) at their FULL resolution -- rather than only at their currently-designated Preview size, which is now the case.
*Whichever way you describe it...*
I'm not really asking for anything all that new, just for some long-overdue integration between the already-existing photo-publishing abilities of Aperture, iWeb, and MobileMe. But before I start submitting more pages of "isn't this obvious?" input to their respective Feedback sites, I'd love to get anyone's thoughts, reactions, or best of all, suggestions as to how to at least partially achieve, the kind of Aperture-based photo publishing & sharing sites I'm still hoping to create.
Many thanks (if only for reading this far!),
John Bertram
Toronto

Many thanks to both David and Bob for the above posts -- it's just nice to know I'm not alone in this frustration.
Sometimes I desperately wish Apple would appoint a CAO (Cross-Application Ombudsman), a "Minister for Inter-Application Affairs", someone whose only job was to track the functions and features in different Apple apps, to correlate that understanding with relevant user input from a dedicated AppleWorkflows Feedback page, and whose mandate was to then:
a) make sure that the interface of each app behaved in a consistent and predictable manner (so that, for example, Option-clicking a disclosure triangle in a Viewer window list of video filters in FinalCut had the same functionality as Option-clicking a disclosure triangle in a Finder window list of folders and sub-folders -- which it currently DOES NOT);
and
b) - most importantly - make sure the individual apps talked to each fluently and interacted in logical, productive ways (the subject of this thread being a prime example of where that's NOT happening).
This person would have the authority to force the programmers working on different apps to actually talk to each other BEFORE new versions get released; to imagine intelligent, creative ways in which the different apps should interact-- and then require the programmers to implement those scenarios. Essentially, the CAO's only reason for coming to work each day would be to oversee the conception, development and implementation of cross-app workflows which benefit and free up (rather than block and frustrate) the multi-Apple-apps user.
The key is that this person (or persons) would have to be given some real power -- not just to recommend, but in many cases to actually require. (For instance, this person would long ago have required the Aperture team to release a free update which no longer published anything to a "homepage.mac" URL. All together now: "Duh".)
And, as mentioned above, they would have their own separate and well-publicized AppleWorkflows Feedback Page (plus a dedicated public discussion forum as well?), to which users would be actively encouraged to submit their ideas on Inter-App problems and possibilities.
Call me crazy -- but that's my dream, and I ain't givin' it up.
jb

Since Apple is no longer providing MobileMe, and since my version of iWeb only has the option of publishing to mobile me (the "upgrade" eleviated the "publish to folder" option), how do I publish my web page to a remote host?

I used to have an amazing home page that I used with my students:
http://hansen.osd.wednet.edu/media/hansen/msamson/MrSamsonHome/Home.html
The school district "UPGRADED" to the new operating system. iWeb, which I have been using for years, no longer supports my ability to publish to the district server. Apple thought it wise to force us to use MobileMe. Furthermore, Apple decided that MoblieMe is no longer unavailable. To add insult to injury, the new version of iWeb doesn't even have a "save to folder" option any more. In other words, I can no longer use iWeb.
Am I totally screwed?
Is there another way to publish my site?
Will Apple make me purchase yet another "upgrade"?
Is this a total rip off?
Mr. Samson
ps. As a loyal Apple customer (since 1982), I find these antics very frustrating.

I suggest you upgrade to the latest iWeb version while copies are still availalbe: iLife '11 - Apple Store (U.S.). That's because it's now confirmed that iWeb and iDVD have been discontinued by Apple. This is evidenced by the fact that new Macs are shipping with iLife 11 installed but without iWeb and iDVD.
On June 30, 2012 MobileMe will be shutdown. HOWEVER, iWeb will still continue to work but without the following:
Features No Longer Available Once MobileMe is Discontinued:
◼ Password protection
◼ Blog and photo comments
◼ Blog search
◼ Hit counter
◼ MobileMe Gallery
All of these features can be replaced with 3rd party options.
I found that if I published my site to a folder on my hard drive and then uploaded with a 3rd party FTP client subscriptions to slideshows and the RSS feed were broken. If I published directly from iWeb to the FPT server those two features continued to work correctly.
There's another problem and that's with iWeb's popup slideshows. Once the MMe servers are no longer online the popup slideshow buttons will not display their images.
Click to view full size
However, Roddy McKay and I have figured out a way to modify existing sites with those slideshows and iWeb itself so that those images will display as expected once MobileMe servers are gone. How to is described in this tutorial: #26 - How to Modify iWeb So Popup Slideshows Will Work After MobileMe is Discontinued.
In addition the iLife suite of applications offered on disc is now a discontinued product and the remaining supported iApps will only be available thru the App Store from now on.
HOWEVER, the iLife 11 boxed version that is still currently available at the online Apple Store (Store button at the top of the page) and those copies still on the shelves of retailers will include iWeb and iDVD.
This also may be of some interest to you: Life After MobileMe.
OT

I can't get iWeb to STOP working.

