New Paint Job
Notice anything new about Homestead? We’ve repainted our site!
Actually, we’re repainting it now, and you’ll see the new color scheme and updated graphics soon. Come check it out at the end of June and let us know what you think! For now, here’s a little sneak preview of the changes to come: Homestead’s New Look and Feel!
Here’s a reminder of what Homestead looks like today. Homestead’s “old” look and feel
June 19, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Love it, it looks great! Thanks Homestead.
June 19, 2007 at 6:53 pm
I can’t wait for the new changes! Looks good.
June 19, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Can’t wait for everything to take place. New products? Will you be adding a forum or blog feature? Thanks… Homestead Rocks!!
June 19, 2007 at 7:11 pm
It looks nice, more friendly and inviting.
June 19, 2007 at 7:15 pm
The new design looks nice! But I wish part of your updates had included better interface with satellite internet users. What a pain to have to delete and the re-load my whole site every time you put out an update to Sitebuilder!
June 19, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Looks great. Can you guys add a ‘browser compatability’ tool? Some way for us to see how the site displays across different browsers?
And even more important, can you make these pages “liquid” so they can automatically adjust to page size, resolution, etc etc??
Thanks!
June 19, 2007 at 8:04 pm
The color of the site makes no difference to me. I’m here because I like your easy to use Site Builder. I’m hoping that one of the new additions is drop-down menus. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and wait to hear more.
June 19, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I love the new looks!….Thanks Homestead!!!!
June 19, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Thanks for anything new to help me increase the ease of handling my site. The color looks great also!
Thanks
June 19, 2007 at 10:50 pm
I agree with Dave Shields, a new look seems much more like a ‘trick’ or ‘gimick’ than something meaningful, like added features. And yes, the drop-down menu is the first thing that will make me a happy camper. Homestead, please don’t preoccupy us with looks, but focus on content. You can’t dumb it down enough to please everyone. BTW, it’s part of my job to get you more customers, so work with me, please!
June 19, 2007 at 11:45 pm
I agree with Richard’s suggestions for a ‘browser compatability’ tool to show how the site displays across different browsers and making the pages “liquid” so they can automatically adjust to page size, resolution, etc etc. I would also like to see more functions added to the online version of SiteBuilder, like the ability to add polls and edit more of the elements. Frankly, I miss the days when the entire SiteBuilder was accessible online without the need to download it.
June 20, 2007 at 12:14 am
There are critical additions that need to be added to make this a full-fledged site. Ecommerce needs to be expanded so that any credit-card provided can be used.
A database should be added so that subscribers can have user names and passwords. We have subscribers and cannot use the Homestead site for this purpose.
June 20, 2007 at 12:20 am
Love the new looks.
June 20, 2007 at 2:09 am
From what I can see, it looks a little cluttered to me. And it looks a bit too much like a Yahoo site for my taste. I prefer your distinctive look - and I agree that looks are less important than functionality.
I would love it if you would add a blog capability, more fonts, and other design capabilities.
June 20, 2007 at 2:28 am
I’m relatively new to Homestead and truly love the ease of use and the variety of elements that can be dropped on the pages. In fact it’s the easiest software I’ve ever used. I am fine with the old color scheme and look and feel, so as long as the new is even easier to navigate around - great. But I ditto a couple of comments above - I’d rather have had a drop-down menu option. Maybe it’s coming?
June 20, 2007 at 2:32 am
I had suggested a “real” calendar, similar to the ones you see on any travel website. Hope that’s available soon.
June 20, 2007 at 3:18 am
I want to be able to give someone my website and have them go to it not Loretta’s Shoppe. I tell someone to go to http://www.clothdollsforfun.com and they go to my other site and then have to click a link to get there. After all i pay for several domains but the way it works i should only be paying for one.
June 20, 2007 at 4:38 am
As I started to say . . .
I’m all for the drop down menu and the browser compatability tool with auto-adjust “liquid” feature. That would be AWESOME! And I agree with others - the color of the website is sooooo minor - what matters is features, and ease of use.
And FYI - I also have to occassionally delete and remount my entire site after a “Homestead Update” . Fixing that glitch would be good too!
June 20, 2007 at 4:46 am
Honestly I find that I am still rather cozy with the older look but the newer one seems more eye-opening and less complex. The changes that I am looking for are more cool fonts styles especially the signature type that leave a little bit of grace, class and old world charm on site pages such as Old English, Edwardian Script, or Black Chancery.
In addition, I’d like to see many more templates, graphics, shapes, borders and animation. Would also like to see a lot more objects in the GIF format. It would also be great to see changes in the color of the scroll bars that match the look and feel of the site pages. All-in-all I am fairly pleased with the overall services at Homestead.
