Sparkle
Create great websites quickly and easily.
FROM $46.99 | SPARKLEAPP.COM | NEEDS OS X 10.9 OR LATER
Good news – if you can make a document in Pages, you can make a website in Sparkle. It’s a flexible and useful web design tool for people who want something other than a WordPress site. There are three versions: Basic, for one site of up to 10 pages; One, which removes the page limit; and Pro, which adds both Instagram and multi-site support.
The app opens with a blank page and an open toolbar with common items such as text areas and images, but the simplest way to use Sparkle is just to download one of the free templates and mess around with it. The program’s library contains some genuinely useable contemporary designs, an area that lets down some other web creation apps, and editing these really is just as simple as editing a document in Pages. The interface is largely the same too, with the familiar toolbar at the top and inspector panels for changing item properties at the right.
It’s all very straightforward, and you can easily paste code from other apps or sites using the Embed icon, which creates a space for you to post website code – SoundCloud music, YouTube links, Buy Now buttons and so on.
Publishing your finished site is simple with a standard FTP setup. If you go for Sparkle Pro you can also publish directly to Instagram and integrate Google Analytics.
RELATIVE DIMENSIONS
There are a few niggles over and above Basic’s 10-page limit. You can’t change the device dimensions: for example, its tablet resolution is 960x480 but an iPad mini is 1024x768 and a 12-inch Pro is 2732x2048. The fonts you’re given are web-safe ones, not necessarily the ones you want from your Mac (although you can add them manually). And while the app creates responsive websites for different screen sizes, it can end up creating different versions of the same page for desktop and mobile: rather than just changing the Live Preview when you switch devices, it switches the editor mode too. Layout changes you make to mobile aren’t applied to the desktop version.
These are minor irritations, however. Sparkle is very easy to use, creates impressive results and reminds us a lot of Apple’s long-gone iWeb.