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Rowan
Cottage
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iWeb Discussion Point
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iWeb Discussion
As you know, from our About and Articles page, I use iWeb to design this entire site. I've found that iWeb has, like no other tool, made it so easy to have one's own place on the web, and to keep it updated without difficulty. Now I know there are a some detractors out there, going on about iWeb's published code, lack of structure, inability to add HTML and all sorts of other criticisms. Well, despite these limitations, thousands of iWeb users have managed to get their sites up and running for the first time ever. That in itself has to be a good thing.
 
I get a number of visitors to this site, and a number of comments to my articles (see the bottom of each one for the comments section), and in nearly twelve months, I have not had to moderate or delete any offensive or adverse comments, or had to moderate or delete any comments at all for that matter. OK, so we're talking small numbers, but for a first-try amateur site, I would like to think that people seem to like my site.
 
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It's clear though that some people don't like it at all.
 
So I thought I'd post a thread of discussion that occurred a few months ago. I've anonymised the other posters in the thread, but I think you can get the gist of what is being said here. Comments welcome.
 
"You Have All Chosen A Very Bad Tool To Create Your Web Sites"
 
Posted: 17-Sep-2006 23:47
mwong                    "iWeb: You Have All Chosen A Very Bad Tool To Create Your Web Sites"
 
You Have All Chosen A Very Bad Tool To Create Your Web Sites
 
Hi All
 
I'd thought I'd post this and get your comments, as fellow iWeb users. This is an extremely long post which you may wish to print out and read later, and it may well get deleted by the moderators anyway, but I would also welcome their comments because it affects all iWeb and Apple users.
 
Last weekend I had this email from a visitor to the site. It was not posted in the comments section of the site, but sent to 'webmaster@...'. I think he had come from Will's iwebusersites site, and had been browsing various other iWeb sites before stumbling across mine.
 
Have a read of his email here:
 
> Please enable Javascript to view this page properly.
 
> iWeb hints, iWeb tips, iWeb tricks
>
> A website born in only two weeks...
> Well, I went from having a 15 month old holding page doing
 
You appear to have chosen a very bad tool to create your web site. If you validate it with www.validator.w3.org you will find many errors, including well-formedness errors which would cause a real XHMTL browser (IE is not one) to abort on the page. These occur because you've included scripts in ways that only work with HTML, not with XHTML (IE treats XHTML as slightly broken HTML).
 
Other problems are:
 
- it doesn't use markup properly, e.g. it uses <div class="paragraph" when it should use <p>;
- it appears to set all alt attributes to an empty string;
- it puts foreground content into background images, resulting in a page that is unusable text only and almost certainly unusable by the assistive technology used by blind users;
- it makes excessive use of inline style attributes;
- it uses pixel size units (this means the page will not scale to work on high resolution displays, or to allow reading by someone with poor eyesight, and is also likely to prevent it being reflowed into resized windows).
 
> absolutely nothing to an actual clickable website in less than two
 
Producing clickable web sites is extremely easy. You can do it simply by adding a elements to an almost purely plain text file.
 
The email was unsigned, but it was from somebody called ___, email address ___ and whose own website is ___.
 
Needless to say, this email upset me greatly. Firstly, it was the first negative comment about my site I had had since setting it up just over 6 months ago. There were also quite a few unjust criticisms that are not my fault, but related to the way iWeb works and publishes code. But also, I had spent a lot of time and effort on my site - it's not just a case of plonking a few photos and videos on a page, and for someone to start criticising unjustly was too much.
 
Anyway, I had a think about what this man said, and looked at his 'site' (which is basically just one plain text page about Linux/Unix, with links going to elsewhere on the page, or externally). I replied to his email.
 
I said several things. Firstly, I said I was very well aware of the validation errors you get when you run many of my pages through w3's validator http://validator.w3.org/ [update: my pages now do validate, even the ones with extra HTML additions] - I said I wasn't too bothered as long as the pages rendered satisfactorily in the mainstream browsers. If you look at a lot of sites that claim to be validated, they also have errors. It seems to be that only people whose job it is to write websites for a living are actually bothered by this issue. It hasn't stopped the thousands of people who had visited the site from doing so. Even mainstream sites like BBC, Apple, CNN, Digg all fail validation, so why didn't he get off my case?
 
