A while back we bought a copy of Sandvox, a WYSIWYG web editor for OS X. It's just absolutely fantastic as a layout tool, the designs included with it really pop, as George Carlin might say, and it lets me crank out a website that will work perfectly on any website anywhere in absolute minimum time. I really like Sandvox.
Now there are some limitations that might be of interest to a professional web designer. For example, Sandvox saves ordinary HTML files. So if you are doing PHP coding or, heaven forbid using highly fragile ASP code, you'll need to make some changes to the code after you export it from Sandvox.
I often use Sandvox to generate a template for a site that will need lots of modification under the hood. A number of our sites here at Steve's Web Hosting use RSS feeds to present news, the latest iTunes offerings, or items available from Amazon.com. For these sites I'll generate a bunch of absolutely gorgeous page templates in Sandvox, and then make the necessary file name (PHP extensions) and coding changes in Dreamweaver.
I've been using Macromedia Dreamweaver for many years, both under Mac OS and the sad-ass OS from Redmond. I really hate it. Dreamweaver I mean. It is so full of dreadfully annoying bugs, but I still do use it every single day. But Sandvox is an absolute pleasure to use. I highly recommend it to those wanting to make a small to medium sized website of their own.
Here are some sites that I made completely in Sandvox, please note that these web sites may be highly sarcastic by design:
God Hates Crustaceans
God Hates Mixed Fibers
God Hates Barbers
And here are some sites for which I made templates in Sandvox, then later modified the pages into PHP using Dreamweaver:
As you can see, the visual appeal of Sandvox output is great. I also like the attitude of the people at Karelia software. When I had a few crashes a couple of versions back they were fantastic at providing support.
Sandvox makes designing a web site fun, and fun is a good thing.
Technorati Tags: Sandvox, Software, OS X, Reviews, Dreamweaver, web design
November 15th, 2006 at 3:57 am
FIVE (5) stars???
Clearly you have not actually tried to rely on SVX to produce a real working site.
BTW, God doesn’t believe in Atheists.
November 28th, 2006 at 10:11 am
Three cheers for Sandvox! Your review is right on! I give it five stars too!
I love your hilarious sandvox sites, keep up the good work!
November 28th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
Thank you Melissa.
And Jessica, there is ample evidence for the existence of atheists, only a fool would deny they exist. But of course, your Imaginary Bearded Sky Daddy would have to exist before it could believe in anything. I’m sorry Sandvox is not working well for you, contact the authors, I find them helpful and friendly.
January 6th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
It is kind of interesting that atheists don’t quote the new testament as well that gets rid of those prohibitions. Ah well.
March 3rd, 2007 at 1:50 pm
5 stars for the idea – ok but not for the release its out now…
it is nearly impossible to create a working side – i dont speak about text – try to put some pictures (photo albums) to your site and you´ll see…
broken images, some images you cant upload, thumbnails linking to wrong images and so on….