How to Add Widgets to Your iWeb Site in iLife '11

8 of 8 in Series: The Essentials of Customizing an iWeb Site in iLife '11

Widgets are snippets of code (available on other sites) that you can add to your Web page. In iLife, iWeb offers a few widgets that let you add RSS feeds, iSight photos and videos, a countdown timer, a Google map, and YouTube videos. If you're familiar with the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), you can also manually add HTML code snippets to your site as widgets.

Adding a widget to your page is simplicity itself: If the Media Browser isn't open, click Show Media on the toolbar and then click Widgets in the upper-right corner. The Widgets Browser appears on the right side. Drag a widget, such as YouTube, to the Canvas and place it anywhere on a page. You can then resize the widget by dragging its boundaries. If you're connected to the Internet, the widget starts working immediately.

After selecting the widget, its property window appears so that you can set up the widget with your information. The settings in the property window that appears above the widget depends on the widget you select. For example, if you drag out a Google AdSense widget, you can change the size of the widget from the Select Ad Format pop-up menu, and its color in the Select Ad Color menu.

Before using the Google AdSense widget, choose File→Set Up Google AdSense to set up a Google AdSense account or use an existing one. (Be sure to connect to the Internet if your Mac isn't already connected.) for an existing account, supply an e-mail address and a zip code or phone number and click Submit; to create a new AdSense account, click Create a New Account and follow the instructions.

Maps are just as easy to add to your page as other widgets. Drag the Google Maps widget, enter an address in the Address field, and click Apply. The map changes to the address you entered. You can drag the map's boundaries to change its size.

To enter HTML code into your page, drag the HTML Snippet widget. You can then enter the code into the HTML Snippet window (or paste it into the window after copying it from another site).