Last night I got an invite to the Wix closed beta, and this morning I decided to take it for a test drive while waiting for the caffeine to make me feel human again. Wix is a service that helps non-flash people create flash based web sites and widgets with no programming whatsoever.
Over the last year, there have been numerous startups trying to solve the "people want flash web sites but don’t know flash" problem. I’m not sure how widespread the problem is, but it’s an interesting concept. Years ago, armed with a fresh copy of Flash, I tried to learn a little animation. Hours later, I still couldn’t get the little ball to bounce in the first flash tutorial. I can write code. I can do some database magic. But animation is apparently something I just don’t understand. So, I am in the target market wix is trying to appeal to.
With that in mind, I decided to dive into wix and check it out. Here goes:
The Home Page:
As you can see, wix is pushing the angle that anyone can create professional flash-based web content quickly.
The Logged In Home Page:
Once logged in, you can see the available templates by category. For this run through I chose the company site:
Clicking on edit brings up a popup window that was blocked by firefox. I clicked edit and view multiple times before I noticed the popup blocker. I then unblocked wix from firefox’s popup blocker and clicked again. The editor opened in a new window.
The Wix Editor:
After a few moments, the wix editor loaded with a wizard-like popup layer:
Back to the editor:
I decided that I’m going to make a corporate page for Blogstring.
Step One: Change the header
The first step was changing the header from Your Company Name to Blogstring.com. Simply clicking in the header box let me edit the text, change the font, and add a link:
Step Two: Change the background color
I’m not a big fan of a black background on a header, so I wanted to change that to white. I clicked on the header then……
Hmmm. I’m already logged in. Why do they want me to log in again? Okay, minor hiccup. Let’s just log in again.
Success. And when I clicked on the header, then the color option on the bottom of the page, I was easily able to change the background color.
Step Three: Change the nav links
When I wanted to change the header text, I just needed to click on the text. Apparently that’s not how it works with the nav links. I’ve tried everything, and I give up.
Step Four: Change the text
I’d like to change the text as well as the alignment. I dragged the header text and wanted to return it to the original location before I realized………there’s no undo. Seriously. Control-Z on windows does not work.
It’s not even an option in the edit menu. Wix does not support undo?
Aside from not having the ability to undo, the rest was pretty straightforward.
(yeah, I know….the copy stinks. give me a break, I’m just playing around with this thing)
Step Four: Adding a picture
Wix allows you to grab your Flickr images, upload your own, or choose photos from the wix royalty free library:
I love the idea that they offer a royalty-free library, but the selection is, well, kind of weird. A few examples:
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Anyway…….
I took a screenshot of blogstring and uploaded it, which was easy.
Step Five: Let’s Animate Something
So, I clicked on the blogstring screenshot and decided to animate it:
That’s really all there was to it. Very simple.
Step Six: Saving and Publishing
Now that I’m happy with my very shoddy, minimal page, it’s time to share it with the world:
I chose embed, and got:
Here’s the working example.
Summing it up
Wix is a step in the right direction for people trying to create their own flash-based web sites without having to learn how to program (or paying someone else to do it). Though there are some hiccups to fix, it really is dead-simple. You won’t be able to create highly-complex, incredibly interactive flash content here, but that’s not the target wix is trying to hit.