I said I was only an amateur at this, and iWeb had helped me to have a fully fledged website within a short space of time - and contrary to what he might say, it is in fact extremely difficult for someone without any web authoring knowledge to add elements to a purely plain text file let alone know that that is where they needed to start. That was why I had a holding page for 15 months because it was all I could do. So I said please don't criticise me when I have been provided with a tool that I can use and which I have got to grips with and can easily produce something substantial.
 
I said why don't you tell this to the thousands of iWeb users around the world currently using iWeb - I don't think they're going to drop using it and move to text editors are they? I said that I do *now* know about making webpages out of plain text files, but to be honest, that is not exactly going to draw an audience is it? I said if you want a boring plain text page with links that validates well, well stick with it - I don't want that.
 
I also said a lot of the 'problems' he had discovered were part of iWeb's normal output - and please could he feed this back to Apple? I'm only the user here - perhaps he'd likewise like to criticise the 90% of MSIE users because they use MSIE rather than something else? Or perhaps the 90% of Windows users because he'd rather have them use Linux?
 
And finally, I said I didn't ask for any unannounced critique of my website thank you very much, and what business was it of his to police mine? He also had javascript switched off and I said that I've only known 'web professionals' to go round sites with javascript deliberately switched off. 99% of my users keep it on. And as a dig against his 'site' I finally said it's 2006 now, not 1997. Goodbye.
 
So that was my reply.
 
Anyway, some days later, I get a visit according to my statcounter from the Disability Rights Commission referred by a posting from the very same person ___ on w3.org's Accessibility forum http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/
 
If you read his forum post, you will see what he thought of my reply to his original email in a post entitled: "___".
 
Here are the links to his previous emails leading up to the post, for your reference: ___ and ___.
 
4
Basically he says people think they're developing nice sites, when it in fact, the tool they are using is generating bad code. He directly cites iWeb 1.1.1 from Apple. Now I do know when iWeb first came out, there was a lot of criticism about the code it generated.
 
Personally, I hadn't been that bothered by what happened under the hood, and when I started being bothered, I have got used to what iWeb code looks like. Although it seems hard to follow, the use of divs means that everything is neatly packaged. I do admit however that the text formatting code leaves a lot to be desired, and could certainly be streamlined. Despite the complex code, a plain vanilla iWeb site will validate. That means the code has been checked as being formatted correctly.
 
His other point goes on about accessibility. He said that he had made comments about pixel units, div class=paragraph, style attributes, lack of alt attributes etc and the impacts for blind users etc in his original email saying I didn't react to his pointing this out. In fact as you saw above, I invited him to feed this back to Apple, as I cannot do anything about the code that iWeb generates - I can only work around it. With regard to his comment about the index.html redirect, again that is iWeb's default behaviour. The only way I can get away from non-accessible code is not to use iWeb, and I'm not going to do that in a hurry.
 
But perhaps the most galling point he made in his forum posting was this: "I haven't written HTML code professionally for several years". So here was somebody with a one page plain text site dating from 1997 who hadn't written any code for some years slating my site that I had lovingly worked on for months.
 
Anyway, because on my Articles page, where I say that I thought iWeb was great and said that it had let me have my own website very quickly, he has held my site as a prime 'bad' example to be looked at, because with the list of articles that I have, showing people how to do things for their own iWeb sites, users of web design tools (and iWeb in particular) are paying no attention to coding and accessibility issues in order to get what they want for their sites. Sorry there's two because's in that sentence, but you know what I mean.
 
Subsequently to his posting on the w3.org forum, some del.icio.us member (___) has bookmarked his forum posting on del.icio.us for all to see: ___ and ___. So my site is out there listed as a bad example.
 
I am not happy. Here I am trying to do the best for myself with my first ever site (in reality a family site with some articles as thanks to iWeb and its users), and there are clearly people out there who don't like Apple, don't like iWeb or its users' sites: (an extract from the complainants posting follows): "Although the real problem is with Apple, who are most unlikely to pay any attention to a complaint from a, non-customer, member of the public, I thing [sic] the iWeb part of this site is worth a look because it gives an idea of web designer psychology by listing the sorts of characteristics of web sites that designers consider important enough to want to work round the tools. Accessibility, of course, is not one of them."
 
And they are going round bringing us (well me anyway) to the attention of accessibility experts/consultants and Disability Rights Organisations. A family site for goodness sake, not a commercial site, or a business site, or the site of a profit making organisation.
 
