What is Showit Sites?

Showit Sites is a "Rich Internet Application" that allows you to build professional Flash websites quickly and easily. It is not simply software or a website, it is a service that combines the power of your desktop computer with the power of the web to create a powerfully simple website creation tool.

What is a "Rich Internet Application"?

The Showit Sites software begins as a download to either Mac or PC and installs an application that runs like a normal program on your desktop. However, when you launch the application you must login and you are essentially working "online" to create your website, so it is a cross between a desktop application and a web application. This brings the power of the desktop together with the power of a web program to create an amazing application. To add files to your site you can simply drag them from your desktop onto the program and the software will take care of all the complicated stuff such as resizing the image, uploading and linking the image into your site. When you are finished building you can simply click "publish" and your site will be online ready to view.

How does Showit Sites work with Showit Web?

Showit Web creates amazing Flash slideshows with your images quickly and easily. We have integrated features of Showit Web with Showit Sites so that you can drop a completed Showit Web folder right onto a page and the software will take care of uploading and hosting it and you can move and position the show anywhere you want on the page.

What are "Style Groups"?

Style Groups are the sections of your site that are similar in some way and provide a way for you to theme a group of pages. The software includes style groups that offer a starting point with color schemes and graphics but allow you complete customization to change it and make it your own. Adding graphics or images to the style group will apply it to all pages within the group, but you can still customize each page.

What is "Search Engine Optimization"?

For most Flash sites it is very difficult to optimize the content for search engines because search engines have a hard time understanding and linking directly to content inside a Flash site. With Showit Sites we are creating text versions of your entire site and links so that when search engines read your site there will be multiple pages linked together. This means that every page in your site can be listed in search results and when a user clicks on the search result it can take them directly to that page in your Flash site using "Deep Linking".

What is "Deep Linking"?

Deep linking means that every page on your Flash site has a unique URL. This means that if you create a page in Showit Sites, you will be able to copy the link to the page and email that to someone and it will take them directly to that page. Most Flash sites force you to go to the home page and navigate through the site to get to a page, but with Showit Sites you can link directly to any page in your site. This feature can be very useful if you have distinct sections of your site that you want to link to from a blog post or an email, or if you create a unique page for each of your clients you can send them directly to their page.

How does the layout work?

Showit Sites is different from most websites in that it will resize the page to fit whatever screen size the person viewing the site has. Typical websites are a fixed size but Showit Sites resizes the content to display a single page in the most optimum way for a user. Part of this resizing means that backgrounds will move and stretch a little different than a typical site, but each component on the page will maintain a strict relation to the other items on the page so that the layout remains fixed. Because of this, any background images that you want to remain fixed in relation to the items on a page should not be placed in the background but rather as a layer on the page. The site background could then be a solid color or pattern that would scale and stretch behind your content.

Do I need a web host?

When you add files to Showit Sites we automatically take care of all the hosting of these files. If you don't currently have a web host you can purchase a domain name like "www.yoursite.com" and our servers will host the site. If you already have a web host you can include your Showit Site by exporting a folder of HTML files from the software and uploading the files to your current host. Even though the content files would be coming from our servers, you would be able to view the site through your current web address. In addition, you can host other types of files such as documents or pdfs or whatever you want and link directly to these files. The hosting does not use FTP so all adding and removing of the files will happen directly through the site builder application. If you need additional web hosting functionality such as php scripts, you would need to host these through another web host as the Showit Sites architecture does not provide this functionality.

How much storage do I get for my site?

Showit Sites users are allowed to store up to 10 gigabytes of files and use 100 gigabytes of bandwidth per month, pricing for more space is yet to be determined but will be allowed. These are our initial numbers and we expect them to grow as this service grows.

What about email?

Showit Sites will provide email redirecting but not email hosting. This means that you can send and receive email through "yourname@yourdomain.com" but this would not be hosted by Showit Sites. Email is a commodity and there are many free services that do this much better than a web hosting company. We recommend you sign up for a Google Apps account and register your domain name and then we can redirect mail for your site to the Google Apps Gmail service which will allow you to send and receive email at your domain. Google offers over 6 gigs of email storage, reliability and backups, unlimited accounts, fantastic spam filtering, pop and imap access, and calenders all for free which should be suitable for most users. They also have a $50 a year business plan that offers support, more space, 99.9% uptime and other great features.

What about site statistics?

Showit Sites will provide optional tracking through Google Analytics which is a free service and one of the best services for tracking user behavior on your site. Once you sign up for an Analytics account and enter your info into Showit Sites, each page click and link to your site is tracked in Analytics so you can see exactly how people are using your site.

How much does it cost?

It currently costs $39 a month for a webiste through Showit Sites with discounts for paying for a full year at a time. You have 30 days to try out the software but and preview the site online, but you won't be able to publish your site without the preview watermark to your own web address until you subscribe. This subscription covers all the costs of creating your site which is much cheaper than buying a template or hiring someone to build it for you. The service includes the powerful site building software, the "style groups" that provide a starting point for building your site, graphics, music, textures and other content, and the hosting of all your site content. This also includes all the continual feature updates that will come with the service as we grow and expand our offering to include much more cool functionality.

What kind of computer is required to use Showit Sites?

The Showit Sites website building software installs on top of Adobe AIR onto either a Mac OS 10.4 or later or a PC running XP, 2000 or Vista. For full system requirements check out Adobe AIR's system requirements.

What is Adobe AIR?

In non-geek terms, Adobe AIR is the framework that Showit Sites runs on. For more technical information, check out the Adobe AIR FAQ page on adobe.com.

How many websites can I build with Showit Sites?

At this time we are limiting one domain name per subscription. However, with the use of "Deep Linking" explained above, you can create distinct sections of your site that could be linked from a start page on this single domain.

Where do I go to get my other questions answered?

Technical support is provided through our support ticket system.

Why does Showit Sites require Unrestricted Access to my computer?

Showit Sites is a very powerful and easy program to use. In order to acheive certain functionality such as dragging and dropping files, resizing and uploading images, and saving local previews, the application must have access to your file system and the Internet. This functionality is more than what a web browser provides, so Adobe is warning you of this before you install any AIR applications to make sure you trust the publisher before you install. Any desktop application you install such as Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Word or Showit Web has these same unrestricted rights, Adobe just wants to make it clear that you are installing a desktop application and not a browser plugin. We use a secure certificate to certify that the software was created by us, so as long as "Showitfast" appears as the publisher, you can be sure the application was built and tested by us.