Mac rocketcake software#
Mac rocketcake mac#

At the time, it felt like the spiritual successor to Apple’s iWeb, much moreso than our own Sandvox (which was created independently of iWeb). I remember when this app came on the scene when I was still working on Sandvox.

This may have been a bug in the version I tried, but I never saw any of my images in the media picker or on the web page editor I only saw them when I previewed my page.

A minor nitpick: rather than just using your Mac’s choice of light mode or dark mode, you have to set a preference in the app!.

You always start with an empty page, which puts a lot of burden on the user to create an interesting design by choosing nice layouts, typography, color palettes, fonts, etc.

Responsive design is confusing - maybe you need to understand Bootstrap classes to really build a responsive website.

The price of $100, or really $150 when you add the additional tools that seem pretty important, is daunting.

If you are familiar with Bootstrap, it could be useful to build on that knowledge.The HTML generated is OK (but could be better).Their own website is impressive looking, which to me means that they care about good design.But I found its lack of designs/templates frustrating. This is actually an interesting app that might be good for power users, especially Bootstrap users. (Maybe it's possible and I'm missing this?) Once you create a site with a nice starting theme, it seems like secondary pages on that same site end up being blank without any of the design you had on the home page.Some hooks for power features, like the things I might want to insert into my websites, seem to require an additional $100 purchase.The HTML generated on a sample site, or on Sparkle’s own site, is a bit bloated and sloppy.Their “What’s New” features are impressive from a technical standpoint.

It really seems like they care about using best practices technology.Multiple pricing levels allow a starting user (Free, Basic, One, then Pro) to use it without paying much.TL DR: My top choice for 2021 if you are looking for a simple but powerful Mac-based website builder: Sparkle. I’ll also mention a number of the other contenders and why I didn’t consider them. So I did some searching and browsing, and I evaluated what I felt were the top four contenders. Some of them, such as WordPress - while powerful - are complex and confusing to many of the people I’ve spoken to who have tried using them.

Mac rocketcake mac#

Many of the web-based builders aren’t really focused on ease of use, the way that most Mac applications are. The sites that they create, from a technical point of view, are absolutely disgusting.) They may be perfectly fine for some people, but I find it annoying to interact with almost any web-based application when I’m using a state of the art Mac with its much richer user interface along with my photo and media library at my fingertips (rather than having to upload my assets to the website for them to be used.) This was the original reason that I created Sandvox 15 years ago, and it still applies today. I personally can’t recommend these web-based builders. Also the dominant hosting companies like GoDaddy (which I would never recommend due to their ties to right-wing groups) and many other web hosting companies have their own website building platforms, or at least white-labeled platforms that they offer their customers. Well-funded, big companies like SquareSpace and Wix, with their ubiquitous advertising, make them seem like they are perhaps the only solutions available. The dominant paradigm for creating a website is, for better or for worse, web-based website builders. And since the app that I had created many years ago is apparently not being maintained, I can’t recommend it. For instance I’m proud that the website for my musician son has scores of 100/95/93/99 in Lighthouse, and mostly A’s on .īut of course most people want to create a website without having to understand HTML coding.

I challenge myself to come up with the best architecture possible. I have built and maintained a few websites over the last few years, but I’ve taken to building them by hand, trying to use best practices for simple design and good performance. I’ve resisted looking at the options out there.

Mac rocketcake software#

Over the last few years, since I left Karelia Software for greener pastures and was no longer involved in the creation of website-building software, I’ve been asked by friends and family for recommendations on software that non-technical people can use to build modern, responsive, good-looking, and well-architected websites.