Sometimes, it feels like all the players in the website building market are giving you a sledgehammer but you only want to crack a nut. You may not need all the features offered (and of course may not want to pay for the unused ones), or it doesn’t do what you want.
It can also be that you want a beautiful website up and running quickly without compromising on quality. Creating a CSS & HTML website from scratch can give you exactly what you want, but it would take some time.
This is exactly where Slides5 by Designmodo shines. It’s not a website builder that is okay for the masses but is really good for a specific niche. It’s really good for those who value design and speed. But, they need to understand how to use an FTP client, a text editor, and a little HTML and CSS.
To hammer in this point even more, it’s not an all-purpose website builder, where you can build almost anything you want. Slides5 is a framework based on HTML5, CSS3, and javascript. It allows you to create attractive single-page websites with a lot of built-in options but with minimum time and effort. In short, it’s a stand-alone website generator application for designers and developers.
- Pros and cons of Slides5
- Who is Slides5 for?
- How easy is Slides5 to use?
- Slides5 design and slides
- How to manage your ecommerce store in Slides5?
- Slides5 integrations
- What marketing and SEO tools does Slides5 have?
- Blogging
- Payment options
- Slides5 security
- Slides5 customer support
- Pricing
- Is Slides5 the right tool for you?
Pros and cons of Slides5
If the site your building doesn’t need all the bells and whistles such as a blog or an ecommerce store or its content doesn’t need constant updating, Slides5 is a very intriguing tool. When you head over to its website, you see that even big names such as Nike, Google, or Microsoft are using Slides5.
Pros
- Very intuitive user interface
- It very fast and has almost no loading times
- Build one-pagers in almost no-time
- Design of all slides are modern and gorgeous
- A large library of animation, styles
- As a static website builder, you don’t have to worry about programming languages or databases
- The website created will load lightning fast (ideal for SEO)
Cons
- Only for one-pagers
- You need to have basic knowledge of web development
Who is Slides5 for?
No tool or software works well for all projects. If the project you’re working on doesn’t need a blog or other dynamically updated content, take a look at Slides5. Granted, if you have a basic understanding of web development, you can create stunning a one-page website in almost no time and even less hassle. One-pagers are great as landing or promotional pages or as an online business card.
Also know that the websites built consist purely of HTML, CSS, and Javascript. You get clean code that is easy to understand and completely customisable. You can view it as the even simpler cousin of Webflow.
How easy is Slides5 to use?
Once you’ve created an account, you can create your site. Slides5 called a site a “project”. Contrary to what other website builders do, Slides5 doesn’t force you to move blocks and set them in relation to each other.
Slides5 doesn’t have its name for anything: when you build your project, everything is based on the idea of individual slides. Altogether, they’ll make up your one-pager. This means your entire one-pager is built of individual slides. Only only a single slide is shown on the screen at any time. Each slide is independent, so doesn’t influence the next or the previous one.
To set up your site, you first choose your slides. You can pick however many you want. Next, you choose how you want the slides to transition with an animation. You’ll want a top panel for your navigation and a bottom panel for your footer.
Once you have decided all the elements of your page, you click on Preview and everything is as you selected, as well as in correct order. If all is as you designed, you can download it as a ZIP archive. It will contain every file (HTML, CSS, JS, images, etc) that you need to launch your new site on the server of your choosing.
In order for you to customise the site, you have to edit the index.html file in your favourite text editor. You also need to replace the images with your own in the Assets folder. When you’ve completed customising, you upload everything to your server.
Slides5 design and slides
As your website is built of individual slides, you’ll not find anything such as themes or templates as you would with the mainstream website builders.
The slides are catchy and all modern so that they’re optimised to look good on all devices. If you’re subscribed to a paid plan, you’ll have access to the premium sides. Around 88 slides at the time of writing.
How to manage your ecommerce store in Slides5?
Even if Slides5 is a static website generator, you can add a shopping cart to your website. Provided, you know how to add a few lines into the index.html, you can add an Ecwid widget. Of course, you’ll be taking care of your online store within Ecwid.
Slides5 integrations
Similarly to including a shopping cart to your Slides5 website, if you know how to code, you add custom code or widgets.
What marketing and SEO tools does Slides5 have?
Although Slides5 is a framework, you still have the option to inject code into your head and body section while you’re putting together your webpage.
SEO
Of course, you can also add any tracking and analytics into the head section by editing the index.html file.
Blogging
As already mentioned, as a static website generator, blogging is not within the scope.
Payment options
The payment gateways are included if you integrate your website with Ecwid.
Slides5 security
You or your hoster will be taken care of maintenance and security. All you get are the static files you need to roll out your site.
Slides5 customer support
Even for a website builder as simple as Slides5, you may have the one or other questions. When you’re working on your website, you’ll see in the lower right-hand corner the chat icon. The chat is available 24/7 and Slide4 says it usually replies in a day. You also use the searchable knowledge base that can bridge the time until the support team answers your request.
Pricing
Slides 4 offers 3 plans including a forever free one. You’re quite limited to what you can do in the free plan, but you can see how powerful Slides5 is. Also know that you can’t export your project.
Is Slides5 the right tool for you?
Even professional web developers use frameworks and website builders for most projects. They only develop a project from scratch if they got a very specific requirements catalogue or it’s something complex like a web application.
Still, if you want a tool to build unique, beautiful, and mobile-ready one-pagers, Slides5 is a complete system that gives the means to do that. If you’re a web designer or a developer, it’s a valuable tool to have in your toolkit. And it comes with no major drawbacks.
Mind, it’s not the silver bullet tool that works for every kind of project. You can’t use it to build large, complex, multi-page websites, inventory systems, or a blog.
If you enjoyed reading this review, I’d be hugely grateful if you could create a link to it on your website.
Original post here: Slides5 reviev
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