All that a seasoned HTML jockey really needs to build a website is a simple text editor. But for anyone new to website creation, iWeb ’09 represents a happy medium between power and ease of use.

iWeb’s paned interface lets you manage sites, created new pages, and add content to existing pages. And--finally!--iWeb '09 has added a few key features that make managing multiple sites easier than before. While previous incarnations of iWeb have only allowed publishing directly to .Mac/MobileMe accounts, iWeb '09 now sports basic FTP functionality, allowing users to publish sites on their own servers, without the cumbersome export-then-FTP application-juggling forced on us in iWeb '08. The new FTP capabilities are managed on a per-site basis, so each site can have its own server settings. Apple slightly biffs the FTP publishing by creating your sites inside a second folder, so instead of “myradwebsite.com," your new site will be at "myradwebsite.com/radsite." Kind of a bummer. MobileMe publishing remains baked in.

As in previous versions of iWeb, '09 starts you off at the Theme chooser, where you can select the basic style of your new site. There are 28 options available. Unfortunately, there are only two new themes this time around, so here’s hoping Apple's designers come through with an update that adds more themes sometime soon. The themes are tasteful and well-designed, if a bit "canned." Cutting-edge designs they are not, but all feature a cohesive style that carries through the eight distinct page layouts for each theme. Users who need to build pro-level websites might need to look elsewhere, but for personal sites, small businesses, or online photo albums, the designs work well.

 Add music, movies, photos, and Web widgets in iWeb ’09 in typical Apple style--simply and elegantly.

The Widgets pane offers several new options for adding content to your site, such as RSS feeds, Countdown, and YouTube widgets.

The iWeb interface is clean and surprisingly powerful, although Apple hasn't included any features that would allow you to modify--or even see--the underlying HTML. While most iWeb users aren’t looking to do any serious coding, the ability to manually edit page titles and keywords--or styles via custom CSS--would be welcome additions for future versions.

Like the new version of iPhoto, iWeb '09 also offers Facebook integration. When setting up your publishing options, there’s now a checkbox to ping Facebook whenever you update your website. A quick authentication with Facebook is all it takes.