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With the release of EverWeb 1.8 we included a lot of new features. I know some may get lost in the release notes so I want to outline three great new features we’ve included.

1. Support for Social Media Images and Favicons.

The Social Media image is what you see when you post your page to sites like Facebook. You can select any image to be the ‘Social Media’ image for each page on your site. If this is not specified then Facebook and other sites will use the first image on your page, or non at all.

To se the Social Media Image go to the Inspector->Page Settings. You’ll see the Social Media Image under the ‘Page Details’ section.

The Favicon is set on a per site bases and appears in the path bar in your web browser. It should be a small, 16 by 16 image but EverWeb will resize and convert an image you select. To set the Favicon go to the File menu and select ‘Edit Publishing Settings’. Scroll down until you see the Favicon button and select your image.

Sometimes you need to clear you browser cache to properly see your Favicon.

2. New stretch and stretch to fill background image settings

If you go to Page Settings->Browser Background you will see new Image fill options for ‘Stretch’ and ‘Stretch To Fill’. These options will stretch an image across the entire browser background and resize it as the browser window is resized.

The new Templates that come free with EverWeb 1.8 (Go to EverWeb menu->Check for New Templates) will show these new features.

Combined with the new Full Width and Fixed Positioned options for shapes, you can really make some really modern and cool designs

3. New option in Arrange Menu -> Always On Top

This option places the object over all other objects even if it is from a Master template. If you have multiple objects with this option set, the order comes from the bring to front, send to back etc… options under the Arrange menu. This is useful for having a navigation bar on a master page always on top on the child pages, especially when using the all new Fixed position option.

BONUS: Check out the new options in the Image Slider. You can now set a caption and a specific URL for each slide. That means you can redirect users to a specific page from each slide.

Pro Tip: Change the font styling of the captions by using the ‘Fonts’ button in the toolbar when the Image Slider is selected. It’s really easy to add nice styling to the Image Slider.

EverWeb 1.8 is officially here, and it’s our biggest release yet!

We’ve got a long list of new features detailed below. What we’re really thrilled about is the new design flexibility with full width shapes, fixed position shapes and new background image stretch options. These let you add a lot of new design techniques to your website and we’ll be posting new videos about them in the coming weeks.

We’ve got some new, free templates which help show off these features. Just go to the EverWeb menu in the top left corner and select ‘Check for new Templates’. EverWeb will automatically download these new templates and you can access them from the ‘Add Page’ and ‘Add Directory’ buttons in the bottom toolbar.

Remember, that EverWeb 1.8 comes in two versions, one for 10.6 and one for 10.7 and later. This is to make sure newer versions of EverWeb can take advantage of new Yosemite & El Capitan features.

Download EverWeb 1.8 from our EverWeb Download Page.

Tell us what you think of the new release in the comments section below.

Show Off Your Site
We want to see the amazing website(s) you have created using EverWeb. Head on over to the EverWeb Facebook page and post your website with the hashtag #everweb. We’re giving away a $100 iTunes gift card to the to the best “Designed with EverWeb” website as voted by the community. Please see our forums for more details.

Changes in EverWeb 1.8
Auto Save and Automatic Backup
All new auto save and backup features makes sure that your project data is never lost. You can automatically backup your project files to free dropbox.com accounts or any other third party location. In the rare case that you need to go back to an earlier version, you can restore your backups right from within EverWeb.

Asset Organization
Asset organization and management has been greatly improved in version 1.8. First comes multiple selection within the assets list allowing you to drag multiple files to your project or delete multiple files with one click. EverWeb 1.8 even includes a feature to quickly find and delete any unused assets which can help reduce clutter and project size. You can also locate the specific pages that are using any of your assets so you always know how your assets are being used on your website.

EverWeb 1.8 also brings extended Asset details to quickly show you image resolution, dimension, file size and date added. This makes it easy to locate images that are too large to comfortably use on a website. Using this information, you can also sort by the above criteria or have a fully customizable sort order. Use the all new search bar to filter and find any asset by name.

Paypal eCommerce
The entire paypal widget has been revamped with all new features to allow for mutliple priced products so you can include a drop down menu with extended options and prices for each product added. A new quantity field so you can sell multiple products at once, better localization by selecting your default store country and currency, more control over shipping costs and behavior, as well as interface improvements and the ability to specify a page after a successful or cancelled order.

New Shape Options
New fixed position and full width objects let you create dynamic sized objects based on the browser window size and that follow the scroll bar as a visitor scrolls your website.

Image Gallery
The improved image gallery offers better compability with mobile devices and the ability to select multiple images at once from the ‘Choose…’ button.