So I am sitting here, expecting more visits from these sorts of people, and then perhaps a letter in the post taking me to court for not catering for people with disabilities...
 
I'm sorry, it's been such a long post with such a lot to read - it's nearly as long as one of ___'s posts ;-) but I think it's important enough for all iWeb users to have a think about.
 
I'd be grateful for any comments from fellow iWeb users about what they think of this. Am I being too sensitive? Am I thinking too much about this? Is it a fuss over nothing? Have any other iWeb users had such feedback about their sites on these specific issues? Have any iWeb users looked at the technical aspects of making their site completely accessible, compliant and validated? Are there any tools out there that you use for this purpose? Do you care? Does Apple care about this? Please let me know.
 
If this post or thread gets deleted, I'll post a version on my site and refer forum users there.
 
[And if you've been wondering where I've been these last few days - I've been hard at work on my site(!)]
 
With the warmest and best of wishes to all fellow iWeb users.
 
Michael Wong
http://www.rowan-cottage.co.uk
 
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THREAD CONTINUES BELOW >>
 
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Posted: 18-Sep-2006 00:23     in response to: mwong
___newbie               Re: "iWeb: You Have All Chosen A Very Bad Tool To Create Your Web Sites"
 
Hi Michael,
 
Are you being a little too sensitive? Probably. You have a great site and I've always liked it. Who cares what that guy(s) thinks.
 
I know iWeb generates heavy and problematic code; I see it when I look at my site in Dreamweaver for tweaking things. Doesn't seem to matter though because I constantly check it from Windows machines and all goes well.
 
Out of consideration of all the points you make in your post, here's something that jumped out at me earlier today and I've been smiling about it ever since.
 
A guy, obviously retired with his wife, decides to build a beautiful deck at his retirement home up north. He has an Apple computer. He knows absolutely nothing about creating web sites. Yet, in very little time, he is able to take his photos and post them at a great little site that he made himself for his children and grandchildren to see and enjoy. For him, this is huge! And it really is! For me, this is a perfect example of what iWeb was made for. It's only because it shares a world with a ton of other software that it gets so much attention/criticism.
 
He posted his site, so I don't mind posting it again. THIS is real iWeb; THIS is what Apple does. Screw those other guys.
 
http://web.mac.com/mrloons/iWeb/Site%202/Photos.html
 
G5, Powerbook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.5)
 
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Posted: 18-Sep-2006 00:25     in response to: mwong
rob___        Re: "iWeb: You Have All Chosen A Very Bad Tool To Create Your Web Sites"
 
I wouldnt worry aboput it pal...This guy, is obviously on a one person crusade against apple and its software. I wondered much about this issue before i started using iweb, and came to the conclusion that for a personal site, iweb is perfect...I mean, there are some aspects of iweb that need a bit of polishing, (such as making third party scripts, and ecommerce more easily incorporated into your site). But no one promised us a rose garden did they?
 
I have coded many sites in the past and my own personal opinion is that with iweb, i can make and publish a site quicker than it would have taken me to code a header before!!! Am i being lazy the more experienced web builders would ask? **** straight i am! Who's the fool anyway, the lowly guy creating pages in minutes with iweb, or the geek coding his life away?
 
So, as for iweb being a bad tool to create web sites...Horse****! ___ should brush up on his coding skills before he passes judgement here i think. He probably created that site and was so proud of it at the time he forgot to add the colours and pictures! (or maybe he didnt know how to do it) Nice one ___...keep up the good work mate. Just out of interest, i wonder why he put (Copyright © 1996, 1997 ___) Does that mean he only copyrote it for a year? Maybe i can use his name to create a site (with iweb) and have no fear of being summoned by the law?
 
Im stepping off the soap box now and hope that i have put your mind to rest Michael.
 
Good luck with the site...it just rained over ___'s.
 
2gig G5 IMac   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   1gig G4 Powerbook 12"
 
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Posted: 18-Sep-2006 00:31     in response to: mwong
___girl        Re: "iWeb: You Have All Chosen A Very Bad Tool To Create Your Web Sites"
 
Wow. :( So sorry that happened Michael! I think your site is great! Some people just have nothing better to do than to give others a hard time.
 
As you said, it is a PERSONAL, family page, not something for the whole world to see.
 
As long as your family and friends can view it, and iWeb users looking at your articles (who obviously can view it because they are viewing their OWN iWeb sites), then I wouldn't worried.
 
