Yahoo! SiteBuilder BAH!!!!!!!!!

Sixgun · Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 5

If you ever want to be a serious web developer, don't ever, ever, EVER use Yahoo's SiteBuilder.

No, this is not just a rant.

Yes, I have valid reasons.

First, let me state that I have no real complaint with Yahoo web hosting. For $10/month, I have 5 gigs w/200 gigs of bandwidth a month, 200 email addys, PHP and MySql support, user specific FTP security, and a generous suite of support tools.

That said, the SiteBuilder tool is a wolf in sheep's clothing, BIG TIME!!

On the plus side, it is free, easy to use, and somewhat powerful. It makes otherwise complicated stuff like iFrames and Audio/Video support as easy as it does text.... plug it in, right click, link it, and go. It supports WYSWYG for PHP. Yahoo add-ins are plentiful. You don't have to know how to spell HTML to use it.

But (and thats a big BUT), SiteBuilder has some serious drawbacks.

First, Yahoo Site Builder only works on Yahoo Web Hosted sites. If you use any other host, you can't use YSB.

If you use any other editor to modify your page(s), YSB complains upon reopening the page(s) in YSB. It WILL open the page, but you may have some very nasty surprises when you view the results of your outside work, once back in YSB.

To compound this problem, you cannot publish any YSB developed page outside YSB. If you try, it will put a nasty disclaimer across the top of your page. You can manually remove the disclaimer, but who wants to do that every time you publish a page.

You can't selectively publish. That is, SiteBuilder will upload EVERY PAGE IN YOUR SITE THAT HAS BEEN MODIFIED, every time you publish. Wanna work on two pages at once, then publish the one you finish first without publishing the other... no way. Both of them get uploaded.

You can't selectively synchronize your local folder. Every time you download into your local box, YSB will download EVERY byte on your site.
So.... if you DO decide to go outside YSB and FTP into your site, whatever code you uploaded is orphaned from YSB unless you download the entire site.

You can't decide to just use another editor without rewritting your entire site, cuz what you've done in YSB won't work in other editors. See the notes above about disclaimers etc. If you have a lot of pages, you are pretty much stuck with YSB and its limitations.

Yes, YSB has some limitations...

HTML support is trashy. YSB does not allow you to see your HTML. It does offer some very limited support for inserting HTML, but you never get to see your code unless you go outside of YSB.

Some simple stuff like anchor tag/link pairs is not supported in YSB.

Background color for text blocks, tables, iFrames, etc. is not supported.

Borders are not supported except in tables and iFrames.

Special characters are not supported. (No Horizontal Rule or copyright signs).

Combine YSB's limitations with the inherent tendency (Read "Yahoo's jealous control of your website development), to lock you in to YSB and prepare to be very frustrated if your web site takes off and you want to take your development skills to the next level.

And, If for some reason, you, like me, find your self in the situation where SiteBuilder won't communicate with your site (Yahoo tech support says they can't duplicate the problem so can't help me Sad

), you are stuck and can't do any further development to your site.

Wanna talk about Yahoo Site Builder, email me... and check out my site, www.americanphire.com. It is my first website and is pure SiteBuilder code as of this writing. It will be redone in Dreamweaver shortly.

Corey Bryant · Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 4:13 pm

Sixgun · Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 5

You have a point and perhaps I should have clarified why I put that statement in.

SiteBuilder is offered for download at places such as www.softpedia.com without mention that it is a proprietary development tool.

I see several posts on the forum about Sitebuilder and wanted any reader to understand that YSB is not a common editor, but is a proprietary IDE solely for use on Yahoo hosted web sites. I think that would be an important point on any "review" type of post, don't you?

As for the RTML question. You are partly right, mostly wrong. For web pages, YSB does indeed work in HTML -- pure HTML. Yahoo add-ons are usually in a different language. Their flagship product is the eCommerce add-on which is called Yahoo Merchant. IT is scripted in RTML. Other add-ons may be in PHP, JavaScript, or whatever. When an add-on is embedded -- something like a counter or time stamp -- it is, of course, embedded in its own language.

The site assets panel in YSB lists all assets in whatever code they are developed in. Any page that is developed in the YSB interactive development environment is shown in the list as .HTML.

Whether HTML, RTML, or any other language, the point is you are isolated from the code while in YSB. It is WYSIWYG only. For a serious developer, this would be a negative. YMMV.

Corey Bryant · Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 8:00 am

I never said that Yahoo does not work in HTML actually.

There is a lot of misinformation on Yahoo's website - especially with their e-commerce information but a few overseas customers use them and I will say that when I had to call them, they were extremely helpful

Sixgun · Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 5

Sixgun · Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 5

While I'm at it, let me clarify one other point.

You do not have to use Sitebuilder to use Yahoo web hosting.

Yahoo hosted sites are just like any other commercially available site, a block of storage space that is connected to the web by a web server. And, it works very well. As far as I know, my site has had zero down time. You can use any development tools you wish and most if not all of their provided add-ons are available even if you don't use their development environment.

My beef is strictly with Sitebuilder and Yahoo's propensity for locking you in to them once you use the tools that they provide with the space that you bought and paid for.