June 20, 2007 at 4:49 am
P.S. I also agree with everyone who mentioned the drop-down menus but I am also in favor of having drop-down navigation buttons as well! I have been waiting on those forever it seems
June 20, 2007 at 4:51 am
It looks great,and We do really enjoy website with anything…
June 20, 2007 at 6:28 am
The colors are fresh but once working in SiteBuilder, I honestlly don’t even see SiteBuilder’s colors - I just see my website and it’s colors. I’m also not sure someone like me with dozens of pages (many that are rarely used but still needed to support content and function) will find having all them listed on the left a desirable feature. Who knows, I’ll find out when I try it out.
I agree about the drop down navigation and the liquid sizing concept - both very key upgrades to take these services to the next level. And I agree about adding a few more classy fonts - it would be so nice to have a legible handwriting type font that doesn’t look like a child’s writing. An integrated blog and forum option would also be nice. It would also be great to not feel like highway robbery was the object in the pricing of the additional web space upgrade options. Those rates are just not even close to the rest of the providers out there and I’m sure you would get more upgrades it they weren’t so overpriced - me included!
I also would really really appreciate an upgrade to the syncronization process that happens when loading SiteBuilder. For speed and ease, I use an FTP client to upload mass quantities of photos into folders by way of pre-made galleries (made in a photo management program, not in Sitebuilder) and to delete those same galleries. So each time I open up SiteBuilder, I get stuck in file change/confirm delete/yes-no purgatory. This sometimes means hundreds of clicks to delete files from the backup that I already deleted via FTP! Really annoying. I have learned I have to go into my program files, find the site data folders that contain the deleted galleries and delete them there manually in order to avoid this very time consuming nonsense that happens on each boot up. So, please consider refining the syncronization so you can select an ALL check box and let it delete all of the files automatically instead of showing you these “errors” one by one in that pop up box. That seems like such a simple feature to provide and many programs provide this kind of option.
I look forward to seeing what you will improve.
June 20, 2007 at 6:33 am
Nice start…
More flexible on the site builder, like PNG support and an easy way to hand code pages and keep them as homestead pages. Oh and the ability to edit the CSS, that might be nice…
June 20, 2007 at 2:19 pm
I would like to be able to see the url on any music I want to embed. It is not there any longer (for some time now) so I have to check onto properties and place it in by typing it all. You used to have it and I was able to just copy and paste it in. It’s been gone some time now and I don’t see why. It was so much easier embedding music onto my webpage the old way. It’s much more difficult now. The was an issue I’d emailed Homestead about but never got a response.
June 20, 2007 at 4:59 pm
GREAT, the coloring has been horrid.. very unappealing, and not always easy to find things!
Will there FINALLY be drop down menu’s like the real world uses, AND LIKE HOMESTEAD USES ON YOUR OWN SITE!!!! I get picked on for being a neophyte using Homestead as a host anyway (for many years) but would like to look more like the big guys and have drop down menu’s to clean up the pages. It has been a running complaint from me.
dr. jim gordon
BHShrink.com
June 24, 2007 at 12:57 am
I have problems with loading pictures into your albums.
I admit I am not web site savey.
Is there any way you can make more opinions for pictures?
As for your “new” look.
I’ve been with you for many years now and have seen many changes.
ONE THAT HAS NOT CHANGED are the graphics.
They have been the same old free stuff as always.
I agree with all the needs the others have suggested.
June 26, 2007 at 2:29 pm
SUGGESTED LOGIN / PASSWORD FEATURES
Idea 1:
Right now, Homestead has a feature that allows me to password-protect individual pages. I would like to see a login feature added that would allow users to login to be able to view a certain area of my Homestead site, specifically, pages saved under a particular folder. For example:
http://www.mysite.com/index.html and
http://www.mysite.com/page1.html
would be accessible to all web surfers…
but if I put a login lock on the folder: http://www.mysite.com/folder1
then the following pages:
http://www.mysite.com/folder1/index.html and
http://www.mysite.com/folder1/page1.html
would be accessible only to those with a login password of my choosing, while
http://www.mysite.com/index.html
http://www.mysite.com/page1.html and
http://www.mysite.com/folder2/page1.html, etc.
would remain accessible without the password.
It would also be beneficial to be able to apply the login feature to individual pages within folders, in addition to complete folders.
Idea 2:
In my Homestead account, I have multiple websites. When I’m out of town, I like to give friends access to update certain websites in my account. It would be beneficial to have additional login names and passwords for individual sites within one account. For example, I could login to Homestead SiteBuilder with my master account and have complete access to all my sites. My friend could login with a secondary username and password to update one of my sites, but not have access to the others in my account.