Just think, every time he posts something about your site, it might be another place for google to find your URL :)
 
You know, I just read that message board posting... it almost seems like they don't "get it" that iWeb never shows you the code. They are talking like iWeb users are using a tool to glue together poor coding on purpose or soemthing... have you considered posting there to respond to him? The thread started out talking about legal precedents for RETAIL sites. Not PERSONAL sites.
 
MacBook   Mac OS X (10.4.7)
 
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THREAD CONTINUES BELOW >>
 
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Posted: 18-Sep-2006 00:35     in response to: mwong
potter___        Re: "iWeb: You Have All Chosen A Very Bad Tool To Create Your Web Sites"
 
OMG,
 
I am so sorry that you are having to deal with this issue. Normally, on the web people like me get emails about ..."is your site safe?", "is it secure", blah blah, type stuff for those who have ecommerce sites. My site looks awesome in any browser and I am a designer for businesses...if it looks great, displays great on all platforms and browsers, and google spiders crawl it...I AM HAPPY!
 
I think this is nothing but harassment and could be easily defeated. Just post a link stating how wonderful iWeb is and how much better your site looks than his...show what a bad example like he has done. Keep an eye on him...check for slander or libel on the site. With that you could ___. That usually runs people off in a jiffy.
 
Apparently, this is someone who hates apple for whatever reason...usually it's a money thing, jealous that they cannot afford one. I personally would let it go. But also curious to know if you maybe have a URL that he wanted. I own my own and point it to my .mac website. Maybe he wants your URL? and is ticked that you have had it with nothing on it for the 15 months it sat vacant! LOL....
 
I would just drop it and not waste the energy on it. Any site in iWeb is just awesome anyway. This is some ___ who is looking for a chance to pounce on someone. This ___ probably wouldn't be noticed in any other form in the real world. Remember, alter egos come out in cyberspace.
 
iMac (intel)   Mac OS X (10.4.7)   Got two of them....
 
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Posted: 18-Sep-2006 00:37     in response to: mwong
rob___        Re: "iWeb: You Have All Chosen A Very Bad Tool To Create Your Web Sites"
 
___ has already taken a distinct dislike to me i think...
 
this is what happened when i tried to view his website again
 
Blocked
Sorry, you've been temporarily blocked for accessing del.icio.us too rapidly. This could be the result of using a buggy, misconfigured, or malicious program. It could also be accidental on our part. Please hold off for a few minutes and try again later, in a gentler fashion.
 
If you think we've wrongly blocked you and it continues to happen, let us know at support@del.icio.us. If possible, include your IP address and a brief description of what you were doing.
 
HE HE....
 
2gig G5 IMac   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   1gig G4 Powerbook 12"
 
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Posted: 18-Sep-2006 00:42     in response to: mwong
potter___        Re: "iWeb: You Have All Chosen A Very Bad Tool To Create Your Web Sites"
 
oh and i sent him an email with my business contact...told him I found his site and wondered if he could use a graphic designer to spruce up his site.
 
ROTF!!!
 
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Posted: 18-Sep-2006 01:32     in response to: mwong
___wock        Re: "iWeb: You Have All Chosen A Very Bad Tool To Create Your Web Sites"
 
Michael,
Your site is GREAT.......I visit all the time from windows/PC and my Mac and NEVER had any problem. You have a right to be upset.
 
iWeb is great too. I get so sick an tired of all the Apple bashing. Sad thing is...if they'd try it (a Mac) they'd never go back to the PC world.
 
But why can't they just leave the Apple gang alone? Now they gotta start attacking people like you. I am so frustrated but glad to read your post.
 
Keep up the good work Michael.
 
___wock
 
iBook G4   Mac OS X (10.4.7)
 
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Posted: 18-Sep-2006 02:03     in response to: mwong
___dan        Re: "iWeb: You Have All Chosen A Very Bad Tool To Create Your Web Sites"
 
Phhhhawgh! **** on what he thinks. Can I say **** here? Sorry MOD. Your sites awsome to some Site newbs like me and I'm sure it cool as is for the more experinced and the "designer's of the world".
 
DAN
 
Mini   Mac OS X (10.4.4)
 
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Posted: 18-Sep-2006 02:03     in response to: ___dan
___dan        Re: "iWeb: You Have All Chosen A Very Bad Tool To Create Your Web Sites"