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Posted on 03/01/20 1:05:41 PM
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop
Posts: 4902

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Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
My website desperately needs updating. It was built with iWeb which is now unsupported and only just functional.

I am looking for a good free (or budget) web site builder to create a new site. I know nothing about coding so I need basically a drag and drop designer which writes the coding automatically - which iWeb did. Of course there are so many devices out there now with different sizes for viewing that web sites need to be far more flexible and adaptable than twelve years ago when I first built my site and something like iWeb with fixed page sizes would is longer applicable anyway.

I am happier offline than on - so a local downloaded app is probably preferable to an online service. My problem is that most of the apps I have found are totally template based. I have no problems with this if the templates are flexible enough to adapt to something personal, but many of them are fixed. Another limit with online services is page count. This is often limited. My site currently contains eighty pages and this would certainly increase.

So any suggestions anyone?


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The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it .......

Posted on 03/01/20 5:53:26 PM
GKB
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Posts: 3703

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Re: Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
I am no website developer by any stretch of the imagination but I see their ads quite often and they claim that it's easy-peasy. You might want check out 'WIX'.

http://www.wix.com

If you reply to this you will, of course, have blown your #2024 post 4 years early


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Posted on 04/01/20 12:01:00 PM
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop
Posts: 4902

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Re: Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
GKB wrote:
I am no website developer by any stretch of the imagination but I see their ads quite often and they claim that it's easy-peasy. You might want check out 'WIX'.

http://www.wix.com

If you reply to this you will, of course, have blown your #2024 post 4 years early


Yes. Wix is one of the sites I have been looking at. It does look interesting.

I have since discovered to my amazement that iWeb is still mostly functional so I can at least do some basic maintenance fixing broken links etc. This takes the heat off a long term decision but I will still need to start again sometime soon.

Soon I will be posting beyond my lifetime ....... I hope that's not tempting fate .........

_________________
The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it .......

Posted on 05/01/20 12:13:15 PM
Steve Caplin
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Re: Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
WordPress is your best bet. Happy to help you set it up.

Posted on 06/01/20 5:23:50 PM
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop
Posts: 4902

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Re: Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
Steve Caplin wrote:
WordPress is your best bet. Happy to help you set it up.


I think you are underestimating my total ignorance Steve.

Word web is touted as the easiest and best and has tons of good reports. It sounds great - but having visited their site and read some 'easy for beginner' articles I am completely out of my depth before I even attempt to download or install anything.

It's a case of easy if you already know how. The explanations are full of acronyms and tech terms that might as well be Chinese for all they have any meaning for me. It's not written for someone like me who quite literally doesn't know anything about web.

I built my quite extensive web site using the old iWeb which, if you know a bit about graphics and basic text editing, does everything for you. You don't need to know a damn thing about web.

Over the last two days I managed to get iWeb up and running again even though it's years out of date and completely unsupported. My sites and Ingrid's are stored locally in iWeb format so all I need to do is modify locally and hit "Publish Changes". I have managed to do all the repairs to out of date links and stuff and have added about twenty new pages. So my site is up to date and functioning properly again so the immediate pressure is off.

But I am going to need something better soon. If ever I update to Catalina that will be the end of iWeb.

I will go trawling for Word Press tutorials and see if I can find something at toddler's 'Hold my hand and follow me ....... first you press this, then you press that' level.

I may well come back to you for help Steve .......... but be careful what you offer - you could just live to regret it.

_________________
The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it .......

Posted on 06/01/20 6:12:53 PM
GKB
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Posts: 3703

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Re: Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
I actually use WordPress myself. As I said in my previous post, I am no expert in web matters but with a bit of head scratching and the odd brain cell transplant I managed fairly quickly to figure it all out.

As I remember from when I set it up, the freebie version comes with a few templates which are fairly basic but perfectly usable depending on exactly what you want to do.

I bought the WordPress ‘Photography’ template by the Theme Foundry which is not that expensive but, for me, does a perfect job. It is ‘drag and drop’ based and is fairly intuitive. Although I mentioned WIX in my last post, I get the impression that both WIX and WordPress are equally usable for inexperienced users, after all most of us only ever set up a website once in our lives and there are oodles of us inexperienced users who have managed to get a website up and running with only a little bit of counselling from my psychiatrist


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Posted on 06/01/20 8:55:23 PM
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop
Posts: 4902

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Re: Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
GKB wrote:
I actually use WordPress myself. As I said in my previous post, I am no expert in web matters but with a bit of head scratching and the odd brain cell transplant I managed fairly quickly to figure it all out.


I can't even figure out the install instructions.

I'll give it more time later but if there is one thing ALL software producers need it's decent instructions. Thank God Steve plugged a gap that Adobe left empty. Everybody seems to expect users to figure it out for themselves nowadays.

Frankly I find that frustrating ............