One of the "powers" that we as developers and website owners have is portability, the ability to transfer our property (our code) to other hosts. That is what keeps this wild business of web hosting honest. Given that once a webmaster develops his site on Yahoo with their "free" tool, he cannot exercise that power unless he has some relatively heavy development experience and is willing to perform a re-write.

As far as I can tell, there is no technical reason that Sitebuilder could not be used on any other site. To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as Sitebuilder or Yahoo "extensions". YSB is proprietary to Yahoo site simply because its FTP engine is hardcoded to connect with a Yahoo site. That, in itself would be ok, but Sitebuilder also plants that goofy disclaimer on every page that is stripped off only when you publish with YSB.

Since I am caught in a bind right now, the problem is somewhat more in focus for me. I could continue to develop in Sitebuilder, save my files, and then publish with an external FTP engine except for that useless disclaimer. Actually, that is what I'm doing now, and I have to use an external editor to strip the code manually.

I suppose they have a "right" to capture their clientele with what I personally consider nefarious methods, but some friendly disclaimers on their part would make the end result more palatable.

littlechief · Joined: 31 Jan 2006 Posts: 1

In defense of YSB, I have been using it for more than 3 years now, I've not had any problems with it since. But you gotta look at it this way, and maybe you didn't read the fine print, but when you goto a buffet for dinner, you can't take food home, you must consume it on premises, or McDonald's don't want you bringing in some Jack in the Box to eat in their establishment.
I am no "advanced" webmaster or anything, but I do believe that YAHOO! SiteBuilder does provide an easy to use tool for ease of creating your most commonly used HTML code at the click of the mouse for those of us that are HTML-illiterate.
My site is mostly textual, but I have been exploring, and using the iFrame recently, being told that visitors like to click on things (hahaha), I also put up some pics, and have in use an email, order and submittal page that redirects you back to my home page after submitting your inquiry. It's plain and simple, and if you'd like to visit it, you can do so by clicking here.

GOOD LUCK TO ALL, @loh@!

Sixgun · Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 5

Littlechief, I couldn't agree with you more.... except for the buffet analogy... and then only a little Very Happy

Yahoo is not advertised as a "buffet". I haven't seen the fine print that says that if I use their tools, I'm hooked. In fact, that is exactly what I think they should do. They should (as I mentioned above), publish a disclaimer to that effect. If I missed it, please tell me where to look.

My analogy would be more in line with buying a Chevrolet. Even though my car is a GM product, and I have on occasion, bought a GM provided tool, I don't think I should be forced to take my car to Mr. Goodwrench for an oil change.

Otherwise, I agree with you completely... YSB is a fantastic tool, and except for some minor limitations, will develop a totally professional looking and acting site with little effort, and with less prior experience.

Since I have actually put a site online, many of my otherwise computer illiterate friends consider me an "expert". No doubt you've experienced the same thing. When they ask me for advice on putting up their own site, I don't hesitate to tell them to use Yahoo and YSB. However, when my IT colleagues ask for my opinion, I strongly advise them against it, and I tell them why.

BTW, great looking site!!!

mjpage · Joined: 25 Mar 2006 Posts: 1

sooner1 · Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 1

Yahoo site builder reminds me of AOL !!
Evil or Very Mad

It is junk

bozy02 · Joined: 25 May 2006 Posts: 1

$--><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td><a href="index.html" onMouseOver="document.images['i0'].src='sitebuilder/images/NAVIGATION-0-mouseOver-55201.png'" onMouseOut="document.images['i0'].src='sitebuilder/images/NAVIGATION-0-active-55122.png'"><img name="i0" src="sitebuilder/images/NAVIGATION-0-active-55122.png" width="105" height="24" border="0" alt=""/></a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="aboutus.html" onMouseOver="document.images['i1'].src='sitebuilder/images/NAVIGATION-1-mouseOver-55372.png'" onMouseOut="document.images['i1'].src='sitebuilder/images/NAVIGATION-1-inactive-55263.png'"><img name="i1" src="sitebuilder/images/NAVIGATION-1-inactive-55263.png" border="0" width="105" height="24" alt=""/></a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="News.html" onMouseOver="document.images['i2'].src='sitebuilder/images/NAVIGATION-2-mouseOver-55607.png'" onMouseOut="document.images['i2'].src='sitebuilder/images/NAVIGATION-2-inactive-55482.png'"><img name="i2" src="sitebuilder/images/NAVIGATIO

look for that as one line when you open your page in notepad and dell the whole line it is only one line of text and it get rid of the banner it puts accross your page and then u can host it anywhere for free.
only one thing........make a copy of the whole folder b4 you go editing...just to be on the safe side but for instance i did a simple site www.vinividivici.cjb.net and it kept bringing up the border and so i did that and yeh it's gone.....you also as u might have gathered have to lay the file manager out exactly as the floder is layed out on your pc

casterblaster185 · Joined: 24 Mar 2008 Posts: 1

so, lemme get this straight. by the way, hello all, names caster, just registered and excited bout the community here. anyway, so what's being said is that you don't have to use sb for yahoo web hosting BUT you DO have to use yahoo web hosting when you use sb?

Bay Area Baller · Joined: 26 May 2008 Posts: 3

Writer1007 · Joined: 03 Jun 2009 Posts: 1

no idea if this will work...but can't you go inside SB and preview the page in browser...then look at the source code with the browser? Copy and paste to a new html file and upload elsewhere?