Image Slider
The image slider comes with support for captions per slide and the ability to link anywhere from each slide as well. New transparency options help your image slider blend into your website and the image slider has the ability to select multiple images at once from the ‘Choose…’ button.

Other
– New stretch and stretch to fill background image settings under Page Settings->Browser Background
– Support for Social media image to be used for Facebook and Google+ Shares. You can find it under Inspector->Page Settings
– Support for Favicon. You can find it under Publish Settings Screen under the Footer code field.
– jQuery only included when it needs to be
– Mouse down/over and retina images no longer require jQuery
– Built in PNG Image optimizer for optimizing PNG images with NO data loss. You can enable it in the Preferences but keep in mind publishing will take longer with this option
– Use Color Profiles option now applies to PNG images as well as JPEGs
– Navigation bars properly support light, medium, semibold etc… typefaces
– Support for hairline fonts
– Improved support for Google Fonts by including only the necessary typefaces. This results in better compatibility of fonts and faster loading of pages
– Option to auto convert PSD, Tiff and PDF images to web formats when dragging them onto EverWeb. This significantly reduces the file size of images and should always be used.
– New option in Arrange Menu -> Always On Top places the object over all other objects even if it is from a Master template. If you have multiple objects with this option set, the order comes from the bring to front, send to back etc… options. This is useful for having a navigation button on a master page always on top on the child pages

Bug Fixes
– Fixed some memory related issues with larger images
– Should fix some crashes when pasting lots of text
– Fixed an error with templates not loading all the images in some cases such as the Algonquin theme
– When using the add directory button it would add a page instead of a directory if templates had not yet been loaded
– fixed an issue with checking for updates if you have renamed the EverWeb application
– No cache code when previewing site to help make sure you see what your site actually looks like in preview mode
– You can now enter more than 2 digits in the fields for the navigation menu
– Navigation menus that wrap to a second line with drop downs now appear above any navigation links below it
– Adding external files with invalid characters in their names, will properly strip them
– Shadow Angle Knob uses retina graphics
– Fixed crashes on OS X 10.10.3 Public Beta
– Fixed problem with disabling ‘Fix position on scroll’ still allowing objects to be moved freely. If this continues to show the same issue, delete the object and re-add it. Old objects may still suffer from this issue.
– Setting the ‘Fixed position on scroll’ option no longer displaces the object
– Fixed a crash when using undo for any Shape Fill options
– Adjusting the browser background images properly redraws the image on the page background immediately
– Image previews in the Inspector now scale properly (for example for browser backgrounds or shape image fills)
– Fixed a crash with using Google Fonts
– Fixed Header tag widget and text color issue
– Full width items always exported propelry with a width of 100%
– Fixed an issue where pages were marked as red and needing to be published when closing and re-opening a project
– Fixed a few issues with the Paypal Widget’s product options
– Renaming directories and pages in directories works again when opening and closing projects
– Fixed a few stability issues and issue with the contact form to ensure free email addresses used as the contact form sender still work.
– Fixed issues with full width objects so they work properly when resizing browser windows with a horizontal scrollbar
– Fixed some crashing issues
– Fixed older widgets that use jQuery

We are getting closer and closer to officially releasing version 1.8 of EverWeb.  If you have not yet heard, we have added many great new features that is taking EverWeb to a whole other level. Some of the updates include:

• Auto save and automatic backup
• Asset organization
• Enhanced e-Commerce with a more powerful PayPal widget
• Full width shape features
• Updates to Image Gallery widget
• Updates to Image Slider widget

These are just a few of the many great updates that will be included in EverWeb 1.8.

Below is an introductory video that will illustrate some of the new features in EverWeb, and what how these changes will allow you to create a better and more modern website.

If you are too excited to wait for the official release of version 1.8, you can head over to the EverWeb forums and download a copy of the latest beta release of EverWeb 1.8. Also, if you would like to learn more about the changes that have been done in 1.8, you can read this post on the EverWeb forums.

We’ve add the ability to easily check your visitor stats within your EverWeb client area (EverWeb + Hosting accounts only).

Without any configuration or installation on your end you can now see;

1. How many visitors your website is getting
2. Where your visitors come from (search engines, other websites, etc…)
3. Where in the world your visitors are located
4. Your top visited pages
5. How your visitor count changes month over month
6. Plus a lot more

To view your website stats simply follow these steps;

1. Login to your client area
2. Click the ‘Services’ tab and then ‘My Services’
3. You will see a list of your services with us. Click the table row you want to check (most customers will have one hosting service listed)
4. On the next page, press the ‘Metrics’ button near the bottom of the page

These stats will give you a very interesting overview of how your website is being used, who’s visiting your site and where your most popular pages.

