Weebly: Web 2.0 and Features
Weebly will allow you, in an easy way, to create a great looking website and share it with the world for free. It allows you to design both personal and professional sites. Weebly enables you to spend your time on the most valuable part of your site, its content.
How is this Web 2.0? Well this is simple. We learned in class that Web 2.0 is all about web development and design that aims to facilitate communication, secure information sharing, and collaboration. Web 2.0 has lead with the creation of many web based communities such as social networks and user friendly sites. This is where Weebly falls into place. Weebly is Web 2.0 within itself and outside itself. The easy to use interface shares so many common aspects of this new generation of web. With Weebly's drag and drop features, ease of publishing, and the integration of services like YouTube and Google AdSense it cal clearly be seen as a major player in the Web 2.0 game. A great aspect of Weebly's Web 2.0 is the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editing. Not only is Weebly easy to use, but when you edit a page it looks great and works every time. Weebly allows its users to share information in a brand new way that is user friendly, looks great, and simply works every time. With the integration of other Web 2.0 applications, Weebly sets itself up ahead of the others by compiling the best of Web 2.0 and making it simple for everyday non-geek people to create a website that they can share with the world.
Below are the 6 simple ways to enjoy and begin your Weebly career
Sign Up
When you want to create a Weebly page, all you have to do is simply sign up and go. With Weebly's free service it is easy for anybody to have their own webpage. All you really have to do is create a username and password, hit accept, and you are good to create.
Add Content
Add Content Content elements, such as videos, pictures, maps, and text are added to your website by simply dragging them from the Weebly bar to your webpage. We have a bunch of cool elements and add more all the time. Are we missing an element you'd like? Suggest it, and we'll include it as soon as we can.
Choose a Design
Choose a Design Deciding on a look for your website couldn't be easier. Click over to the "Design" tab and you'll see thumbnail pictures of available designs. Hover your mouse over a thumbnail to preview the new look instantaneously or click the thumbnail to select it as the design for your website.
On 2/26/09, Weebly announced that you will be able to customize your themes. Weebly posted this statement on their blog, "When logged in and editing your website, you'll now see an "Advanced Editing" tab that appears when you are choosing a design. Click on this tab, and you will be able to edit the full HTML code and CSS styles of your website and upload files your theme depends on". Once you have created your own theme, you can export it so other Weebly users will be able to use you customized design.
Customize
Customize Your Content Once elements have been added to your page, customize everything just by double-clicking. Double-click a picture to upload a new one, double-click text to change it, or double-click a map to set the address. Rearrange the elements by dragging them into a new order.
Manage Your Pages
Easily Manage Your Pages Adding and organizing your website's pages is completed in the "Pages" tab. When you add a new page to your website, it's automatically added to the navigation bar. Reordering pages is simple, just drag and drop them into place.
To Finish it All off
Weebly allows you a simple progress to-do list when you log in to edit your site. This box (to the left) shows you what you still have to do or are able to do. Currently, Weebly says we are 44% done with our site since we haven't updraded to PRO or various other options.
Weebly Features
- Drag and Drop Interface
- Variety of Themes (You can now create your own themes if you want)
- Personalized Subdomains
- Export to Zip File
- Numerous Content Elements (Insert a paragraph, insert a picture, custom html, google adsense, photo gallery, audio file, youtube videos, flickr slideshow, google maps, feed reader etc.)
Google Maps
Google Maps is a free web mapping service application and technology provided by Google that powers many map-based services including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit and embedded maps on third-party websites via the Google Maps API. It offers street maps, a route planner for traveling by foot, bicycle, car, or public transport and an urban business locator for numerous countries around the world. It also can help with finding businesses.
Flickr
Flickr is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community platform. In addition to being a popular Web site for users to share personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers as a photo repositor
Google AdSense
AdSense is an advertisement application run by Google. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image, and more recently, video advertisements on their websites. These advertisements are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis.
YouTube Videos
YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. In order to post a YouTube video on your Weebly site, you just have to copy and paste the embed code.
RSS Feed
RSS is a family of Web Feed formats used to publish frequently updated works uch as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and videos in a standardized format. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites.
Technical Features
Customizable strong AJAX use -- drag and drop, effects and animations, customizable to your personal preferences. Use the site with eye-pleasing animations, or turn them off for a snappier experience.
Ubiquitous interface design -- Weebly's interface is uniform throughout, and uses ease-of-use friendly error reporting (no javascript pop-ups!)
AJAX file upload -- Images and other files are uploaded with a progress bar. As large files uploaded over the web may take a long time, this progress bar is a useful indicator of how much time is left.
Back/Forward button integration -- With a robust windowing system that allows a javascript-based application in one page, back/forward buttons are enabled to let a user navigate through the various on-screen windows.
Powerful element design -- Weebly's AJAX-based editor allows complex elements to be dragged onto a page, such as a Google Maps element, or a Flickr feed. No HTML knowledge is required. To customize these elements, double click them and choose from a simple set of drop-down options.
Data-driven elements -- all element definitions are powered by a database entry and may be defined in multiple different ways. Adding an element is as simple as performing a database insertion, which opens the door to community-driven elements.
Media handling -- upload your images to Weebly, choose a size (Small, Medium or Large) and your images will automatically be resized for you.
Sources
www.weebly.com
http://blog.weebly.com/
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1633488_1633608_1633636,00.html