_________________
The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it .......

Posted on 07/01/20 10:39:11 AM
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop
Posts: 4902

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Re: Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
Steve and Gordon my apologies. On re-visiting this post I realise I sound extremely churlish and ungrateful. Excuse me. Not my intention. Just frustration.

It's a bit as if I said "I want to do great Photoshop but I don't know anything about it. What can do it for me that I don't have to learn?". When you look at it like that it's just plain silly.

So for now I am trying two things.

I have the minimum requirements (online web space and registered domain) so I shall download WordPress and discover by trying. The instructions still read like Chinese to me but I can have a go. One thing that would be wonderful is if I can migrate my existing site into it for modification and future extension. I have not been able to discover if that might be feasible or not.

I also have a desktop app called Sparkle Pro which I acquired a good many years ago when iWeb was first discontinued. I didn't migrate to it because it seemed too limited. However it works very much in the same way as iWeb did so should be easy to pick up. I just checked it out again and upgraded to latest version. It has been vastly improved in the intervening years. It can download my site page by page into its data base with most of the attributes and links in place. So It is easy to pick up where I left off.

Hmmm ..... interesting .......

I am taking Ingrid to Amsterdam for a week for her birthday and the builders return for ten days after that. So looks like February could be web month.

_________________
The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it .......

Posted on 07/01/20 12:08:26 PM
Mariner
Renaissance Mariner
Posts: 2793

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Re: Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
David wrote
...What can do it for me that I don't have to learn...?

David, they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Rubbish! I like new tricks and am continually learning them.
I only have one website, which I opened in 2011. It is on Wordpress and is completely free. It is not entirely intuitive, so I had to fiddle around a bit to learn the basics, but isn't that part of the fun? I didn't need to do any coding at all. Since then it has been working flawlessly. Yes, it is quite extensive and it takes time to drive along all the main roads, but so what? You are not short of time are you?
I don't know if you can download your old site to Wordpress in one go, but if you cannot, then ask yourself if it's really necessary.
Good luck!


Posted on 07/01/20 1:43:22 PM
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop
Posts: 4902

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Re: Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
Mariner wrote:
David, they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Rubbish! I like new tricks and am continually learning them.


I am quite happy to learn. I love it ........ I just don't want to 'struggle' with learning unnecessarily.

I only have one website, which I opened in 2011. It is on Wordpress and is completely free. It is not entirely intuitive, so I had to fiddle around a bit to learn the basics, but isn't that part of the fun? I didn't need to do any coding at all.


That is good news. I really don't want to get into coding. My site was built without coding at all except for the odd snippet here and there where I wanted things not possible within the app's own instruction set. With a bit of trawling I found these more or less ready made.

You are not short of time are you?


Wish I knew Michael ........

I don't know if you can download your old site to Wordpress in one go, but if you cannot, then ask yourself if it's really necessary.


I can't in Sparkle either. I have to do it a page at a time. But that's fine. Although not necessary, with about one hundred pages, not having to re-create them from scratch would be a huge bonus!

_________________
The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it .......

Posted on 07/01/20 3:46:13 PM
Mariner
Renaissance Mariner
Posts: 2793

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Re: Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
David wrote
...I have to do it a page at a time...

David, I just uploaded two graphics files simultaneously to Wordpress. The upload was uneventful and the files totalled about 12Mb. So, if I can upload two smallish files, perhaps you could do the same with ten big ones. No harm in trying.


Posted on 07/01/20 4:33:07 PM
GKB
Magical Montagist
Posts: 3703

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Re: Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
You can find various ‘bookazines’ on WordPress for beginners on Amazon. They cost between €10 and €20.

I bought one a few years ago when I set up my own website and was going to send it to you but I cannot find it at the moment.

Whilst you might want to just transfer your current site to, say, WordPress my gut feeling would be to start from scratch if you can. That way can take full advantage of customising the site to your taste.

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Posted on 07/01/20 5:37:47 PM
DavidMac
Director of Photoshop
Posts: 4902

Reply


Re: Need a simple idiot proof drag'n drop web site design app
GKB wrote:
You can find various ‘bookazines’ on WordPress for beginners on Amazon. They cost between €10 and €20.

I bought one a few years ago when I set up my own website and was going to send it to you but I cannot find it at the moment.

Whilst you might want to just transfer your current site to, say, WordPress my gut feeling would be to start from scratch if you can. That way can take full advantage of customising the site to your taste.


OK Thanks. I'll take a look.

My site is highly customised already so I would like to preserve much of that but move forward from it. That is why if I can start from where I am it might be advantageous. This is why I am wary of the template driven apps. Much will depend on how WordPress works. The good new is that, aside from text, I have all the individual elements of the existing site, pictures, animations, logos, graphics, background patterns, buttons, etc. stored as jpg's (and other) in an archive. So if I do have to start from scratch I won't have to completely re-invent the wheel.

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The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it .......
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