Sharing Your Digital Masterpieces via iWeb

The iWeb software introduced with iLife '06 lets you build striking Web pages and create online journals, or blogs, by laying your own content on top of placeholder text and images found on predesigned Apple templates. After you're satisfied with your new creation, you can foist it on a waiting public by publishing through your .Mac account.

Click the iWeb icon in the dock or open the program in the Applications folder. Then, in iWeb, choose File --> Publish to .Mac to make your page visible to others.

Incidentally, iWeb, which is part of the iLife suite, differs from HomePage, which consists of sites included with .Mac membership stored on Apple's servers. You can't edit HomePage sites in iWeb, although you can link between HomePage and iWeb sites.

Consider adding a password to lock out strangers from viewing your site. Do you really want to share your thoughts with everyone? In iWeb's site organizer, select the site (or a specific page), click Inspector, and select the Make My Published Site Private option. Then enter a user name and password that visitors must enter to access your site.


iWeb is built around predesigned templates and placeholders for, among other things, pictures. You can export photos from iPhoto to iWeb and then drag those pictures on top of placeholders to replace images that had been warming the spot. Just follow these steps:

1. Select the photos you want to export.

2. Choose Share --> Send to iWeb, and click either Photo Page or Blog.

iWeb opens (if it was not open already). You can also click the iWeb button in the iPhoto toolbar.

Apple recommends sending three pictures max to a blog. You can add up to 99 pictures to a Web site.


3. Inside iWeb, choose the template to which you want to add pictures and drag them onto the placeholder.

If you chose a blog, iWeb creates a new blog entry for each picture. Type text explaining what the picture is all about.