Javascript Website Builder

This can also be the disadvantage, especially from well-known, trusted sites such as Network Solutions. When many people are choosing from a limited pool of site templates, there is a greater chance that site designs can be duplicated, whether for competing products or vastly different ones.

Reasons to Use a Javascript Website Builder

Before deciding whether to go with an online website builder or use another product such as Dreamweaver, a designer should evaluate the needs of the website as well as the needs of the user. Some of the advantages of a javascript website builder would include:

• Access from any web browser to site editor and site files
• A wide variety of professional site templates, customizable to some extent
• Easy-to-follow (often drag-and-drop) interfaces to create pages
• State-of-the-art design, such as liquid layouts
• Image libraries, usually royalty-free clip art as well as the ability to upload more images
• E-commerce, social networking, and other "add-ons" from web 2.0 technologies
• Easy editing and publishing of new content.

It is a well-known feature of any user interface that what is intuitive to one person may be completely opaque to another, and so while a designer may find it easy to work with a particular version of the website builder, there is no guarantee that the client would be able to figure out the interface. Worse, there is the chance that the very ease of change might make it likely that a client would mess up the website. In those cases, the "real-time" nature of the edits is a disadvantage.

The Alternative: Web Design Applications

Having an application such as Dreamweaver to design a site has its own set of disadvantages, however. It does give more complete control of the site to the designer. It provides the ability to work "offline" and then FTP the finished files up to the server later. Usually the raw HTML on any given page can be edited directly, and there are often libraries of Javascript and CSS elements that can be included.

However, applications will only run on the platform they are designed for – PC, Mac, or Linux – and are often very expensive, as well as requiring regular updates as the web technologies become obsolete. There is often a greater learning curve, and the necessity (on large sites with multiple site editors) to synchronize files before editing.

Other Advantages to a Javascript Website Builder

Often the Javascript website builder comes along with a hosting package offered by a domain service (such as Network Solutions in the example above). This means that you may be limited in terms of what kinds of software you can run on the server, and some packages such as WordPress for blogging may not be available or easily integrated into the website.

However, the package may include features such as a domain name, email server setup, spam and anti-virus protection, search engine optimization (SEO), log analysis of site traffic, and usually fairly thorough customer support through e-mail, live chat, or phone.

In the end, it is a question of who will be using the website builder to create the content on the pages. Their level of skill and access to the web decide which method of web design will most satisfy their needs.