Themes and Templates

The first time you launch iWeb, it invites you to choose a template for your new Web page (Figure 5.1), but in fact, you'll really have to do a little more than that: In the course of choosing a template, you'll also need to choose a theme for the Web site that the page will occupy (even if the site will consist of just one lone page). Sound complicated? Don't worry. It isn't.

Figure 5.1. iWeb features several themes for your pages and sites (left), and six templates plus a blank page for each theme.

Each of iWeb's professionally designed themes provides an overall "look" for your site, including a harmonious color scheme; complementary fonts for headings, body copy, and captions; and accents such as background images and picture borders. There are 18 themes to choose from, ranging from basic ("Black" and "White") to elegant ("Formal" and "Watercolor") to edgy with attitude ("Freestyle" and "Night Life"). Within each theme there are six templates, plus a blank page for pages with different purposes. As we'll discuss later, if the designers' purposes in creating the templates don't match yours, you can tweak your pages as much as you desire.

You can browse the iWeb site themes by scrolling through the thumbnails on the left side of the "Choose a template for your webpage" window. Click a theme thumbnail to see thumbnails of the templates for the pages you can create with it (see Figure 5.1). The following are the templates within each theme:

• Welcome. This template serves as an entry page to your site; each design option features a banner graphic and a big block of text (Figure 5.2).

  Figure 5.2. The Welcome template serves as a lead-in to your Web site.

  

• About Me. This template provides a way of putting out your personal information (Figure 5.3).

  Figure 5.3. The About Me template provides guidance for posting your personal details.

  

• Photos. This template makes it easy for you to build photo pages containing thumbnails (miniature photos that enlarge when clicked) and captions (Figure 5.4).

  Figure 5.4. The Photos template makes it easy to post your photographs to .Mac.

  

• Movie. This template provides shells for posting movie files, accompanied by explanatory text (Figure 5.5).

  Figure 5.5. The Movie template gives you a place to post a video.

  

• Blog. A little tricky: This template provides a shell for a blog (short for Web log, or online journal), and each option features three separate Web-page designs: one for the blog's homepage, one for the main-entry page, and one for an archive of all entries (Figure 5.6).

  Figure 5.6. The Blog template lets you create a blog, complete with a homepage, an archive, and individual entries.

  

• Podcast. Designed for use in conjunction with GarageBand 3, iWeb's companion program in the Apple iLife '06 package, the Podcast template lets you publish your own "radio shows" to a .Mac Web site. Like the Blog template, each Podcast template consists of three page designs: one for your podcast's homepage, one for each individual entry, and one for an archive of all podcast entries (Figure 5.7).

  Figure 5.7. The Podcast template gives structure to your audio musings.

  

• Blank. Fairly self-explanatory, this is an empty page based on the theme design, which you can fill up with anything you choose.

Although these pages have names that imply how they should be used, they don't have to be used this way. To a far greater extent than is possible with HomePage, iWeb lets you adapt the text and images within templates to make your pages into whatever you like. Just choose a theme and template that serves your needs, and you can customize that page however you like.

Before we get to that, let's try creating a basic Welcome page.