If you’re looking for even more stats, EverWeb integrates very easily with Google Analytics. Remember, Google Analytics is very powerful with lots of features and may be overwhelming at first.

Have you ever wondered how the navigation menu – including the drop down, or submenu – was created on the EverWeb website?

The video tutorial below will illustrate to you exactly how we created this navigation menu. See every step involved for creating the navigation menu that is used on the EverWeb website. Full transcript below.

TRANSCRIPT:

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how we made the drop down navigation menu seen here on the EverWeb website.

Here we see a slight replica of the EverWeb website. I also have some of the pages that we see in the navigation menu on the site. The resources, and support pages are the ones with a drop down menu.

The first thing we should note is that the navigation menu that I have selected here, is on a black gradient filled shape. We won’t get into detail on the gradient in this tutorial.

What I’m going to do now is just delete the navigation menu, so you can see what I do as I re-create it.

So now I will drag the navigation menu widget on to the page.

With the widget settings tab selected in the inspector window, I am going to modify a few values so that the menu ends up looking exactly like it did earlier.

The first thing I will change is the alignment, and that will be Right aligned.

The padding value will be 8, the spacing value will be 24, and the minimum width value will be 61. If you are making your own navigation menu similar to this, these values are not set in stone. As I mentioned before, I am re-creating the menu exactly as it was, and these are the values that we chose when we initially made the menu.

The background color is Lead, and the mouse over color is Tungsten. Use separator line is enabled, and the separator color is also Tungsten.

I will also change the font to Open Sans, which is the font we use on this site. I will also change the font size to 14.

I’ll now click on the Hyperlinks tab, and change all of the colors to Snow. Then I will disable Underline for Normal and Visited, but leave it enabled on Rollover.

And that is how the navigation menu on everwebapp.com is created.

iWeb SEO Tool was first released back in 2008. It’s been over 7 years that we have been developing the most popular search engine optimization software for iWeb.

Since iWeb has been discontinued officially for over 3 years and hasn’t received an update since 2009, it is well past the time to move on and start looking towards the future. Most users of iWeb have had problems using iWeb and the latest Mavericks and Yosemite version of OS X.

We need to focus all our attention and resources on building the best web site builder for OS X. So today we are officially discontinuing iWeb SEO Tool and will no longer be providing customer support for it. Of course, we still have tons of free video tutorials on how to use it, as well as out free SEO for iWeb video tutorials which you are certainly free to continue using.

When you’re ready, and if you haven’t already done so, come check out EverWeb, our new, modern iWeb replacement that is built specifically for designing professional websites. We have more themes, more features and more updates that we continue to release on a regular basis.

Even more so, every license of EverWeb comes with access to our free discussion forums, free video tutorials and 24/7 email and phone support.

When it comes to website building, we have you covered and we’re working extremely hard to push out updates with amazing new features as quickly as we can.

So if you haven’t already done, download the free trial of EverWeb and learn how to easily move your iWeb site to EverWeb.

With the release of EverWeb 1.7 we made some changes to the way directories work, but don’t worry, you can easily return to the old functionality with a simple checkbox.

Directories in EverWeb 1.6 and earlier would be their own page. Which means that if a visitor to your page clicked the directory name in the navigation bar, they would be taken to the page you designed for that directory.

On a desktop computer, when the mouse hovered over the directory page in the navigation menu the visitor would see the drop down menu. On mobile devices there is no mouse hover. The visitor has to click on the directory page to see the drop down menu. On iOS this worked pretty well, when you clicked on a directory in the navigation menu you would see the drop down menu. Clicking again would take you to the directory page.

On Android devices this wouldn’t work this way. Basically clicking on the directory page would instantly take you to that page and never show the drop down menu.

For this reason, and because it is unlikely that a visitor would visit that specific directory page, we changed the default behavior. As of EverWeb 1.7 a directory page is not an actual page. So you will now add sub pages to the directory but you can’t actually edit the main directory page.

However, we did leave the option of going back to the old behavior if you preferred that. Keep in mind though, this will cause problems as mentioned above on Android devices.

To return to the old behavior, select the directory in EverWeb and go to Page Settings in the Inspector (first tab). Under the Web Page Description field you will see the option that says ‘Redirect to first child page’. Uncheck that and EverWeb will work as it did before.

We’re thrilled to announce one of the biggest releases to EverWeb yet!

EverWeb 1.7 brings an updated user interface for Yosemite and improvements to SEO features including making sure all images show up in search engines and support for alternative image text.

Some other features include improved integration with iPhoto, image optimization settings, a much lighter file size for faster updating and so much more!

