Tips for Using iWeb with non-.Mac Servers

Generally speaking you should not have problems using iWeb to create web sites hosted on servers other than .Mac. You just Publish to a folder on your local drive instead of to .Mac and then upload the folder contents to your server via FTP. Below are tips to avoid some possible issues:

iWeb Features Not Available

If you don't publish your site to .Mac, these features are unavailable: Direct one-step uploading, Password protection, Hit counter, and Blog Comments/Searching. Alternatives can probably be found by searching the Apple iWeb forum. Also Subscribe buttons work only if you specify the non-.Mac site's URL (address) in the dialog that appears when you choose File > Publish to a Folder.

If having a personal url is your main reason for considering a non-.Mac server, don't forget that you can get a domain name somewhere and forward it to your .Mac url.

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/iwebpersonalurl.html

Also iWeb 2 has another improved way of using a personal domain name with your site hosted on .Mac:

http://help.apple.com/mac2/1/help/member/pgs2/mem_fmset_gen367.html

Choosing a Host

You can use just about any host which is convenient, but you need to be able to use a real FTP program for uploading, and not some "file manager" or "uploader" provided by the host. Most ISP's offer free web space with a subscription, but it is frequently only 10MB, which many users would find much too small (.Mac provides 10GB for the basic price). Many people use Yahoo or Godaddy.com. Other names that come up frequently are 1and1.com, bluehost.com, dreamhost.com, and 94mb.com.

Server Type

If you have a choice, choose a Linux/unix server rather than an MS IIS Windows server. Various problems have been reported when MS servers are used with iWeb sites.

Page Names

Don't name your top page "index." iWeb produces its own index.html files and adding more can cause problems. Use Welcome or Home or whatever makes sense for your site.

Don't use your personal url to name things when using iWeb. Instead use short simple words without spaces and punctuation. Calling the folder you publish to, your site inside iWeb, and your top page all "www.myname.com" will just confuse everything and generate very ugly urls.

You may need to avoid spaces. iWeb creates filenames that are the same as your page names, but urls cannot have spaces in them. Some servers will allow spaces in the names of uploaded files and automatically fix this by replacing spaces with %20 when pages are sent. But many servers will not accept file names with spaces or other unusual characters for uploading. You may get an error message or the page may simply fail to upload.

Spaces can be replaced by underscore _ or hypen - without problem. For example, the "About Me" template could be renamed About_Me with the Inspector. If you add photos and files to a template, it is best to also make sure their filenames also do not have spaces in them. Even where servers do allow spaces in uploads, your urls will be a lot cleaner if you avoid them. Punctuation, non-roman, and special characters can give rise to failed uploads or strange and lengthy urls. Some servers may also require all file names be in lower case.

If your server does not accept spaces but you must have them in your navigation links, then forget the iWeb navigation bar by unchecking the box in Inspector > Page > Page Name for "Include Page in Navigation Menu," and set up Hyperlinks on each page that go to all the other pages.

It is best to never rename things manually in a published folder. Most likely this will result in broken internal links and a non-functioning site. If you need to change a name, do it inside iWeb and republish the site.

If you do not mind processing your output every time you publish, this program will remove spaces in names without breaking links. It is also the only way to use certain iWeb templates that contain filenames with spaces which users cannot modify from inside iWeb (see list at end of page).

iWebFTPUtility

Accented Characters iWeb 2 allows you to create pages with names containing accented characters. Some servers will not accept these for uploading, just as they will not accept spaces, so you would need to change them. Some iWeb 2 templates have such names built-in so you cannot easily change them, and these templates won't work on such servers. Some servers will accept such pages, but not serve them, because they require the accented characters in a different form. Whether users can always fix this is not yet clear. Some have reported that uploading the site with Cyberduck solves their problem. A utility for fixing filenames with accented characters is also available here. Another thing one could try is to put an .htaccess file in your web space with the entry "SecFilterEngine Off" and/or "SecFilterCheckUnicodeEncoding Off" (without quotes).

Uploading

After publishing to your local drive, you will need to upload the files created by iWeb to your server using a real FTP client program. Using a file manager or uploader provided by the host will most likely destroy your site structure and make it non-functional. Common FTP programs include Fetch, CyberDuck, InterArchy, Captain, and Transmit. This site provides a list:

http://www.pure-mac.com/ftp.html

Captain FTP is reported to be particularly helpful for avoiding the uploading of files which have not changed.

Don't use Dreamweaver MX or earlier for FTP: It may shorten some file names and make those pages unreachable on your site.

Most servers provide some kind of "how to" instructions about uploading. AOL uses an unusual username/password convention and requires that you be logged in with the AOL Client while uploading with an FTP program.

What to upload: When iWeb publishes to your local drive, it produces two items -- an index.html file and a folder which has the exact same name as your site has inside the iWeb app. It is these two items you should upload. Do not try to upload all the individual files and folders contained in the folder named after your site, or you will likely change the structure of the site and it will probably not work, plus make a mess of your server space. Failing to upload the folder with the same name as your site will also break the url for RSS subscriptions.

Check the Help for your server to find out exactly where your web files go. Often the destination is a folder called "www" or "public_html."

Problems with Strange Characters or Display

You may need to adjust the settings of some ftp programs to avoid having question marks appear on your pages. Also some servers have faulty settings that can cause strange roman characters to appear. See this note for the fixes:

Fixing Strange Characters

Some servers cannot display iWeb pages at all because of faulty settings for php/asp scripts. This seems to be very rare, however. See this note:

Fixing Parsing Errors

Problems with Podcasts and FireFox Display

Some servers are not set up to recognize the .m4a or .m4b extensions used by some podcasts. You may need to talk to the server managers to fix this, or you might be able to add entries like the following to the .htaccess or .config file at the top level of your server space:

AddType audio/x-m4a m4a
AddType audio/x-m4b m4b

A server which uses the wrong type for .css files, text/plain instead of text/css, can cause abnormal display in FireFox. Server managers need to fix this, or you may be able to add an .htaccess file with the content "AddType text/css css".

iWeb Templates containing fixed filenames with spaces

These (iWeb 1) templates will not work with servers that prohibit spaces in names of uploaded files unless you change them via postprocessing.

Cloud 9 Podcast.webtemplate
Cloud 9 Blog.webtemplate
Gazette Podcast.webtemplate
Gazette Blog.webtemplate
Gazette About Me.webtemplate
Gazette Welcome.webtemplate
Gazette Photos.webtemplate
Gazette Movie.webtemplate
Gazette Blank.webtemplate
Highlighter Podcast.webtemplate
Notebook Podcast.webtemplate
Notebook Blog.webtemplate
Notebook Welcome.webtemplate
Watercolor Photos.webtemplate

I'm not yet aware of any iWeb 2 templates that have this problem.