Also, you could give the option to limit the control secondary users have over the account. For example, I could choose to give secondary users access to add content to a specific page, but not to delete pages.
June 26, 2007 at 2:35 pm
I would like to see a member managment implimented onto our web builder.
June 26, 2007 at 3:24 pm
The new color scheme of homestead.com is nice. It would be probably look even better if you could center align the site, instead of having it tucked up into the left upper corner of the web browser.
June 26, 2007 at 3:38 pm
I agree with quite a few people here that basically said, who cares about the color.. It really isn’t important to us.. We just need upgrades that make sense.. We need more space (I have a gold package which gives me 100MB of space.. other website programs are now offering an average of 300GB of space..we’re being short changed), the ability to purchase domains at the same cost we can purchase them from other sources (Homestead charges $12 every 6 months for a new domain…most company’s charge around $8 a year). I also agree with Loretta Wood who left a message on June 20. I’m not sure what purchasing more than one domain even accomplishes with Homestead because the additional domains simply point back to our main website. I’ve asked Homestead about this numous times.. I’ve been told I can change where my additional domains point, which is true.. But, for example, if you change domain #2 so it points to itself instead of your main website, then your main website also points to domain #2.. I did this once and my main website fell off the face of the earth!! I don’t understand why each domain can’t just point to itself? Does anyone else understand this? I sure can’t get an answer from anyone at Homestead concerning this issue..
So, to summarize.. Changing the look of Homesteads website really doesn’t help any of us… Homestead, please put more effort into keeping the customers you have and less effort into things like changing the color’s of your website in order to attract new customers…
June 27, 2007 at 4:00 am
The best suggestion I read was to allow other users “Restricted Access”
Since my company is growing I simply cannot maintain all of the updates but I have to becuase I’m terribly afraid a pissed off employee can do some major damage to my entire catalog of websites.
Also, PLEASE add some new templates and fonts. The new blue color is nice but I’d rather have more features than a blue background.
Sai Browne
LiterarySpeakersBureau.com
SaiBrowne.com
FromHipHoptoHeaven.com
GSPublishingGroup.com
June 27, 2007 at 8:23 am
How about lowering your price and giving us more memory. Also a better slide show with better graphics option, IF you want to keep me as a customer!
June 27, 2007 at 4:16 pm
I am a complete dunce when it comes to websites and I found yours to be extremely easy to follow and create. A lot of the suggestions I have read above have absolutely no meaning to me like PNG and CSS and liquid stuff. Hopefully someday I will find out what they are and learn how to use them. However, when you implement those items, I am sure I will be able to call you for help. Thank you so much for having staff that are willing to help and have tons of patience for people like me.
June 27, 2007 at 5:45 pm
the new look is clean. i agree with the others on specific items. it seems that even thougth site builder does have member help i do not know all that homestead is capable of. it would be nice to have some literature available for new users in order to become a web master with this program. for ex. one should have access to technical features without having to call support all of the time. i would like to know how to download a slideshow. i want to make it so when a visitor closes my website that another window would show up. how can i open a chat forum, etc. i have read that certain capabilities are available but without having been told about them i would never know. in short most of us that are using this site to build sites for our clients are not going to pay technical support, so please make an owners manual of homestead. thankyou
June 27, 2007 at 7:34 pm
There are paint jobs and then there are paint jobs. If Homestead’s new look is to banner to the user base and it’s employees that it is changing positively to better support and service, and the paint job is a symbol of that commitment, then I am all for it. If it is a paint job to cover up the cracks and crumbles of what has been and is consistently the worse customer experience I have ever had…then do what the Rolling Stones suggest and “Paint It Black”.
June 28, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Corey, doesn’t the Learning Center at Homestead serve as a Users Guide/Manual? I still think that SiteBuilder is one of the easiest web design tools, and that is important for those of us who are just learning to build and maintain websites.
June 28, 2007 at 4:24 pm
I would appreciate quite a few more graphics and animations esp. involving holidays, a graphic that says “Just added!” similiar to your “New” button, more backgrounds for my webpages, etc.
June 29, 2007 at 5:02 am
Hi, don’t mind the color change but I must say if you guys would just add the 2 things mentioned most of all- drop down menus and the liquid sizing concept, Homestead basically would then be unbeatable
These couple of things make all the dif when designing our websites, I found it amazing that the 2 things that I find drop short everyday when designing my own site actually were the things everyone else were missing most too.