See below for a complete list of changes, but check out our new EverWeb YouTube video;

EVERWEB 1.7 CHANGES
– New Yosemite User Interface
– Significantly reduced download size of EverWeb for faster updating
– You can now drag and drop images onto existing image shapes and replace the shape contents with the new image while keeping the shape properties/settings
– Images dragged from iPhoto will use the iPhoto title instead of the file name
– New template system lets you remotely update templates
– Support for direct previewing in the iOS Simulator
– Support for img alternative text for better search engine optimization
– Images now use the img tag when possible
– All images can now properly appear in search engine result pages
– Option to adjust the quality of JPEG images within the preferences
– Option to not include the Color Profile in JPEG images so that the image size is smaller (though the colors may look slightly different within your browser) – Type ahead searching within the Assets list
– New Header Text Widget for inserting html headers
– New Mask button in toolbar
– EverWeb websites work better with HTTPS servers now
– Google fonts will now work on secure (https) websites
– Fixed an issue where using line feeds in success message for the contact form would break it
– Fixed Youtube widget in IE 9
– Fixed blue border around images in published image gallery in Internet Explorer
– New Pages now get added after the currently selected page
– Default styling settings for underlined links will now work properly
– ‘Edit Default Styles’ button under the Hyperlinks tab in the Inspector
– Fixes for RSS Feed Widget so it now displays the proper image when publishing
– RSS Widget now looks for an image within the post content if no image is specified as the post thumbnail
– Clicking the Dock icon no longer creates a new website
– New “Made With EverWeb” button graphic
– When adding images, EverWeb is better at recognizing images that are only slightly different than existing images on your site
– Issues with using prices with decimals for Paypal widget
– Fixed issues with changing font styling in text boxes
– Speed improvements when typing in text boxes while the font panel is opened
– Made significant changes to the way assets work. You can now easily change the display name of assets after import to create retina versions (i.e. adding @2x before the file extension)
– Pinterest pin it button widget
– Updated User Manual
– Image file names no longer append the order index to their file name unless you have used an image multiple times on one page.
– Include in navigation bar option in Templates window is not visible when creating a Master Page
– Widgets are automatically added to widget list in all opened documents when installing a new one
– Enhancements to the Widget API

EverWeb Is Compatible With Yosemite!

Yesterday marked the official launch of Yosemite, Apple’s latest update to the OS X operating system. We are proud to announce that EverWeb is compatible with Yosemite, so for those of you wondering if you can install the update and still use EverWeb, the answer is yes! The latest official release of EverWeb is version 1.6 so make sure that is the current version on your computer.

Yosemite brings some exciting new changes to your Mac, and that means that EverWeb will bring some new changes as well. The next version of EverWeb (1.7) will be even better and include many changes that gives the app a beautiful Yosemite look. Keep your eye out for a beta version of 1.7 to be released on our forums within the next little while.

More EverWeb News

Many EverWeb users have submitted their EverWeb made sites to be displayed on the EverWeb website. A lot of you have created some amazing websites and we are very impressed. Check them out and see just how incredible an EverWeb site can be!

As a reminder, any standalone users wishing to upgrade to an EverWeb + Hosting plan can do so in their account by going to Services > My Services, and clicking on the arrow next to View Details where you will see the Upgrade link.

We’re very happy to announce the release of EverWeb 1.6.

With version 1.6 we focused on enhanced publishing which means your web sites will publish much faster to your EverWeb + Hosting account or to your FTP server. Now, minor changes will only publish the changed files even if you change the publishing location. This also means previewing websites is faster as well!

On your first publish with this new version, your entire website will have to be published. After that, you will find publishing to be significantly faster.

We also added a feature to not include new pages in the navigation bar so that your entire site does not have to be marked as changed when adding new pages.

Lastly we made lots of improvements for Retina and High resolution screens. Your websites will load faster and more efficiently on iOS and other mobile devices.

CHANGES
– Enhanced publishing significantly improves publishing changed web page files
– Option to not include new pages in the navigation bar so your entire site doesn’t have to be republished
– If you change the name of an asset to use @2x it will be used appropriately for retina images
– Retina CSS is not included if there aren’t retina images
– Fixed paypal widget button not appearing until you modify an option under Widget settings
– Fixed the default background color for the nav bar mouse over sub menus being exported as white instead of gray
– You can now enter anchors within the External Link field
– Fixed a crash when pressing the Add Page button while publishing your website
– Fixed issue with Facebook widget not appearing in preview
– Fixed contact form labels so they don’t wrap to a second line
– Fixed navigation bar issues
– Fixed issue with header/footer code field marking entire site as modified when copying text from it

Let us know what you think of this new version. Come on over to our discussion forums, we’d love to hear from you!