I uploaded a published iWeb site to my existing web server, under a add-on domain. It was accessible through http://mydomain.com/Photos.html
I noticed after doing this, though, that going to http://mydomain.com/ automatically loaded the iWeb page by default, not the index.php file there. So my domain would go to http://mydomain.com/Photos.html by default instead.
But I deleted everything from that directory — completely empty — but yet I still get a redirect to http://mydomain.com/Photos.html. Even though it doesn't exist!!!
The most frustrating part is this: when you reload that page— the browser acknowledges that it's no longer there, e.g. 404 Not Found.
So how is it that the page comes up in the first place? Where is the data from this page coming from, if I've deleted it from the directory, cleared my cache, loggedout and restarted my computer? And if it exists somewhere, then why then when I refresh the same URL does it come up as a 404?
I can't make heads or tails of this and right now I'm blaming Apple and iWeb for this stubborn behavior because I can delete/add files from other domains/parts of my site and they will break/work as you would expect.
What did iWeb do to make this happen? How I can STOP iWeb's silly page from loading!?

Okay, I figured it out.
I would clear the cache while the page was still being viewed in a window, and for some reason that didn't actually clear the cache. So that's the browser's being a good little browser, but it's annoying because it should clear everything.
iWeb also has a problem in that is tells pages to cache forever, so the browsers are only doing what they're told.
Close the window, clear the cache, good to go.

I've Made the Switch (from iWeb) & Lived to Tell About It.

