Apple’s iWeb uses a quasi-hidden location to store multiple Websites, and users don’t have control over either the file management, location or breaking multiple sites up into logical components. Multisite 2.4 from Clarkwood Software solves that problem for iWeb users.
iWeb works by hardwiring a path for a single package. That package is found in: /Users/user_name/Library/Application Support/iWeb/Domain.sites. Even if a user defines multiple Websites, they’re all crammed into a single package and all updated at the same time. If the user wants to move a site to another Mac, the entire contents of the single package must be moved — and all the sites defined inside it. That is, if the package can even be found by a novice.
Multisite works by 1) allowing the user to identify and name individual sites, 2) see them in a small file manager, and separate them for publishing at the time of the user’s choosing. An export function creates a file representing a single Website that can be simply copied to another Mac.
The modest app creates a working space where one can see how the various Websites have been organized.
An iWeb project named Family Site, but contains multiple sites
The next step is the hard part. One has to manually duplicate the master file created within iWeb with a Multisite function, then go into iWeb and remove the unwanted components. There’s a help file and documentation on how to do this, but the process is manual and subject to human error. Despite fairly clear directions, I messed it up the first time.
For example, the single iWeb package, when done, gets split up into two pieces like this:
Duplicate and rename. Remove unwanted site.
Fully separated sites
Multisite has convenient buttons for launching and quitting iWeb, something that’s done often during the split up process. If the user wants to go back to the original, Apple, way of doing things, the File menu has a function called: “Stop using Multisite.”
This is not a complicated application, and it does its intended job properly. It’s well documented with an FAQ that should get most users up and running. Another page goes into some nuts and bolts of the data organization. For those who are curious, Multisite modifies iWeb’s default storage location in /Users/user_name/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iWeb.plist. A typical location is in /Users/username/Documents/Multisite for iWeb Data.mfi.
In evaluating a program like this, my first reaction was that there should be some kind of script that takes care of the bookkeeping when splitting and renaming individual Websites. (The company agreed.) Other than that, users of iWeb who hate what Apple has forced them into will find the application a handy additional tool. That said, for what it does, this reviewer believes that the app is substantially overpriced.
Multisite 2.4 supports iWeb ’09, ’08 and iWeb 1.1.2. It requires Mac OS X Tiger or later.