Apart from that, love your site- software & everything about Homestead
June 30, 2007 at 5:24 am
Personally I love the new look and want to thank Homestead for making it possible to put up a website, like Dottie, I was a complete dunce when I started but you made it easy enough for me to learn along the way and have always been there if I needed help. Thanks, Great Job!
July 1, 2007 at 2:18 pm
I like the new look, but I was hoping the new upgrades would include a gift registry.
July 3, 2007 at 2:45 pm
To Karen (from post on June 26th, 2007 at 3:38 pm)… You’re doing something wrong when you sign up for your new domain name. I have multiple custom domains for different sites within my Homestead account. When I sign up for the domain name, it asks me which account I want it to be associated with. Apparently you’re missing that step.
1. Go to your LOGIN page. At the top of the page where it says “Welcome, Karen!”, under that, it says, “Your Site:”… Select the one you want to purchase the domain name for that site…
2. Select “Domains & Email” in the left navigation menu.
3. Select “Manage Domains”.
4. If you have already purchased the domain, choose “Transfer an Existing Domain”. If you’re purchasing a new one, choose “Register a New Domain.”
5. Now it says, “Associate the new domain with the site:”… Make sure it’s correct. If not, change it to the site you want to associate with the new domain.
6. Enter the desired new domain name and continue from there…
I hope this helps.
July 7, 2007 at 7:08 am
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for the info, but I did that when I first purchased my additional domains and it didn’t work as one would expect (this was over a year ago). When I told the system to associate the new domains with themselfs, my main domain dissapeared from the search engines! As an example, my main domain is http://www.karenskottage.org, I purchased an additional domain http://www.karenskids.net. When I did exactly what you suggested, told the system to associate karenskottage.org with karenskottage.org and karenskids.net with karenskids.net, karenskottage.org simply dissapeared!! It took me a couple of months to get back to where I was.. I had to associate the new domains with my main domain, other wise, my main domain was not being listed by the search engines….that’s not what I want.. I want all my domains to be listed as individual domains..When someone types in http://www.karenskids.net for a search, I want them to go to that site, not to http://www.karenskottage.org…but to do that, I have to sacrifice my main domain.. Maybe homestead has fixed this problem??? I wouldn’t know because I”ve written them numourous times about it but I never get a response that actually answers my question. I’m afraid to try it again for fear of my main domain dissapearing once again.. Do your additional domains all point to themselfs? And does your main domain still show up on the search engines?
I’ve been told by other website owners that our additional domains should be pointing using a 301 redirect… I’ve written homestead asking if this is how our additional domains are pointed, but as of yet, no one at homestead will answer that question directly..
This blog is great! I’m getting better info from other website owners then I’ve ever been able to get from Homestead’s customer service… Take note homestead.. your customer service needs some tweeking!!
July 13, 2007 at 6:54 am
Try the Homestead Connection Forum Karen and all - its a friendly bunch and lots of answers to questions dealing with SiteBuilder.
July 25, 2007 at 10:48 am
An update on my post about my problems with my domains all pointing to my main domain..The problem has been solved. Thai, at Homesteads customer service, was incredibly helpful and informative! Thumbs up to Thai.. He is the first person at Homestead that actually read my issue completely, asked questions, did some checking on the problem and resolved the issue!
Homestead, if all your customer service reps were like Thai, you’d have more happy customers :o)
July 27, 2007 at 6:17 am
The blue, YUCK! It hurts my eyes, I liked the earth-tones of the last paint job you all had. Sorry on this one Homestead, the new paint scheme looks like a bad Leisure suit from spring of 1973.
On a more positve note, I’ve been a homestead customer for 8yrs, and http://www.homestead.com has changed my life….no kidding. Good work!
July 27, 2007 at 6:22 am
This is jim again, You wanna see what can be done with home stead look at this one I made for my job. http://WWW.dallassheriffsoffice.com!
With homestead you can make it as simple or as complicated as you want. Go to the Jail information page and check out the flash!
August 19, 2007 at 5:12 am
Years ago members were able to have a message board where viewers could post their questions or comments on their website. I’d like to see that available again. I’d also like to have the element back where we can anchor an image or text from one page to a certain area on another page. Also, an element that we can just click on to protect our pictures or images from being copied by users would be nice. Otherwise, I love your site!
November 26, 2007 at 4:13 pm
need another job
November 26, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Hey Jim (or anybody who knows),
How did you create those pull down menus? Please write me at dave(at)daveshields.com.
Thanks!
March 10, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Does anyone know how to do a 301 redirect at Homestead?
I saw that Karen posted an entry about this, but I didn’t see an answer. I am moving my webiste from patrickomalley.homestead.com to http://www.patrickomalley.com patrially because I hate the fact that Homestead forces their name into my URL.
Thanks.