I've gotten a lot of help and useful information from this forum over the years and I will certainly miss it. I've just completed a 2 month transition where I've migrated my site from iWeb/Mobile Me to a new site made in RapidWeaver and hosted by Host Excellence. I figured I'd write a little (or a lot) about my experience, to give some others an idea of what they've got to look forward too. Hopefully it will arm you with some things to do and look out for. While I am describing RapidWeaver here, a lot of this process will be the same no matter what new software you use. I started off being pretty happy with what I had going in iWeb and not being thrilled at all about making the switch. Now I am so glad I made the switch and I am far happier about the new site than I was with the old one. BTW: the new sites address is: http://grillinsmokin.net . Feel free to visit. I think you'll quickly notice some things you simple can't do in iWeb. This isn't a knock against iWeb. I was very happy with iWeb and had no plans to switch. Where it hasn't been developed actively for four years now, it has been left behind somewhat.
To begin at the beginning: I've had a site made with iWeb since January of 2006 called Grillin' & Smokin' that combined my love of outdoor cooking and photography. Over the years it had grown rather large, with 375 photo entry pages and 230 blog pages. The Domain file was around 1.4 GB. This was not something I ever wanted to have to recreate from scratch. However losing MobileMe as a host was taking away Value Added features like the Hit Counter, Slide Show, Blog Comments, Blog Search etc. The handwriting is on the wall for iWeb too. I might have gone on using iWeb, but between losing key features and the fact iWeb was starting to show it's age, it was time for me to move on. Just before the iCloud announcement this Spring, I began researching website building software. I looked at their features, working methodology, themes, plug-ins and extensions. I download trial versions of the software where it was available as well as some of the themes or plugins I might be using. I gotta tell you, at first I was very frustrated and upset, because I was not finding anything that had the ease of use of iWeb and looked like it was going to be able to recreate the appearance of my original site. It appeared to be a series of compromises. I'd like the features of one package but I hated the themes available for that software. Another looked promising but isn't being upgraded regularly. My biggest frustration was some of the iWeb page types just don't exist in other packages. For example the Album Pages where multiple Photo Pages can be grouped and displayed, don't have a direct equivalent in any other package I saw. As part of my discovery process I read reviews of the various packages, including head to head comparisons of some of them. I also visited their discussion forums. After doing this for 3 weeks I "settled" on RapidWeaver. It was under active development; had a thriving developer community turning out a wide variety of add ons, plug-ins and themes; had an active user community & had lots of help resources available. The web pages it produced were standards compliant and you could get nice effects without resorting to Flash. I think the biggest selling point was all of the add-ons-kind of the same advantage the iPhone has with it's App Store.
Once I bought RapidWeaver & a 3rd Party theme, I tried the demo versions of some of the plug-ins and made sample versions of my page types from iWeb in RapidWeaver. I wanted to have a process in place, before I started mass production on the site. You really do need to do some of this homework in advance to avoid unpleasant surprises. The biggest minus I'd turned up about RapidWeaver (RW from this point on) is it didn't handle big sites well at all. The equivalent of the iWeb Domain file is the RapidWeaver Sandwich file or RWSW file. Once the RWSW file reaches 100MB or so you can get crashes or hangs uploading your site. Now 100 MB doesn't sound like much particularly when I was talking about a 1.4GB iWeb Domain File for my site, but RW doesn't include the photos in the RWSW file. Still I knew I was going to have to divide my site across several RWSW files. Initially the plan was to divide it into 3 sites: The main landing pages was one RWSW file and is the site reached by the url for the site. I was going to have a second RWSW file for my blogs and a third for my photos. Ultimately I ended up dividing the photos into 3 RWSW files. These extra files are hosted on sub-domians whose name goes in front of the main domain (http://sub-domain.main-domain.com). This meant some extra setup for me with my web-host, although they made the setup for the 4 sub-domains very easy and they were free. If you have a huge site and will need to split it, you'll want to check with your prospective web host if they charge extra for hosting additional sub-domains. For small iWebs sites this is not an issue-you have one RWSW file and one web address, just like you do now. My having sub-domains also meant more work linking files together across sites. RapidWeaver has something called an Offsite Page which helped with some of this, but having to split my sites up was the biggest PITA for me about the whole process. But knowing about this going in was better than finding out at the end when I tried to upload a single massive site. If you have a small site, the setup for uploading it is as straight forward as iWeb. RW has a built in FTP uploader or you can publish to file and use an FTP client like CyberDuck.
Once I had my site organization in place and had experimented with best practices for recreating each iWeb page type in RW, it was time to begin. I've gotta tell you when I started out I was not a happy camper. I liked the iWeb way of doing things about 70 percent of the time vs 30 percent for RW. At the end of the first week I told myself I have to move on and give up on the past. I was no longer going to be using iWeb and the sooner I embraced the RW way of doing things, the better off I'd be. At this early point it was still hard to see down the road to the end results. No matter what new package you buy, you should try to go with the flow and learn a new way of working. You'll be happier and less frustrated in the end. In my case after having gone through the entire process now, I've ended up changing my opinion. Now that I've gone through the entire process, I like the RapidWeaver way of doing things about 95 percent of the time and 5% for iWeb. That 5 percent is mostly the large site issue I've described. As I began working I was able to reuse much of the text from my iWeb blog in RW. I did have to paste it in as unformatted and reformat it in RW. My pictures were well organized in Aperture which also helped speed the process. One of the things I did is automate some of the tedious repetitious tasks. I created Quickeys macros to do things for me when ever possible. For example I could go to a particular photo page in iWeb and select the first caption. I would then trigger a macro that asked how many captions are on this page. It would then select the caption in iWeb, copy it, switch to RW and paste it in place and repeat XX times. If you know Quickeys or Applescript (I am guessing) there are plenty of opportunities to put it to good use.
