Website Builder Recommendation?

A

Anjali Banerjee

New Member
brucemc777 said:
Since I appear to be in the same boat you are in, how fancy are you looking to get? If something relatively simple, and free, I have had good experiences with Kompozer. If you want to include forms and form management, Simfatic has been an outstanding solution for me and at a great price. I wish some of the pros would weigh in a bit more though, as I keep feeling like I am stumbling around in the dark-.
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I want to get as fancy as website builders go.. I don't want a simple, generic template website. That looks bad. I want several pages full of content and nice design.
 
CaldwellYSR

CaldwellYSR

Member
Anjali Banerjee said:
I want to get as fancy as website builders go.. I don't want a simple, generic template website. That looks bad. I want several pages full of content and nice design.
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In all honesty if this is the case then you should learn to write html and css yourself. Simple, generic, template-looking sites are about as good as it gets with website builders. You can make it work but you can't make it work well.

brucemc777 said:
If you are one of those gurus that just knows, go away...
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Nobody just knows... you have to learn somehow. Those gurus you're trying to scare off are your best chance of getting good help so I would suggest not trying to put them down. Also Phreadee has great advice above.
 
B

brucemc777

New Member
Thank-you, all! Oh, and as to the gurus, I was referring to some savant that might be able to code fancy stuff in notepad and simply "know" what it would look like! Sorry I was not clear-
 
CaldwellYSR

CaldwellYSR

Member
brucemc777 said:
Thank-you, all! Oh, and as to the gurus, I was referring to some savant that might be able to code fancy stuff in notepad and simply "know" what it would look like! Sorry I was not clear-
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Over time, after you've been doing this for a while, you'll get a good feel for how things will look and you won't have to go back and forth as much.
 
A

Adam Jackson

New Member
CaldwellYSR said:
In all honesty if this is the case then you should learn to write html and css yourself. Simple, generic, template-looking sites are about as good as it gets with website builders. You can make it work but you can't make it work well.
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I still have to disagree. You only get a a generic, template-looking site if you use a website builder that uses pre-designed templates. One of the website builders I recommended before - Exai.com - uses dynamic templates and then you're dealing with a whole other thing. Templates that are dynamic create a great amount of combinations of graphics and layouts and content so your website ends up looking unique, unlike a pre-designed template website that looks like all the other template websites out there. I absolutely wouldn't rule out this option, especially if you don't want to have to spend a lot of time and/or money learning html or hiring a designer.
 
Phreaddee

Phreaddee

Super Moderator
Staff member
I still have to disagree. You only get a a generic, template-looking site if you use a website builder that uses pre-designed templates.
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OK, then...
One of the website builders I recommended before - Exai.com
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Oh, so this isnt a "generic template" kinda things. So I signed up to the free trial.

I was asked for a business name(test company), my businesses expertise(ecommerce)and a tagline(this is a tagline)
the next step was to decide between 6 absolutely horrible templates.
so I chose one, and then I could edit my site.

I had to change the menu to another of around about 30 different choices for my menu. I suspect its all images, but you know, that isnt important. It looks better now, and I chose it from the list therefore I customised it. I also played with the fonts a bit, I'm sure you can spot where I've been.

I was sold on the premise of not having to worry about my "mobile site" EXAI was going to take care of that for me. phew what a relief. unfortunately my android phone makes it look decidedly unhappy. and that header size is massive! oh well, its out of my control.

please one and all I invite you to grill the life out of my made in 10 minutes EXAI website.

test-site.exai.com

I'll leave the judgement up to others but my own opinion on exai.com 1/10
lets hope the next 13 days of my "free trial" convert me.

I mean I told them I wanted E-commerce straight up. first question.
wheres my options for payment gateways? shopping carts? product lists even? anything?

it felt gimmicky and not at all intuitive. I have to essentially delete every thing they have generously placed in for me using their "dynamic templating" (read AP divs.) to even have some sort of "blank canvas" to work from or I use the generic, template-looking site variant offered up to me. I'm limited to having to change fonts using <font> which is ironic considering they are using the html5 doctype and <font> is I'm afraid to say deprecated.

editing in "design" mode felt like MS paint. no fine control.

forget about jquery integration. it aint gonna happen.
an every single component essentially looks like this in the source.
HTML: 
      <div class="tm-background">    
<div    id="i1048656"
            class="tm-item tm-background-item tm-site-headerBackground  "
            style="top: 0px; bottom: -75px; display: none " 
            data-label="" 
            data-binder=""
            data-item-type="tm-background-item"
            data-view=""
            data-view-options="{}">
    
        <div class="tm-style-box  backgroundtheme-4bs399aoag grouped" 
            style="" data-aspect-ratio="0">
            

        </div>
    </div>
</div>
ok at least its not a table. points for that, but its a bit of overkill dont you think? and occasionally you see a bit of this.
HTML: 
 </div>     
 </div> 
</article>        
 </div>   
  </div>        
  </div>    
 </div>    
 </div>   
  </div>       
   </div>    
 </div>         
 </div>     
</div>
when using HTML5 why on earth would you need 13 levels of nesting!!!

Again you are still designing within the parameters the site builder gives you. That is the main constraint, frustration and hesitation still. As a "designer" I can think of nothing worse.
 
Last edited:
leroy30

leroy30

New Member
Wow Phreaddee, you're really getting into this! Love the website *cough*.

Actually it's not as horrible as I was expecting. I give it a 2.
 
CaldwellYSR

CaldwellYSR

Member
Adam Jackson said:
I still have to disagree. You only get a a generic, template-looking site if you use a website builder that uses pre-designed templates. One of the website builders I recommended before - Exai.com - uses dynamic templates and then you're dealing with a whole other thing. Templates that are dynamic create a great amount of combinations of graphics and layouts and content so your website ends up looking unique, unlike a pre-designed template website that looks like all the other template websites out there. I absolutely wouldn't rule out this option, especially if you don't want to have to spend a lot of time and/or money learning html or hiring a designer.
Click to expand...

So you're not going to get a template looking site if you use dynamic templates? Interesting. What I said still holds true. Using a website builder you can't get far beyond generic, template looking sites. That's not even taking functionality into consideration, the mere looks are limited.
 
D

DotCom

New Member
i heard coffee cup is pretty good and wix is okay (i wouldn't recommend wix) try dreamweaver they are industry standard.
 
D

Design Top

Banned
If you want looking for website builder, the link below maybe use for your reference :

1. Wix.com
2. WebStarts.com
3. Wopop.com
4. Moonfruit.com
5. Yola.com
6. Webs.com
7. ezweb123.com
8. etc

You can looking for another free website builder as you wish through internet.
 
O

Online_dude

New Member
Have you seen this?

kickstartyourwebcareer.com

Apparently its been used on over 1000 websites, made hundreds of thousands in sales and is now available on the cheap, due to the company who owned it being sold.

It might be worth a look if you are looking for ways to design websites quickly
 
AshleyRob

AshleyRob

New Member
You cannot fulfill all your requirements through instant website builders. So I wouldn’t recommend using it. Use your own HTML coding talent and design your website. That is the best method.
 
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