19pages is a "website builder" set of scripts, programmed by Mark Wielgus of the 45n5 blog. As my area of expertise in in website building tools and applications, I thought it might be interesting to give my views on the site, the service and the scripts…

The 19pages Web Site

Is actually made using the site builder itself. The look of the website is not as nice as I would like it to be, I believe that a more polished look would make the site more professional.

The site should also require all downloaders to sign up to a mailing list in order to be informed of new developments. As an example, it is only today that I realised it's updated to Version 1.3 already - I have been using 1.1, so I missed 1.2 totally !!

There is no roadmap showing potential future upgrades/developments and there is no version history, showing detailed changes from one version to the next. In real life, this means I have to use Beyond Compare in order to track changes from 1.1 to 1.3 - and that is a total PITA.

The whole site and service could be made a lot more "user friendly", but I'll temper that by saying "carry on reading"…

The Price

The price of of the product is nothing! For free, it is a decent product. The real cost of the application is that all sites must carry a linkback to 19pages.com - which is enough to put off lots of users.

Programming

The scripts are programmed in PHP, so you will need to be on a linux server, or an appropriately configured windows server. It'd be best to just use a cheapy linux host such as resellerzoom or dreamhost…

Some of the scripts (there are perhaps 30 or 40 individual files) are programmed a little lazily. As an example, the menu.php file is 70 lines of code - I recoded this to get the same file down to just 17 with no significant loss of functionality. I can see other areas where the code can be streamlined.

The Admin Area

The admin area is fairly basic - but functional. It does everything that is needed, most of which is adding, editing and deleting pages.

A typical 10 page website will take around 30 minutes to set up in my experience, this is because of the amount of copying and pasting that needs to be done (assuming you have pre-written your page content).

The Admin area also includes the ability to change the site look by use of templates, as well as a password changing system.

Templating

It is easy to create a template for the 19pages system, as there are only a few PHP style "tags" which can be used. These tags are very basic, but do the job - once implemented the tags "call in" information to be displayed. I would like to see more tags available, perhaps even the possibility for users to create their own tags!
If you purchased a template from the likes of templatemonster, you would need to spend perhaps 60 minutes to change it to "19pages" format. I was able to implement a full on template within about 20 minutes.

In the example screenshot above, I have 27 pages (see below for my 19pages limitation comment!). The menu I split into two ;

• Article" pages are in the sidebar menu, and are normal links
  
• Three "non article" pages (index, links, contact us) have their own mini-menu across the top, underneath the header image, each with rollover buttons.

Output

The output of the actual pages is determined by the quality of the template! If you have HTML mistakes in the template, you'll have HTML mistakes in the output pages. After all, garbage in, garbage out.

Limitations/problems

The system does have it's limitations due to the way that the whole thing is coded;

• Because pages are built "on the fly" they don't actually exist. Because pages don't exist it's not possible (without a whole load of coding) to do funky stuff with URL strings (this would be for advanced developers only, so no need to worry about it if you are average Joe).
• Might there be SEO issues with pages that are built "on the fly"? I don't think so, but it's possible that there might be. Has this been tested by the 19pages crew?
• You are limited to 19 pages (hence the 19pages.com name). It's a limitation that is simple to get around should you feel the need.
• Codebase is exceedingly bloated - as I already mentioned I reduced 1 file from 70 lines of code to just 17 !
• There is no way to differentiate between "article pages" and "not article pages" - making it difficult to monetise a site.

Future changes, suggestions;

1. Cache pages! When they are updated or the template is changed, destroy the cached version. Simple and easy update to make.
2. PLEASE have the ability to differentiate between an article page and not article page.
3. Remove the 19page linkback requirement (perhaps for a license payment)?
   Licensing is something I do on one of my websites, which enables payers to remove linkbacks.  Works well
4. Remove the 19page limit. It's simple to get around anyway, so why have it?
5. Ability for users to create their own tags easily?
6. Update the 19pages website to make it more user-friendly.

Conclusion

The scripts are basic. But for free, it is very good value. I feel that the whole system is too slow for the (black hat) mass site builders to want to use, and too basic for the (grey hat) occasional MFA site maker to use. White Hat site makers probably won't use it as the 19 page limit is too low for most sites, and there are other better and faster site builders out there. The target demographic I am actually not sure of.

All in all, I'd say "could be better, but for free it's good value".

A proper shakedown

I'd like to put it up against some other site builders and do a proper shakedown, but that would be a little unfair as the 19pages system really is still in Beta.

Links

• www.19pages.com

I hope that Mark will take on board the comments and ideas that his users are presenting to him and make the 19pages system one which cannot be ignored by the demographic.