RW present a different way of working than you are used to in iWeb and you'll just need to get used to it. What I am describing here would be true of any of the other packages I looked at too. First off it isn't WYSIWYG while you are editing. You are working with fairly basic looking text with few clues as to what the real page looks like. You switch to a preview mode to see what the page looks like in a browser. At first blush iWeb seems to win here. But what I soon realized is RW allows you to mix regular text and pictures together with html snippets right in the same text box. This makes adding counters or badges easy. Plus you can use HTML formatting for things like Titles occurring through your page. Instead of increasing the font size, making the text bold and changing its color, you can simply say this is Heading style 2 or 5 and this happens automatically per the predefined style. Better yet if you change a style everything on that one page or the entire site (your choice) inherits that change. So by working in a non-WYSIWYG mode you gain some long term. advantages over how iWeb works. The same is true with positioning. In iWeb it is fast and easy to place things on a page right down to the pixel. RW just doesn't give you that type of precision and next to splitting my site, layout was my biggest frustration with RW. At least to start. But there is a good reason for this "lack of precision" that may not be apparent until you view the site in a browser. When iWeb came out, you really didn't zoom your browser. iWeb uses Absolute Positioning where it uses anchored boxes for everything, whereas RW uses Relative Positioning. Objects with anchored text or picture boxes like iWeb start having problems if you zoom in or out more than one step. Text starts over flowing other text because the text boxes are anchored by one point. Pages just start looking scary if you try to zoom in or out too much. RW is looking at items relative positions and their relationships with one another. So initially you aren't placing the objects in the same way, it is more like eyeballing things in a way. But when viewed in a web browser you can zoom in or out to your heart's content. So what seems at first like a big disadvantage at first for RW, is actually a HUGE advantage.
This is why you need to go with the flow and try to embrace the new way of working. I mentioned earlier that I wasn't able to find a page type that was equivalent to the iWeb album page. I was able to use a very flexible plug-in for RW called stacks, which allows you to create various single and multi-column or multi-row layouts using empty stacks. You then populate the empty stacks with content, pictures text etc. These pages were not like iWeb albums where you nest the Photo Album Pages in the Album page and they create a skimmable preview and an automatic link to the album. Once I actually started making these new "Album" Pages in RW I realized I was gaining as much or more than I was loosing. The skimmable preview pictures was eyecandy I could live without. Nice touch, not essential. I never liked the way the preview picture shown on the Album page was the first photo in the Photo album. You couldn't change this. Now that I am placing my own photo on the Album page, I could use any picture and make it any size I wanted too. In iWeb the Album Caption was the name of the Photo Page. If this name was too long the caption didn't go to a second line, it got cut off. Any link in RW can have a description added to the link which is what you see in the yellow box when you hover your mouse over the item being linked. I used to hide text boxes links under the pictures on the Albums page for SEO and navigation help. So yes now I have to manually link the Album picture to the Photo Page, but I am no longer creating a hidden text box with a link that I have to remember to move when I add pages to the album. So once again my first impression was wrong. Advantage RW.
Another advantage to RW is any page type can have a sidebar. You can easily add favicons and site logos. You can easily add metadata to any page and customized the names of the path to your pages. The Themes can be more powerful and customizable too. About one week into the process I was begining to really go with the flow and see this new way of working had far more advantages for me than disadvantages.
By the time I finished my new RW site, my iWeb site was looking tired and dated. My biggest and most pleasant surprises were saved until the end. Any kind of SEO was a PITA with iWeb. You had to embed snippets on each page with a code from HaloScan or Google Analytics. Problem was, iWeb erased any such HTML code while you were uploading. So you then had to use a regular expression in the text box ("HaloScan goes here"), upload your site and replace the regular expression with the actual code using a 3rd party tool. Oh and don't do that on any blog page where you are using the built in Apple commenting system because the comments will disappear. I also had problems where the new comment badge would not show up for weeks or months after a comment was made. It was getting so the things I had to do AFTER I uploaded my site to MobileMe were taking longer than uploading the site. Once the site was recreated, it was time to add blog comments, a guestbook, a contact form, Google Analytics, and publish a site map. In my iWeb-influenced mind, I was saving the fussy PITA things for last. I was dead wrong. Unlike what you go through with iWeb, it couldn't have been been easier in RW:
-Blog Comments: Set up an account with the provider. Then I had to go into the page setup in RW for my blog page and click on a popup menu of comment providers & select Discus. If your provider isn't listed you paste some HTML code from the provider into a dialogue box provided by RW for the blog page. In my case it was simpler, just set Discus in the popup menu. Now instead of the iWeb badge showing me new posts (and only when it was in the mood), I now get an email.
-Google Analytics: Set up an account with Google. Go to the Stats area in the RW side bar, click on Configure, paste in your code from Google and you are good to go. You can monitor your Google analytics stats right from within RapidWeaver. (Also works this way for GoSquared Live Stats).
-Guestbook: Same as iWeb. You add a page with an HTML snippet from your Guestbook provider in an iFrame.
-Contact Form: This is a RW page type which masks your email address from the spambots by transferring the information to an invisible and inaccessible page within your site. This page then emails you the information.
-Full Site Search: This doesn't exist in iWeb. You can search your blogs right now, but this is one of the features you lose when MobileMe shuts down. By adding an inexpensive Plug in called RapidSearch Pro I enable full site search. You set up a MySQL server for your site. Host Excellence walked me through the 4-Step Process via a well written Help File. You then control what pages are indexed via your sitemap.xml file. You let RapidSearch Pro index your site and you are good to go.
-SiteMap: There is a simple SiteMap generation feature built into RW 5. There are third party tools for doing this for iWeb. I purchased an inexpensive RW plug in called SiteMap plus that not only generates the sitemap.xml file, it allows you to customize what pages get searched and at what frequency. This ties into what is searched via RapidSearch Pro. This plug-in also generates a visible and customizable sitemap page to help your site's users find their way around. Another bonus of being hosted off Mobile Me is when I went to add my sites to my Google account they had already been indexed. It seemed like they never crawled MobileMe unless you told them you wanted them to look at your site.
Link Checking: This doesn't exist in iWeb. I bought another inexpensive plug-in called Link Inspector for RW. It checks all of your internal and external links and generates a report showing the status of all links. This was just what the doctor ordered for my large site. I will run it periodically to make sure external links are still working and that I haven't broken any internal links.
My site was pretty much wrapped up on Monday August 8th. I just had to add in Blog Comments, Google Analytics, the Guestbook, Full Site Search and the Site Map. I figured I would go public on Tuesday or Wednesday. To my great pleasure these 5 items took all of 2 hours to get set up and working. This was a nice touch after 2 months of hard work.
So there you have it. This is the process I went through converting my site over to RapidWeaver. Your mileage may vary. I am not pushing RapidWeaver for everyone. You have to find what program is the right fit for you. You may find staying with iWeb on a new host is the right fit for you. You need to decide if you can live with the features you lose once you aren't hosted on Mobile Me. For me there was great pain, but in the end there was a lot of gain too. I do like my new site and I feel it will serve me well for years to come. Good luck to all of you in whatever path you choose. Lastly thanks one last time to the helpful folks around here
Jim
http://grillinsmokin.net
Message was edited by: Jim Mahoney

