Google Page Creator (now together with screenshots)
Nice idea , but very poor execution.
Update: It seems access to Google Page Creator is limited, so it would make sense if I spend some time explaining what I meant. What Google Page Creator (GPC) allows you to do, is to build a simple website using your browser. It differentiates itself from majority of such tools (but not all of them) in that it allows you to do this through a WYSIWYG interface, where you can easily see exactly how your page will look like when you’re finished with it.
There are things I like. Page creator is easy to use and you get a direct feedback on everything you do. Sadly, the overall impression is less positive, since there’s plenty I dislike:
- GPC is incredibly slow. True, G4 Powerbook is not a top of the line anymore, but there are tons of web applications with similar capabilities (some of them mine) which don’t drag their feet so much.
- As others have noted, HTML produced is simply crap. Font tags should be extinct by now and there’s really no excuse to produce them in 2006. You can get a glimpse of the horror by looking at the source of my page (linked at the end of this post).
- There are plenty of designs, but they mostly differ in color schemes used. It’s hard to find one that isn’t simply dull.
- GPC is simplified almost to the point of uselessness. You can stitch static pages together and build a simple static website, but there’s not much else you can do. I expected more. Something, anything that would make you believe the final result was done in the age of blogs, wikis and mash-ups and not 5-6 years ago.
In short, it’s hardly an improvement over what was already available out there. You can see result of my experiment and I posted few screenshots on Marela.