Thanks Roddy. I agree with your take on some of the other software you mentioned, at least from the perspective of having dabbled with demo versions of some of the others. I will add that with Sandvox I felt a little nervous about it. Kind of almost like the software was a "hobby" effort a la the first gen Apple TV.
I also agree with some of your points regarding RapidWeaver. But now that I've built my rather large (for a hobbyist site) website with it I will have to respectfully disagree about it being at the same level as iWeb, or as you put it: a sideways move. While iWeb can be made to do things it was never originally meant to do, there are many places it simply can't go that RapidWeaver can. I was often hitting the limits of what you could do in iWeb, whereas with RapidWeaver, with one exception, I didn't feel like I was running up against any limits yet. The exception is it's lack of ability to handle large sites well. That was almost the deal breaker for me. I find it unexplainable that a software package with all kinds of add-ons helping you make more ambitious sites, can't handle those same sites in a single file. This was almost a deal-breaker for me. For folks who have small to medium sized iWeb sites this isn't a concern. There are also ways to warehouse images on the server to keep file size down, but this gets more complex than many folks coming from iWeb would want to do. Me splitting my site up the way I did was more work than I wanted to do.I almost bagged the whole thing and was close to just taking the old site down.
Now if we were to fantasize for a minute I can think of a way where I could also say iWeb to RapiWeaver is a sideways move: While I don't think iWeb '09 is the equal to RapidWeaver 5, I'd bet that iWeb 11 or the oft rumored iWeb Pro might have been. I kept hoping that Apple would keep pushing the limits of what iWeb could do and add in some missing features and head down the HTML 5 road.
I will conditionally agree on your saying that the shopping list for RapidWeaver can be substantial. I will qualify that by saying: Depending on what you are doing with it, your shopping list for RapidWeaver can be substantial. With one exception, I do think the base package of RapidWeaver is fairly priced. I think the basic Stacks functionality and a few basic stacks should be part of RapidWeaver. The more esoteric stacks can be pay as you go. When iLife 11 was announced without a an update to iWeb, I did some preliminary pricing and I was rather discouraged at the total. This spring I got more serious about things and repriced RapidWeaver and add-ons. After trying out various themes and plug-ins, I was able to sharpen my pencil and reduce the cost of entry considerably. One of the things that helped is the theme I bought had a couple features built into it. It had a nice lightbox type slideshow for photo pages and animated banners/headers capabilities built in. This saved me the expense of several additional plug-ins. Also while I have a blog, I don't consider myself a blogger. I was able to use the built in blog page and I don't feel limited by it at all. Some of the other ad-ons I bought: such as the link checker, site wide search and a more sophisticated sitemap generator were items I added because I could tell I would want to keep the site going long term. Those 3 plug-ins did that a a low price. I didn't think they needed to be built in.
But everyone's mileage may vary. RapidWeaver or any other web design program isn't right for every iWeb user. It all depends on personal needs, abilities and budgets. I'm just glad I can get back to posting to the site and not recreating it.
Jim

IWeb? I Frustrated!

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